In 2011, France had a population estimated at around 65.4 million people. Its economy was largely reliant on services, tourism and manufacturing. Foreign relations in 2011 were marked by strong ties to other European countries, particularly those in the European Union (EU). Politically, the country was a unitary semi-presidential republic ruled by President Nicolas Sarkozy since 2007. The president was assisted by his cabinet and the Parliament which is composed of two chambers; the National Assembly and the Senate. In 2012, France held its general election in April that year and re-elected President Nicolas Sarkozy with 51% of the vote. See mathgeneral for France in the year of 2017.
Yearbook 2011
France. According to Countryaah official site, the popular uprising in Tunisia became troublesome for several French politicians who worked closely with the regime. Foreign Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie resigned in February following criticism for, among other things. a solar trip with President Ben Ali’s private jet, in the midst of the ongoing revolt. Defense Minister Alain Juppé became new Foreign Minister. As the so-called Arab Spring spread to Libya, President Nicolas Sarkozy took the lead in foreign support for resistance to Muammar al-Khadaffi. He advocated the NATO effort and in March, France first came to recognize the Transitional Council as Libya’s legitimate representative. Visit ABBREVIATIONFINDER for the acronym of FRA that stands for the country of France.
After nearly 40 years as leader of the right-wing National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen left in January to his daughter, Marine Le Pen. In the municipal elections in March, her party received almost as much electoral support as the crippling UMP (Union for a People’s Movement). The Socialist Party became the largest and was considered to be well ahead of the 2012 presidential election. He was charged with rape on a hotel steward and was forced to resign from his top job as head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He spent over a month in house arrest, but in August, prosecutors dropped the case, since the hotel cleaner’s credibility was questioned. In France, however, the support for Strauss-Kahn had sounded after several testimonies of sexual abuse and harassment. A preliminary investigation into a rape attempt in 2003 was closed in October, but Strauss-Kahn was calculated from the policy.
The Senate elections in September gave the left a majority in Parliament’s upper house for the first time since the fifth republic was opened in 1958. The victory was seen as a sign of widespread dissatisfaction with President Sarkozy.
In October, the Socialist Party held primary elections, the first so far in France, to elect its candidate in the upcoming presidential election. All interested voters, regardless of party sympathies, were invited to participate, which attracted great attention. Former party leader François Hollande won in the second round over incumbent party leader Martine Aubry.
The instability in the euro zone caused growing concern as the year progressed. French banks were hard pressed by Greece’s debt crisis due to large holdings of Greek government securities. In August, the government presented a savings package of EUR 12 billion, including an extra tax for the wealthiest. The major banks Crédit Agricole and Société Générale had their credit ratings lowered in September. The threat of a write-down on the state’s creditworthiness also contributed to Sarkozy proposing a further cut of up to EUR 8 billion at the end of October.
In September, two women became the first to be fined under the new so-called canning law that came into force in April. The women questioned the ban on wearing a comprehensive veil in public places and stated that they planned to appeal the verdict up to the European Court of Justice.
In October, Sarkozy became a father when his wife Carla Bruni gave birth to a daughter. It was the first time a sitting president had a child.
In December, former President Jacques Chirac was sentenced to conditional prison for corruption and abuse of power during his tenure as mayor of Paris in the 1990s.
Paris
Paris, the capital of France, located in the northern part of the country on the Seine River in the Île-de-France region; 11.96 million in the region (2013). In a narrower sense, Paris denotes the municipality (2.2 million inlbs) within the fortifications of the 1840’s, now followed by the Boulevard Périphérique motorway. The municipality also has the status of a department and is divided into 20 boroughs, district districts which are referred to by numbers. The rest of Île-de-France is divided into seven departments. Politically, Paris is governed by the popularly elected forle-de-France regional council, by the departmental councils also elected and by the municipal councils with a mayor at the head. In addition, each district has a directly elected mayor with a district council under him. Before 1977, the City of Paris was governed by a government-appointed prefect.
Paris is France’s most dominant center in every respect and has been one of the largest and most important cities in Europe and the world since the Middle Ages, but today not as significant as in the 1700’s and 1800’s.
The condition for Paris’s development into the metropolis has been partly the location in the center of the fertile Parisian basin, from which food could be easily retrieved from the Seine and its tributaries Marne, Oise and Yonne as early as the Middle Ages, and the changing regimes since the 1600’s. having its seat in Paris has led a centralist policy, which has not been softened until 1982.
The structure of the city
Paris can be divided into six areas: The city center with the most important public and private functions, a large number of jobs and a small number of dwellings comprises largely the medieval city and the areas west of it; it is divided into the northern part, viz. right Seine width with 1-4. and 8-9. arrondissement, and the southern part, left Seinebred with 5-7. arrondissement. In the rest of the Paris municipality, largely built in the 1800’s, a distinction is made between the northern and eastern arrondissements 10-13. as well as 18-20, which are mostly disadvantaged groups and quite a few jobs, and the southern and western districts 14-17. with a wealthy population and relatively many jobs. The suburbs of 1900-t. partly includes the less affluent northern and eastern suburbs ie. departments of Seine-Saint-Denis, Val-de-Marne, Val-d ‘ Oise and Seine-et-Marne, partly the well-off southern and western suburbs, ie. the departments of Hauts-de-Seine, Essonne and Yvelines.
The city center, right Seinebred. The center of Paris is considered the cathedral of Notre-Dame on the Seine Island Île de la Cité, which also houses police and court buildings. Across the island goes the north-south-going Roman road Rue Saint-Martin – Rue Saint-Jacques, which crosses the east-west main axis of Paris Saint-Antoine – Rue de Rivoli – Champs-Élysées – La Défense on the right bank. Around this junction are the northern central districts, which do not have a sharp outer border. They are densely built and contain predominantly housing for the wealthy. The Forum des Halles Shopping Center and the Pompidou Center (Center Georges-Pompidou) are located on areas where the wholesale food market, Les Halles, previously lay. In the Marais district to the east are many old noble palaces and on the right Seinebred the former royal palace and the current Louvre museum and official buildings such as the Élysée mansion, which is the presidential residence, the town hall, the stock exchange and the National Bank of France. Changing kings have created a number of squares in the district with green plants and statues, etc.: Place des Vosges, Place des Victoires, Place Vendôme and Place de la Concorde. However, the most important park is the Jardin des Tuileries. Right since the Middle Ages, the Seine Broad has been the center of business and still is. The businesses in the area mainly include banking and consulting, wholesale and exclusive hotels, restaurants, cinemas and theaters. Also retail along Avenue des Champs-Élysées and at the Opéra National de Paris, Palais Garnier, where the major department stores are located, is exclusive. In addition, specialized shopping districts, such as the “golden triangle” of fashion stores between Avenue Montaigne, Rue François 1is and Avenue George V, and other luxury stores along Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.
The city center, left Seinebred. The area around the present major axis Boulevard Saint-Michel was in the medieval Sorbonne University district and is still called the Latin Quarter. Further to the west, many noble mansions were later erected. The area today contains some housing and the Jardin du Luxembourg park with the Palais du Luxembourg, where the Senate is located. In addition, the eastern part is characterized by universities, other educational institutions, booksellers, antiquarian bookcases, les bouquinistes, on the Seine Quay and other shops that are especially aimed at students. However, the area closest to the bridges to the dele de la Cité is dominated by restaurants for tourists, and so is the former popular shopping street Rue Mouffetard. West of Boulevard Saint-Michel, the Latin Quarter continues, but especially with publishers, art shops and galleries as well as cinemas, that caters to an intellectual audience. There are also exclusive pedestrian streets such as Boulevard Saint-Germain, whose cafés were cultural centers in the period just after World War II, and Rue de Rennes. The city center has grown to the west, and here are the majority of state power centers: the National Assembly of the Palais Bourbon, most ministries, the military leadership, and UNESCO headquarters.
The northern and eastern parts of the Paris municipality was in the 1800’s. closely expanded with storehouses, which became the city’s major work district with workshops and factories. The traffic was led along concentric boulevards along the former fortifications, along new wide street breaks from the 1850’s and later via the metro network from around 1900. The North, Est, Lyon and Austerlitz railway stations came in the mid-1800’s. to be on the outskirts of the then settlement; they were soon surrounded by cheap hotels, restaurants and amusement establishments. Among the neighborhoods, large warehouses were located, especially along the Seine. At Montmartre, an artist district developed, now heavily influenced by tourism, and below it, along Boulevard de Clichy, a well-known entertainment district. The only major green area was Bois de Vincennes outside the fortress line. After 2. World War I, the old working population is thinning and replaced by immigrants in many places. Faubourg Saint-Antoine is still characterized by furniture carpentry, but many factories and wholesale warehouses have been closed. Since the 1980’s, the state and the municipality have sought to renovate these run-down districts and create new jobs for them: For example, in Paris’s old butchery, La Villette, science, industrial and music museums have been erected, at Bastille Square a new opera, on the right Seinebred at Bercy a new finance ministry and other office buildings and on the other side of the Seine a new national library. In addition to the Boulevard Périphérique, sports grounds and social housing are built on the fortress grounds outside the municipality.
The southern and western parts of the Paris municipality were also in the 1800’s. built with storehouses, here predominantly for the better-off citizenship, while the traffic system developed just like in the northeastern districts. Bois de Boulogne outside the fortress line served as a recreation area. In the beginning, these neighborhoods did not get many jobs besides local service. However, the living quarters were interrupted by the Montparnasse railway station, around which, before and after the First World War, an artist and amusement district was developed. Gradually, many of the prestigious neighborhoods are used for, among other things. offices, clinics and training rooms, especially in a zone west of Place Charles-de-Gaulle, where, for example, the OECD headquarters are located. Many apartments are bought by provincial residents and foreigners and are used for only a minor part of the year. The old fortress terrain is among other things. used for the Paris Royal Palace at Porte Maillot, the international university city with colleges at Porte de Gentilly and large exhibition and exhibition buildings at Porte de Versailles.
The northern and eastern suburbs. The suburban building was here from the early 1900’s. and until World War II dominated by the self-construction of craftsmen and workers. There was no overall plan for the areas; the suburbs lacked shops, traffic links and public service. Outside of Porte de Clignancourt and Porte de Saint-Ouen emerged major flea markets, the latter being the world’s largest. Especially the northern suburbs, the current department of Seine-Saint-Denis, came to contain a concentration of industry. After the Second World War, when housing demand grew, a number of huge social housing areas were built in the form of concrete high-rise buildings, the so-called grands ensembles, the largest of which is Sarcelles to the north with 12,000 apartments. They were not provided with local service, green areas or public transport, and the residents became the most disadvantaged population groups; often North African immigrants.
From the 1970’s, the authorities have sought to improve the suburbs and their service supply, not least in the major center Créteil to the SE and in the new towns of Marne-la-Vallée to the east and Melun-Sénart towards the SE. At the same time, many of the older factories are closed; it has led to a large deficit of jobs and a comprehensive commute to the inner city and southern and western suburbs. Since the 1960’s, the state has, through a series of investments, sought to remedy it. Charles-de-Gaulle AirportIn Roissy v NO, there are over 25,000 jobs, and in connection with this a large exhibition area and large commercial areas have been laid out, which, however, have mostly attracted wholesale warehouses with quite a few jobs. In Aulnay-sous-Bois towards the NE is Europe’s largest freight center, Garonor. In Marne-La Vallée, universities and research parks and the EuroDisney amusement park are connected to the Chessy station on a new high-speed ring lane. The wholesale food market has moved to Rungis towards the SE. Transport is generally the only sector with really many jobs in the northern and eastern suburbs.
The Southern and Western Suburbs. Also in these districts, the older as well as the suburban construction of the 1950’s and 1960’s was erected without an actual overall plan and poorly provided with service. However, the western region of Versailles, large forests and beautiful valleys also attracted disadvantaged populations whose villas have gradually become dominant. These areas of concentration of highly skilled labor, sometimes also with good transport links (Orly airport and the high-speed train station Massy to the south), have attracted growth industries as consultancy and high-tech industry and research institutions since the 1960’s; many large companies also have their head offices in the area. In addition, the residents of the neighborhood are attracted to exclusive retail, restaurants and cultural and leisure activities. In the 1960’s state planning supported this development with the location of new cities around Paris: towards NV lies Cergy-Pontoise, while Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines lies towards SV and Évry to the south. Their commercial areas are well-equipped with infrastructure and have attracted the electronics and pharmaceutical industries, and the new cities each have a university. Tungest, however, outweighs the large office and commercial center of La Défense, which is a continuation of the century-old shift of the Parisian business center to the west. However, much of the growth of small and large companies in these suburbs is not the result of overall planning. This applies, among other things. industry along the Seine, the many new jobs in the inner western suburbs (department of Hauts-de-Seine) as well as the public research and educational institutions on the Saclay Plateau and in Orsay to the south, which have attracted private research and high-tech companies; this area is called Cité Scientifique Sud.