Country Profile of France - Article Example

Profile of France Introduction France is located in Europe between Germany and Spain. It also shares a border with the English Channel as well. France also has various territories spread throughout most of the globe. While throughout history it has always been a leading world power, it sustained significant losses during WW I and WW II. One of the most recent conflicts that France was involved in was with its former colony Algeria. Recent reconciliations with Germany have led proven to be economically beneficial, and today France stands on equal grounds with the world’s super powers. In 1999, France made the euro its official currency, and this has allowed France to further integrate itself into the core of the European economy. France is also playing a central role in the development of the European Union’s military (cia.gov). The seat of the French Revolution, which is the source of much of the thoughts and writing on democracy, France is now currently a republic, and it has had a mixture of a presidential and parliamentary administration since legislation was passed in 1958. The current president is Nikolas Sarkozy, and he won the election with 51% of the vote. Sarkozy is serving a five year term as president of France. In 2000 the French constitution was amended in order to change the term of presidency from seven years to five years (cia.gov) In size, France is slightly smaller in area than the state of Texas with 260,558 square mileage. This figure include all of its territories overseas and including its claim in Antarctica. This makes it the largest European nation, just slightly ahead of Spain in total size (cia.gov) Scientific Development France has always been central in scientific development. For example, France was home to Marie and Pierre Curie who are famous for their theories and work on radioactivity. In more recent scientific efforts, France is among the leaders in various fields, including mathematics, astrophysics, biology, medicine, genetics, and physics. To put this in perspective, it should be mentioned that French scientists have been awarded a total of twenty-six Nobel prizes over the past ninety years (francethisway.com) There are many research institutions throughout France. Some of these include the National Centre for Scientific Research, the National Institute for Health and Medical Research, and the National Institute for Agronomical Research. The institutions are public research institutions. There are also many private research institutions (francethisway.com) There are many specific fields in which France leads the way in in technological progress. For instance, France runs Ariane, which is responsible for the maintenance of communication and observation satellites. Transportation systems in France are also state of the art as well. The high-speed trains that France launched in 1981 paved the way for the modern European rail system. The high speed trains can travel at an average speed of 200 kilometers per hour, but they can achieve maximum speeds of over 300 kilometers per hour. France has also helped and been responsible for the development of the Airbus, Concorde, the smart card, and Val, which is a completely automated transportation system (francethisway.com) AIDS Statistics Like many countries, France experienced an explosion of AIDS cases, but this number has been slowly falling since the mid-90’s. Of course, statistics can be misleading. In part, the initial explosion had much to do with the fact that the disease existed long before it was discovered, and there wasn’t so much an explosion as a large number of people that had the condition that were diagnosed with it. The drop in the rate of new AIDS cases could also have as much to do with the improvements made in diagnostic procedures, so many of the cases that might have gone undiagnosed for a longer period of time were caught in 1993 or 1994 (francethisway.com). Along with improved diagnostic measures, increased screening measures for blood transfusions have led to a drop in HIV cases contracted through blood transfusions. Of new cases, 36% was contracted through homosexual sex, 28% was contracted through heterosexual sex, and 25% was contracted through intravenous drug usage. Except for heterosexual sex, all other scenarios dropped in percentage of new cases. The total number of newly diagnosed cases was estimated between 1,700 and 1,900. As far as the most recent data, the prevalence of adults with HIV/AIDS in the population is at .4%. The total number of people living with HIV/AIDS in France is estimated to be around 120,000. Also, there are less than 1,000 deaths caused by AIDS a year in France. These statistics were established in 1994 (francethisway.com) Cultural Practices France has had a long history of being a cultural center in Europe. From famous dramatists such as Moliére, novelists such as Victor Hugo and Marcel Proust, satirists such as Voltaire, and painters such as Claude Monet, France has been central to the history of Western literature. Much pride is taken in French cuisine as well as wine making. The French language is seen to be central to the culture of France. The government has taken steps to promote art from its own country that utilizes the French language by providing subsidies for French artists, especially film makers. This has been viewed as controversial by some, but France views the large amounts of foreign languages that are infiltrating its culture, especially English, as a threat to its nationalism and especially its strong past of artistic endeavors (frenchculture.com) Even though France has a strong history of Roman Catholicism, it currently does not have a state religion. Still, half of its population considers itself to be Roman Catholic. After Roman Catholicism, Islam is the second largest religion in France. Many Muslims have to deal with racism and have difficulties integrating into French society in general. Often these difficulties stem from misconceptions about Islam and fear of radical Islam in general. Judaism is the next largest religion in France. Despite the large numbers of Jews that died during WWII, France still has the largest Jewish population in Europe. Considered to be the fourth largest religion, Buddhism is the fastest growing religion in France. These four religions make up a large part of the culture and history of France (frenchculture.com). Economy It an only be considered an indication of how strong sense of French culture that France has the largest income in the world from tourism. As mentioned, France adopted the euro as the official currency in 1999. The latest exchange rate between the euro and the US dollar is 0.7345. The per capita income is $32,600, and the growth rate is 2.1%. In defining the amount of money generated in France by sector, agriculture is 2.2%, industry is 20.6%, and services is 77.2%. The unemployment rate is 7.9% with the population below the poverty line at 6.2% (cia.gov). The national budget is set at $1.356 trillion dollars with an actual expenditures coming in at $1.356 trillion dollars. The main agricultural products of France are wheat, cereals, sugar beets, potatoes, wine grapes, beef, dairy products, and fish. The main industries of France are machinery, chemicals, automobiles, metallurgy, aircrafts, electronics, textiles, food processing, and tourism (cia.gov). Germany is currently France’s main trading partner, accounting for nearly 15% of all exports. Other trade partners include Spain, Italy, the UK, Belgium, the US, and the Netherlands. Imports consist of machinery and equipment, vehicles, crude oil, aircrafts, plastics, and chemicals. Nearly nineteen percent of all imports come from Germany as well. The national resources of France consist of coal, oil, aircraft, plastics, chemicals al, iron ore, bauxite, zinc, uranium, antimony, arsenic, potash, feldspar, fluorspar, gypsum, timber, and fish (cia.gov) Environment France is dealing with many of the same issues that most industrialized nations are dealing with as well. Some of these issues include but are not limited to acid rain which causes damage to forests, industrial and vehicle emissions that contribute to air pollution, and water pollutants that come from urban overflow. Acid rain is when there is potentially dangerous levels of sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxide in the rain, and this can lead to an unbalancing of the pH levels naturally found in the environment which can have adverse effects for the wild life of the area. It is taking many steps to combat this situation, such as being one of the leading nations that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol (indexmundi.com). Other particular environmental concerns include deforestation and desertification. Deforestation is when large areas of forestation are destroyed for either clearing the land for new buildings are to use the wood for various products without subsequently planting new trees to replace the ones which were cut down. Desertification is when conditions similar to deserts spread to either arid or semi-arid areas. This typically happens when there is overgrazing of live stock, there is some condition that causes loss of agriculturally productive soil, or if for some reason there is a change in the climate of a region (indexmundi.com). France is also taking steps to deal with loss of biodiversity in the waters surrounding its borders. Dredging and drift-net fishing are two practices which damage bio-diversity in the oceans, and France has ratified various treaties and protocols that are meant to combat these practices. Though France is taking steps to combat these environmental issues, there are still many problems which need to be dealt with (indexmundi.com) Population France is the largest of all of the western European nations. As of July 2006, the population of France was nearly 61 million. The total population of the world for this same time is estimated to be at 6.5 billion. With its population, France is the 23rd most populated country in the entire world. The life expectancy of France averages out to be 79.3 years. This is with the male life expectancy being at 76 years and the female life expectancy being at 83.5 years. The literacy rates for both males and females stands at 99%. Population density rates stand at 295 per square mile (cia.gov). French is the official language of France. Other dialects and languages, such as Basque, are on the decline and might disappear. The French governments position of teaching only official French and no other dialects in public schools can only expediate the process. Though the French government might not encourage the use of foreign languages, it does have a large and ethnically diverse minority population found throughout the country. France is, in fact, the number one asylum destination, with the majority of these beings from various African nations (cia.gov). Paris, of course, is the capital of France and the largest city. Other large cities include Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, and Nice. The vast majority of French citizens live in urban areas, and the rural population has seen a sharp decline in the past fifty years with some areas losing as much as 25% of its population. As far as the spread of the population by age goes, 18.6% of the population is under fifteen, 65.2 % of the population is between 15 and sixty-four, and 16.2% of the population is over 65 (cia.gov). Fertility rates in France rose between 2004 and 2007 from 1.92 to 2.0. The birth rate in France had been on a decline until the 1990’s in fact. Currently, the population growth stands at .588% a year. While citizens are free to move about the European Union, France currently has measures in effect to discourage Eastern European immigration (cia.gov). History of Conflicts As mentioned, World War I and II were devastating to the population of France. They were victorious in the end, though there was obviously a very steep price to pay. In Paris in 1968, a group calling themselves the situationists put Paris in a state of turmoil. They were a group of radicals who thought that revolution should be a part of everyday life. Many of these radicals aligned themselves with leftist and Marxian ideologies. Many think that the situation ended because many of the situationists were students, and their revolt abruptly ended when there was a break from school for the summer (francethisway.com) France, among many other leading nations in the world, opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq. Because of this, there was much dissention from many US citizens towards France, and the infamous terms “freedom fries” and “freedom toast” resulted from this lack of support for the US invasion. France currently still does not lend its support to the war effort in Iraq. This has not led to an overll break between the two nations, however. Conclusion As evidenced by this report, the nation of France stands in a leading position. With its status in the European Union and the United Nations, many of the major political decisions that affect the globe are directly influenced by France. It also continues to be a central hub for much of the artistic and cultural centers of the world. This fact is obviously reflected in the fact that France has the largest revenue from tourism in the entire world. It also appears to be an attractive destination for those seeking asylum from their own countries as well. France, of course, still has its own issues it has to deal with and just like any other country cannot be considered to be perfect. It still deals with issues stemming from immigration and racism, and while it is leading the way in many of the global environmental issues affecting the world today, it is still contributing to global warming as much as most western European nations. With its long history of leading the way in art, science, and global politics, France is likely to enjoy its high status for a long time to come. Works Cited http://cia.gov http://www.indexmundi.com/france/environment_current_issues.html http://www.francethisway.com/francefacts.php http://www.frenchculture.org/ Read More