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Government
Government of France, Constitution of France, and Politics of France
Logo of the French Republic
The French Republic is a unitary semi-presidential republic with strong democratic traditions. The constitution of the Fifth Republic was approved by referendum on 28 September 1958. It greatly strengthened the authority of the executive in relation to parliament. The executive branch itself has two leaders: the President of the Republic, currently Nicolas Sarkozy, who is head of state and is elected directly by universal adult suffrage for a 5-year term (formerly 7 years), and the Government, led by the president-appointed Prime Minister, currently François Fillon.
The French parliament is a bicameral legislature comprising a National Assembly (Assemblée Nationale) and a Senate. The National Assembly deputies represent local constituencies and are directly elected for 5-year terms. The Assembly has the power to dismiss the cabinet, and thus the majority in the Assembly determines the choice of government. Senators are chosen by an electoral college for 6-year terms (originally 9-year terms), and one half of the seats are submitted to election every 3 years starting in September 2008. The Senate's legislative powers are limited; in the event of disagreement between the two chambers, the National Assembly has the final say, except for constitutional laws and lois organiques (laws that are directly provided for by the constitution) in some cases. The government has a strong influence in shaping the agenda of Parliament.
French politics are characterised by two politically opposed groupings: one left-wing, centred around the French Socialist Party, and the other right-wing, centred previously around the Rassemblement pour la République (RPR) and now its successor the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). The executive branch is currently composed mostly of the UMP.
Conventions and notations
* France is the home of the International System of Units (the metric system). Some pre-metric units are still used, essentially the livre (a unit of weight equal to half a kilogram) and the quintal (a unit of weight equal to 100 kilograms).
* In mathematics, France uses the infix notation like most countries. For large numbers the long scale is used. Thus, the French use the word billion for the number 1,000,000,000,000, which in countries using short scale is called a trillion. However, there exists a French word, milliard, for the number 1,000,000,000, which in countries using the short scale is called a billion. Thus, despite the use of the long scale, one billion is called un milliard (“one milliard”) in French, and not mille millions (“one thousand million”). It should also be noted that names of numbers above the milliard are rarely used. Thus, one trillion will most often be called mille milliards (“one thousand milliard”) in French, and rarely un billion.
* In the French numeral notation, the comma (,) is the Decimal separator, whereas the dot (.) is used between each group of three digits especially for big numbers. A space can also be used to separate each group of three digits especially for small numbers. Thus three thousand five hundred and ten may be written as 3 510 whereas fifteen million five hundred thousand and thirty-two may be written as 15.500.032. In finance, the currency symbol is used as a decimal separator or put after the number. For example, €25,048.05 is written either 25 048€05 or 25 048,05 € (always with an extra space between the figure and the currency symbol).
* In computing, a bit is called a bit yet a byte is called an octet (from the Latin root octo, meaning “8”). SI prefixes are used.
* 24-hour clock time is used, with h being the separator between hours and minutes (for example 2:30 p.m. is 14h30).
* The all-numeric form for dates is in the order day-month-year, using a slash as the separator (example: 31/12/1992 or 31/12/92).
Law
Law of France
The basic principles that the French Republic must respect are found in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
France uses a civil legal system; that is, law arises primarily from written statutes; judges are not to make law, but merely to interpret it (though the amount of judge interpretation in certain areas makes it equivalent to case law). Basic principles of the rule of law were laid in the Napoleonic Code. In agreement with the principles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen law should only prohibit actions detrimental to society. As Guy Canivet, first president of the Court of Cassation, wrote about the management of prisons:
Freedom is the rule, and its restriction is the exception; any restriction of Freedom must be provided for by Law and must follow the principles of necessity and proportionality.
That is, Law should lay out prohibitions only if they are needed, and if the inconveniences caused by this restriction do not exceed the inconveniences that the prohibition is supposed to remedy.
French law is divided into two principal areas: private law and public law. Private law includes, in particular, civil law and criminal law. Public law includes, in particular, administrative law and constitutional law. However, in practical terms, French law comprises three principal areas of law: civil law, criminal law and administrative law.
France does not recognise religious law, nor does it recognise religious beliefs or morality as a motivation for the enactment of prohibitions. As a consequence, France has long had neither blasphemy laws nor sodomy laws (the latter being abolished in 1791). However “offences against public decency” (contraires aux bonnes mœurs) or disturbing public order (trouble à l'ordre public) have been used to repress public expressions of homosexuality or street prostitution.
Laws can only address the future and not the past (ex post facto laws are prohibited) ; and to be applicable, laws must be officially published in the Journal Officiel de la République Française.
Foreign relations
Foreign relations of France
France is a founding member of the EC in 1957, and the European Union in 1993 (Signing of the Maastricht Treaty).
France is a member of the United Nations and serves as one of the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council with veto rights. It is also a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and the Indian Ocean Commission (COI). It is an associate member of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) and a leading member of the International Francophone Organisation (OIF) of fifty-one fully or partly French-speaking countries. It hosts the headquarters of the OECD, UNESCO, Interpol, Alliance Base and the International Bureau for Weights and Measures. In 1953 France received a request from the United Nations to pick a coat of arms that would represent it internationally. Thus the French emblem was adopted and is currently used on passports.
French foreign policy has been largely shaped by membership of the European Union, of which it was a founding member. In the 1960s, France sought to exclude the British from the organisation, seeking to build its own standing in continental Europe. Since the 1990s, France has developed close ties with reunified Germany to become the most influential driving force of the EU, but consequently rivaling the UK and limiting the influence of newly inducted East European nations. France is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, but under President de Gaulle, it excluded itself from the joint military command to avoid the supposed domination of its foreign and security policies by US political and military influence. In the early 1990s, the country drew considerable criticism from other nations for its underground nuclear tests in French Polynesia. France vigorously opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, straining bilateral relations with the US and the UK. France retains strong political and economic influence in its former African colonies and has supplied economic aid and troops for peace-keeping missions in the Ivory Coast and Chad.
Military
Military of France
Nuclear aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle
The French armed forces are divided into four branches:
* Armée de Terre (Army)
* Marine Nationale (Navy)
* Armée de l'Air (Air Force)
* Gendarmerie Nationale (A military force which acts as a National Rural Police and as a Military police for the entire French military)
Since the Algerian War, conscription was steadily reduced and was finally suspended in 2001 by President Jacques Chirac. The total number of military personnel is approximately 359,000. France spends 2.6% of its GDP on defence, slightly more than the United Kingdom (2.4%) and the highest in the European Union where defence spending generally accounts to less than 1.5% of GDP. France and the U.K. account for 40% of EU defence spending. About 10% of France's defence budget goes towards its force de frappe, or nuclear weapons force. France has major military industries that have produced the Rafale fighter, the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, the Exocet missile and the Leclerc tank amongst others. Some weaponry, like the E-2 Hawkeye or the E-3 Sentry was bought from the United States. Despite withdrawing from the Eurofighter project, France is actively investing in European joint projects such as the Eurocopter Tiger, multipurpose frigates, the UCAV demonstrator nEUROn and the Airbus A400M. France is a major arms seller as most of its arsenal's designs are available for the export market with the notable exception of nuclear-powered devices. Some of the French designed equipments are specifically designed for exports like the Franco-Spanish Scorpène class submarines. Some French equipments have been largely modified to fit allied countries' requirements like the Formidable class frigates (based on the La Fayette class) or the Hashmat class submarines (based on the Agosta class submarines).
* Although it includes very competent anti-terrorist units such as the GIGN or the EPIGN the gendarmerie is a military police force which serves for the most part as a rural and general purpose police force. Since its creation the GIGN has taken part in roughly one thousand operations and freed over five-hundred hostages; the Air France Flight 8969's hijacking brought them to the world's attention.
* French intelligence constitutes of two major units: the DGSE (the external agency) and the DCRI (domestic agency). The latter being part of the police while the former is associated to the army. The DGSE is notorious for the Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, but it is also known for revealing the most extensive technological spy network uncovered in Europe and the United States to date through the mole Vladimir Vetrov.
* The French “Force de frappe” relies on a complete independence. The current French nuclear force consists of four submarines equipped with M45 ballistic missiles. The current Triomphant class is currently under deployment to replace the former Redoutable class. The M51 will replace the M45 in the future and expand the Triomphants firing range. Aside of the submarines the French dissuasion force uses the Mirage 2000N; it is a variant of the Mirage 2000 and thus is designed to deliver nuclear strikes. Other nuclear devices like the Plateau d'Albion's Intermediate-range ballistic missile and the short range Hadès missiles have been disarmed. With 350 nuclear heads stockpiled France is the world's third largest nuclear power.
* The Marine Nationale is regarded as one of the world's most powerful navies. The professional compendium flottes de combats, in its 2006 edition, ranked it world's 6th biggest navy after the American, Russian, Chinese, British and Japanese navies. It is equipped with the only non-American nuclear powered Aircraft Carrier in the world. Recently Mistral class ships joined the Marine Nationale, the Mistral itself having taken part to operations in Lebanon. For the 2004 centennial of the Entente Cordiale President Chirac announced the Future French aircraft carrier would be jointly designed with Great Britain. The French navy is equipped with the La Fayette class frigates, early examples of stealth ships, and several ships are expected to be retired in the next few years and replaced by more modern ships, examples of future surface ships are the Forbin and the Aquitaine class frigates. The attack submarines are also part of the Force Océanique Stratégique although they do not carry the nuclear dissuasion, the current class is the Rubis Class and will be replaced in the future by the expected Suffren Class.
A French army soldier
* The Armée de Terre employs 133,500 people. It is famous for the Légion Etrangère (French Foreign Legion) though the French special forces are not the Legion but the Dragons Parachutistes and the Marines Parachutistes. The French assault rifle is the FAMAS and future infantry combat system is the Félin. France uses both tracked and wheeled vehicles to a significant points, examples of wheeled vehicles would be the Caesar or the AMX 10 RC. Although its main battle tank is the Leclerc many older AMX 30 tanks are still operational. It uses the AMX 30 AuF1 for artillery and is equipped with Eurocopter Tigers helicopters.
* The Armée de l'Air is the oldest and first professional air force worldwide. It still today retains a significant capacity. It uses mainly two aircraft fighters: the older Mirage F1 and the more recent Mirage 2000. The later model exists in a ground attack version called the Mirage2000D. The modern Rafale is in deployment in both the French air force and navy.
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