France

Greek settlers from Phocaea founded Massalia — today's Marseille — around 600 BCE, planting a Mediterranean trading culture on the southern coast. Inland lay Gaul, home to dozens of Celtic tribes whose oppida, coinage and craft Rome would later both admire and subdue.

Between 58 and 50 BCE, Julius Caesar conquered Gaul in a series of campaigns recorded in his own Commentarii de Bello Gallico. The decisive moment came at the siege of Alesia in 52 BCE, where the Arvernian chieftain Vercingetorix, having united much of Gaul in revolt, was finally starved into surrender.

For the next five centuries Gaul was Roman. Cities such as Lugdunum (Lyon), Nemausus (Nîmes) and Arelate (Arles) acquired amphitheatres, aqueducts and Latin law; Christianity spread from the 2nd century. As the Western Empire weakened, Germanic peoples settled within its frontiers — among them the Franks, who would give the country its name.

Turning points

1. c. 600 BCEFormation

   Foundation of Massalia (Marseille)

   Greek colonists from Phocaea establish a trading port — the oldest city in France.

   [2]

2. 52 BCEWar & Rupture

   Siege of Alesia

   Caesar defeats Vercingetorix, completing the Roman conquest of Gaul.

   ↗See the data

   [3] [4]

3. 50 BCEPolitics & Power

   Gaul becomes Roman

   Gaul is incorporated into the Roman world; Latin, Roman law and cities reshape the land.

   [1]

Figures of the era

In 486 Clovis I, king of the Salian Franks, defeated the last Roman governor at Soissons and began uniting the Frankish tribes. His conversion to Catholic Christianity around 496–508 — rather than the Arianism of rival Germanic kings — bound the Frankish monarchy to the Church and to the Gallo-Roman population, a alliance that would shape European history.

The Carolingian dynasty reached its height under Charlemagne, crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day, 800. His realm stretched across much of Western Europe, reviving learning and administration.

It did not hold. The Treaty of Verdun in 843 divided the empire among Charlemagne's three grandsons. The western share, West Francia, is the direct ancestor of France. When the Carolingian line faltered, the nobles elected Hugh Capet king in 987, founding the Capetian dynasty that would rule, in its branches, for over 800 years.

Turning points

1. c. 496–508Religion

   Baptism of Clovis I

   The first Frankish king to adopt Catholic Christianity, aligning crown and Church.

   [5]

2. 800Politics & Power

   Charlemagne crowned Emperor

   Pope Leo III crowns Charlemagne in Rome, reviving the Western imperial title.

   [6]

3. 843Formation

   Treaty of Verdun

   Charlemagne's empire is split; West Francia becomes the seed of France.

   [7]

4. 987Formation

   Hugh Capet elected king

   Beginning of the Capetian dynasty and the long consolidation of the French crown.

   [8]

Figures of the era

The Capetians slowly extended royal authority outward from the Île-de-France. War with England defined the late Middle Ages: the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453) brought France close to dismemberment until Joan of Arc helped turn the tide at Orléans in 1429, before her capture and execution in 1431.

The Renaissance and the Wars of Religion followed. In 1598 Henry IV issued the Edict of Nantes, granting France's Protestant Huguenots a measure of toleration and ending decades of civil war.

Under Louis XIV — the 'Sun King', who reigned from 1643 to 1715 — royal absolutism reached its apogee at Versailles. But costly wars, fiscal crisis and Enlightenment ideas eroded the old order, setting the stage for revolution.

Turning points

1. 1337War & Rupture

   Hundred Years' War begins

   A dynastic struggle with England that would last until 1453 and forge French identity.

   ↗See the data

   [9]

2. 1429War & Rupture

   Joan of Arc at Orléans

   Joan lifts the siege of Orléans, reversing English fortunes; she is executed in 1431.

   ↗See the data

   [10]

3. 1598Religion

   Edict of Nantes

   Henry IV grants toleration to Protestants, ending the Wars of Religion.

   [11]

4. 1643–1715Politics & Power

   Reign of Louis XIV

   Absolutism and the court of Versailles make France the dominant power in Europe.

   [12]

Figures of the era

On 14 July 1789 a Paris crowd stormed the Bastille, and within weeks the National Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The monarchy was abolished in 1792 and Louis XVI executed in 1793; the Republic then passed through the Terror and the Directory.

Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in 1799 and crowned himself Emperor in 1804. His armies remade the map of Europe and spread the Napoleonic Code — a lasting legal legacy — before his final defeat at Waterloo in 1815.

The 19th century lurched between systems: a restored monarchy, the revolutions of 1830 and 1848, the short-lived Second Republic, and the Second Empire of Napoleon III, which collapsed in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.

Turning points

1. 14 July 1789War & Rupture

   Storming of the Bastille

   The opening act of the French Revolution; later France's national day.

   ↗See the data

   [13]

2. Aug 1789Politics & Power

   Declaration of the Rights of Man

   Proclaims liberty, equality and popular sovereignty — a founding text of modern democracy.

   [14]

3. 1804Politics & Power

   Napoleon crowned Emperor

   Bonaparte founds the First Empire and exports the Napoleonic Code across Europe.

   [15]

4. 1815War & Rupture

   Battle of Waterloo

   Napoleon's final defeat ends the Empire and the Napoleonic Wars.

   ↗See the data

   [15]

Figures of the era

The Third Republic (1870–1940) entrenched republican institutions, secular public schooling and empire. The First World War (1914–1918) was fought largely on French soil and cost some 1.4 million French lives.

Defeated and occupied by Nazi Germany in 1940, France was divided between occupation and the Vichy regime until the Liberation of Paris in August 1944. The Fourth Republic followed in 1946.

Amid the crisis of the Algerian War, Charles de Gaulle returned to found the Fifth Republic in 1958, whose strong presidency endures today. France was a founding member of the European Communities (Treaty of Rome, 1957) and adopted the euro, in circulation from 2002.

Turning points

1. 1905Politics & Power

   Separation of Church and State

   The 1905 law establishes laïcité — France's distinctive secularism.

   [1]

2. Aug 1944War & Rupture

   Liberation of Paris

   Allied and Free French forces liberate Paris after four years of occupation.

   ↗See the data

   [1]

3. 1957Economy & Trade

   Founding member of the EEC

   France signs the Treaty of Rome, beginning European integration.

   ↗See the data

   [1]

4. 1958Formation

   Fifth Republic founded

   De Gaulle's new constitution creates the strong presidency that governs France today.

   [16]

Figures of the era