Histoire de France(France History)

Despite various attempts at reform, France remains the most centralized state in Europe. The organization of the country around the parisian center was originally a consequence of the French Revolution, which gave birth to the departmental regions. These regions have retained an oppositional relationship towards the metropolitan center. In 1875, an enduring republic was formed despite the competing claims of the Comte de Chambord and the Orleanists. This republic owed its founding largely to support from workers and peasants in the various non-parisian departments.

The Industrial Revolution in France is often said to have been entirely overshadowed by British industrial development. This analysis is inaccurate because it ignores the significance of domestic and other non-factory occupations. Indeed, it was the class of artisan workers, rather than industrial factory workers, who were first responsible for the organization of labor movements. One of the great innovations of the factory was the imposition of industrial discipline, against which many workers rebelled, often in the form of strikes.

If the extent of French collaboration during World War II has been obscured, so too has the nature of resistance. Although the communist Left represented the core of the resistance movement, resistors came from any different backgrounds, including in their ranks Catholics, protestants, Jews and socialists. Unlike the relationship between de-Christianization and right-wing politics, in the case of the resistance there is no clear correlation between regional locations and cells of resistors. It has been argued that the definition of resistance itself should be broadened to include the many acts of passive resistance carried out by French civilians during the occupation.

French culture is threatened both by European Unification and the rise of xenophobia within France itself. The defeat of the referendum on the European Constitution testified to the dissatisfaction of many people in rural France with the economic realities of the new international community. Racist policies targeting residents of France's poor suburbs threaten the national ideal of liberty, equality, and fraternity. These problems remain to be resolved if France is to preserve its unique identity.