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The France of today is a prosperous nation with its economy currently ranked 5th in the world. It is currently headed by President Jacques Chirac. It forms together with Germany the driving force behind further European integration (the creation of a commonly administered Eurozone on the Franco-German border at Strassburg is being debated).France has recently come under fire from the USA for its independent attitude regarding the Iraq war and its staunch refusal to collaborate with the Bush administration. is suffering a slow-down as a result of worldwide economic recession.
Fourth Republic
France emerged from World War II to face a series of new problems. After a short period of provisional government initially led by General Charles de Gaulle, a new constitution (October 13, 1946) established the Fourth Republic under a parliamentary form of government controlled by a series of coalitions. The mixed nature of the coalitions and a consequent lack of agreement on measures for dealing with colonial wars in Indochina and Algeria caused successive cabinet crises and changes of government. The war in Indochina ended with French withdrawal in 1954.
The May 1958 seizure of power in Algiers by French army units and French settlers opposed to concessions in the face of Arab nationalist insurrection led to the fall of the French government and a presidential invitation to de Gaulle to form an emergency government to forestall the threat of civil war. Swiftly replacing the existing constitution with one strengthening the powers of the presidency, he became the elected president in December of that year, inaugurating France's Fifth Republic.
Fifth Republic
Seven years later, in an occasion marking the first time in the 20th century that the people of France went to the polls to elect a president by direct ballot, de Gaulle won re-election with a 55% share of the vote, defeating François Mitterrand.
However, French society experienced growing tiredness at the heavy-handed, patriarcal Gaullist approach. This led to the events of May 1968, when students revolted, with a variety of revendications ranging from more sexual freedom to the end of the Vietnam War. At the same time, mass strikes erupted. The situation got nearly out-of-hand, with, at one point, de Gaulle going to see troops in Baden-Baden, possibly to secure the help of the army should he need it to maintain public order. However, the June 1968 legislative elections saw a majority of Gaullists in parliament. Still, May 1968 was a turning point in French social relations, in the direction of more personal freedoms and less social control, be it in work relations or in sexual life.
In April 1969, de Gaulle resigned following the defeat in a national referendum of government proposals for the creation of 21 regions with limited political powers. Succeeding him as president of France have been:
While France continues to revere its rich history and independence, French leaders increasingly tie the future of France to the continued development of the European Union (EU). During President Mitterrand's tenure, he stressed the importance of European integration and advocated the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty on European economic and political union, which France's electorate narrowly approved in September 1992.
Current President Jacques Chirac assumed office May 17, 1995, after a campaign focused on the need to combat France's stubbornly high unemployment rate. The center of domestic attention soon shifted, however, to the economic reform and belt-tightening measures required for France to meet the criteria for Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) laid out by the Maastricht Treaty. In late 1995, France experienced its worst labor unrest in at least a decade, as employees protested government cutbacks.
On the foreign and security policy front, Chirac took a more assertive approach to protecting French peacekeepers in the former Yugoslavia and helped promote the Dayton Agreement negotiated in Dayton, Ohio and signed in Paris in December 1995. The French have stood among the strongest supporters of NATO and EU policy in the Balkans.
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