In the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose

subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse
of the Empire, France endured a tumultuous succession of governments culminating with
the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. France was a major participant in the First
World War, from which it emerged victorious, and was one of the Allied Powers in the Second World
War, but came under occupation by the Axis Powers in 1940. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth
Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War. The Fifth
Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and
nearly all the other colonies became independent in the 1960s and typically retained close
economic and military connections with France.
France has long been a global centre of art, science, and philosophy. It hosts Europe's fourth-
largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million
foreign tourists annually, the most of any country in the world.[11] France is a developed
country with the world's sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP[12] and ninth-largest by purchasing power
parity.[13] In terms of aggregate household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. [14] France
performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, and human
development.[15][16] France remains a great power in the world,[17] being one of the five permanent
members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state.
It is a leading member state of the European Union and the Eurozone.[18] It is also a member of
the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and La Francophonie.