History of the French

The French people trace their roots back to a tribe called the Franks who, as the Roman Empire waned, lived on its northern frontier around the area of what would now be called Belgium/western Germany. From the early 400s they made incursions from the north into the Roman Gaul; the local population, under Roman rule, were a Celtic people called the Gauls. Meanwhile, the Frankish language was a Germanic language (like modern-day English and German). 

The Franks did not have a single leader. Clovis, one of the Frankish leaders at the end of the 400s, married a Christian wife called Clothilde whose background was from another Germanic people, the Burgundians (based in what would now be southern France). Facing defeat in battle against the Alamans (yet another Germanic tribe) in 496, Clovis called on the Christian God. Sometime between 498 and 508 he was then baptised, and recognised as King of the Franks. Thus began the Merovingian dynasty that lasted for over 200 years. Clovis and his successors extended their territory from Neustria (north east France) to include most of what we would consider France today plus parts of northern Italy and western Germany. It was under the Merovingians that the Franks defeated the invading Muslim forces from North Africa at Poitiers in 732 under Charles Martel. 

The son of Charles Martel, Pepin the Short, began a second dynasty, the Carolingians. The greatest ruler of this dynasty was Charles the Great (d. 814), who ruled over an area which included much of what is now Germany and also northern Italy. In 800 he was crowned Emperor by the Pope. His reign was associated with a renaissance of learning and culture in his kingdom and throughout Europe (Carolingian renaissance). Charles the Great's capital was at Aachen. However, the kingdom was later, in 843, divided between three of his grandsons, giving rise to West Francia (which later became the Kingdom of France), East Francia (which from 962 became the Holy Roman Empire, and later Germany), and middle Francia, which was contested between the two. By this time, the people of West Francia spoke Roman, a local version of Latin which eventually became what we would recognise as French, while the people of East Francia spoke Old High German. 

Like many countries, in the 700s and 800s, western Francia was attacked by invaders from the north known in Britain as Vikings, and in France as the Northmen (or Normans). Agreement was reached in 912 to grant the French Normans land to settle on the condition that they be baptised and become Christian. This is what is now known as Normandy with Rouen as its most important city. It was from Normandy that William the Conqueror took over England in 1066. In 1204 his lands in Normandy were retaken by the Kingdom of France. 

The Kingdom of France, ruled by kings such as Philip IV the Fair, came to dominate the western Christian world, and even the Roman Pope who for a time was based at Avignon in France. In the 1300s and 1400s there was a protracted war (Hundred Years War) between England and France, which eventually resulted in France regaining control of their country. 

At the time of the Protestant Reformation there were various Protestants in France, most notably Jean Calvin. At Paris in 1533 this led to the Affair of the Placards, when Anti-Catholic signs were put up and the response of the authorities was harsh. Calvin fled and spent time outside Paris and later outside France. In the 1500s there was a time of the War of Religions between the Roman Catholics and the Reformed Christians in France who were known as "Huguenots". A nobleman who had been a Huguenot reverted to Roman Catholicism and became King Henry IV, the first of the Bourbon dynasty. He granted freedoms to the Huguenots from 1598, but was assassinated in 1610. 

The royal successors of Henry IV, notably Louis XIV who reigned from 1643 to 1715, were more ruthless with the Huguenots, many of whom emigrated to other countries, especially when their rights were rescinded in 1685. Louis XIV's reign, symbolised by the splendid Palace of Versailles, represented the apogee of France, which became the centre of Europe and of the Roman Catholic world. It was France that particularly facilitated the learning and philosophy of the Enlightenment, with figures such as Voltaire. However, heavy government spending and the repressive nature of his reign created the problems which led to the revolution of 1789 and the execution of his grandson, Louis XVI. 

The French Revolution of 1789 followed the English Revolution (1649) and that of the American Colonies (1778), however it took a more radical course. The initial desire for a constitutional monarchy gave way to a republic (1792), and then to the execution of the king and the reign of terror (1793-4). For a period of a year or so, France saw large numbers of executions and an attempt to break with the past, including the Christian religion. Eventually, Napoleon Bonaparte, a popular military leader, came to power, and was eventually crowned Emperor in 1804. For a brief period, he dominated Europe with great victories and controlling much of the continent. He was finally defeated in 1815, and the monarchy restored. France oscillated between restorations of the monarchy and republics throughout the 1800s. In 1905, the principle of laicite (secularity) was definitively established, among other things, placing education under the control of the state not the church.  

The first half of the 20th century saw two world wars and a period of occupation from 1940 to 1944, which left a scar on the nation. Post-war France was heavily influenced by Charles de Gaulle, leader of the French army in exile during the second world war, and who inaugurated the fifth republic in 1958, and served as President for many years. France led the way for the creation of what is now the European Union, and the friendship between France and Germany is at the heart of that endeavour.