France

France is a country in Western Europe, about 3,500 miles from the United States. At its height it rivaled the British Empire with colonies in every corner of the world. It continued to be a strong presence in academia and has been the birthplace of countless renowned scholars. It remains a powerhouse in the European Union, and is consistently at odds with the United Kingdom on issues of EU policy. The capital city is Paris, often called the "City of Lights" due to its renown for a center of learning and philosophy.

It was a founding member of the European Coal and Steel treaty which led to the EEC and EU. Its contributions to western culture have been immense if controversial. It greatly assisted England's North American colonies both militarily and financially in their effort to gain independence, and established universal legal codes in much of the non-Anglo-Saxon west. It has made a number of philosophical contributions to the world, including Descartes and Sartre, existentialism and postmodernism. Its own colonial behavior and the treatment of non-French soldiers has been criticized of late. It maintains the CFA (African France) in much of west and central Africa. It gifted the statue of liberty to the USA in celebration of its independence, echoing the French aid given to the colonies during the American Revolutionary War.

Politics

In March of 2003 A.D., France did not participate in the alliance to remove the Baathist regime in Iraq notable for human rights violations prompting heavy backlash and criticism from the American people, and causing them to question whether France's status as a U.S. ally had been permanently undermined.