The question is comparative. That is, "great power" is not a flat out measurable standard but rather a comparison to the other nations in the world. By that standard, France remains a great power. To be be sure, not what it was circa 1900, but still well qualifying.
In a world of over 200 countries, France brings considerable assets to bear. She remains the 6th largest industrialized economy in the world and a major trading nation. Her armed forces are, for a variety of reasons not all of which are under her control, smaller in number than what they used to be, but are still highly trained, technologically sophisticated and well led. This especially seen in French interventions in places like Chad, Lebanon, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
In that connection, France still retains a smattering of overseas possessions that assist in giving it an independent global reach. With a network of actual or potential military bases worldwide that Paris may access without recurrence to the permission of other powers.
To all this add France's independent nuclear weapons arsenal. Although smaller than the American, Chinese or Russian arsenals, it is not inconsiderable and is capable of inflicting inordinate damage on an attacking power. Further, as it is based on a triad, the French arsenal would be apt to survive an enemy first strike and thus has a considerable deterrent effect.
This give France considerable assets and allows her to leverage not inconsiderable diplomatic weight, especially in the context of the European Union. Although there are some costs in sovereignty in relation to the EU, France has been able to use its position within that entity to leverage, through the euro, German economic weight - the 4th largest economy in the world - to advance French military and foreign policy interests.
To be sure, this is more ambiguous in some respects than it sounds. As noted, the EU compromises French sovereignty to some extent and this, in turn, can limit French freedom of action on a global scale.
Further, the French population - like that of most industrialized countries - is aging and therefore the workforce, and thus the number of taxpayers, is shrinking relative to population. As is the number of potential military age recruits, thus limiting the armed forces in both the aforementioned numbers as well as the military budget.
Further, all this will tend to vary across time. Where French diplomacy has been adept, it has been able to rally around it a coalition of allies, formal and informal, that enhance French power and global diplomatic influence. Further in periods of relative internal turmoil - and fair or not, the French have a reputation for being ungovernable - France's ability to project its power and influence is compromised.
Still, add this all up, and there are other factors, pro and con, not listed here, and France, compared to other nations in the world, retains considerable weight and influence, sufficient to merit its ranking among the great powers. Again, to be sure, not to the degree that it was in 1900 for example, let alone in the early 19th century, but in a world of over 200 countries, France must be ranked among the big powers.
Well I must say that you are always so kind to France's position in the world 🙂 .
we don't have an army but we have a sample army🤣 that is, if we had a high intensity war, we could last a day at most. And our current interventions in other countries of the world we couldn't even do them if the US doesn't help us with their drone or satellite, the US is our eyes. What I have to say for our military is catastrophic lol
When was it not true than ANY European power did not need allies? No nation is fully independent of the other nations of the world.
France was a great power in 1914, but she still needed allies who provided a variety of material and other assets. The British ditto. The Americans ditto.
In the last, absent the UK, even the United States might not have won WWII. Because for all its assets, the USA lacked geographical position and access to raw materials that the UK and its empire were able to provide.
The problem with your argument is that you assume "great power" is abstract perfection rather than, as I noted at the outset of my initial answer, a relative position. For all the things that France cannot do absent American support, think of what Rwanda can't do.
See the point? France's value as a great power is both what it brings to the table on its own and the ways it augments its own power. The fact that other nations want French support being another indicator of France's global status.
To borrow from the old song, "If allies are weak, am I not best alone? If allies are strong, may they not help me out of all I own?"
Suffice to say, France retains its great power status because it can straddle that line and project its power.
Obviously we need allies etc but I mean that the USA for example does not need France to intervene in the world, while we need the USA, without American help we can do nothing. In one of our last missions we had more ammunition and it was the USA that had to give us ammunition.
There is an American think tank who said that France had quality material but too little quantity was available. and that therefore one will be unable to sustain a high intensity war. Of course if you compare to other nations we do better than some of them but it's not glorious either
"There is an American think tank who said that France had quality material but too little quantity was available. and that therefore one will be unable to sustain a high intensity war."
EXACTLY!!!
MOST nations cannot sustain a high intensity war. That is why they are so relatively rare. When Germany tried it in 1914 and again in 1939, bad results followed.
In relative terms, allowing for the aging of the population and other factors, France is about where it was in those periods. Again - and this is key - allowing for demographic and economic changes.
France was unable to defeat Russia in 1812. So it would be unable to do so today. That does not make it less of a great power than what it was then.
Pitting a nation the size of France against a continental sized power with many times the population will always be unequal. Thus, Russia, China and the USA. However, MOST of the nations of the world are NOT the size of Russia, China and the USA, and set against the full panoply of the states of the world, France remains formidable. Indeed, as she even demonstrated in 1812, and as Germany demonstrated in 1914 and 1939, even at that relative disadvantage, France could do a great deal of damage and would not be easily brushed aside.
Your pitch makes sense. But for 1812 it is not the Russian army which defeated us, because the Russians refused the fight to draw us into the Russian depths but militarily speaking each time they tried to make a military resistance they lost.
Not to mention that we had humiliated them at Austerlitz, at Eyleau, and at Friedland it was the greatest shame for Russia because they had their army downright destroyed, which will force Tsar Alexander to sign the Treaty of Tilsit, but my emperor was too kind to the tsar and we should have kept him prisoners.
My point was that being a great power does not mean that you can singlehandedly take on and defeat a rival power. Sometimes you can, sometimes you cannot.
Rather what it means is a country's ability to project its power and influence and the extent of its reach. This France certainly can do - and has done.
Then at the time when France was really powerful, the United States had not yet deployed its full potential, China was not yet "awakening" and Russia was just starting to become a great power.
Economically, what's left of the Rothschild family which was one of the biggest banking institutions in the World for a few centuries. Politically, France has wrestled with the fall out of their North African occupation and continues to wrestle with the problem as their are many Arabs who are French citizens. France had a true revolution. They overthrew a way of life, the aristocracy and was much more of a revolution than the US pissing contest about taxes but they went a bit overboard with blood letting. France was no worse than other colonial powers in Africa but held on too long. Algeria was supporting them during WW II as de Gaulle's bastion but brought a great deal of dishonor on themselves with their behavior in North Africa and Indochina. France gave the US 2 big gifts 1 was the statue of liberty, 2 was the war in Vietnam. ve w/o Germany It hasn't been a big issue for France recently but being the EEC and Europe in general couldn't survive w/o Germany. Culturally and in most artistic fields are probably France's major contribution to the world. The French know how to enjoy life. They insist on 6 weeks vacation year, they probably have the most extensive cradle to grave social system but that is collapsing under the weight of itself.
Yes it's true lol, but the problem with our army is that despite the quality of our industry, we have a sample of armies, we have everything but in small quantities 🤣
Oh are you a former soldier? Yes we have quality armies, but we need more tanks, planes, missiles etc. If there was war we could fight for a day at most 🤣
Because she is Head and shoulders above the rest of us.
We found that our time as a Republic (Commonwealth) was not really that great and advertised for a new monarch.
Having done it once and realised what fuckwits you can get as a ‘President’, we decided to stick to hereditary fuckwits and blame it on genetics rather than - someone actually elected this fuckwit?
Also it works out cheaper over 100 years. For example the queen has had 14 Prime Ministers.
If we had a President, that would likely be 14 Presidents and 14. prime Ministers
I would say so, But what they are powerful at can be hard to determine. They have a strong cultural identity, a high population, a high standard of living, a high gdp, They are very self-sufficient agriculturally.
That being said, it's kind of hard to compare them to the USA or Russia or China which are massive countries with massive militaries and massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
If I had to make a list of the top 10 countries in the world just overall, they're definitely in the top 10. Not the strongest or the richest, but definitely one of the places that people would like to be
Yeah, but anyway it's not a bad thing either. The USA Russia and China all have the problems that come with a massive country. The USA has dozens of different cultures within it that are always clashing. Russia has a bit of a cultural identity problem between the West and the East historically as well as just an unfortunate climate in a lot of it. China has a long history of internal warfare, and the heavily dialected languages in the country can be very difficult for their citizens to navigate, and in the more remote regions they get pretty far behind technologically than others.
France on the other hand has a reasonably small but sufficient land mass to their population, relatively solid culture across their people and after World War II People don't put the same expectations on it that they used to so they have a little more room to breathe in international politics.
Yeah but that's history, The planet has always been a really brutal place until very recently.
I think I actually have to give credit to nuclear weapons for that, now people can't go out in wage war like they used to because there's just no way to win!
I'm an American, we love our American history but it is absolutely soaked with blood. From the first day until today
I know what you mean, but many nations have never been great powers, and in reality they don't look unhappy about that. Our 1500 years of history, and until 1815 my nation sought only power, greatness and domination. But ultimately for what result? deaths, deaths and more deaths. Instead of striving for glory we should have been content to live peacefully
I think most of the nations that have never had a great kingdom are very unhappy about that because it means they most likely have a history of being oppressed by other more powerful nations.
And yeah it would be better if people just wanted to strive for peace and equity but that's just not how people are! It's just part of our old survival instincts that we need to have more than others so that we as individuals or collective groups can survive and thrive. Enough is never enough and I don't know if humans will ever get away from that
They're starting to be again. I was losing faith in the once gutsy France. but Macron is finally starting to go after the Muslims and Snowflakes.
And I recently read that a bunch of Leftist Arabs did a sit in at a university and blocked students from getting to class for their exams, and the Dean got pissed and send 3 students in there with wooden planks and baseball bats. And when they were finished with the beating, the dean and other professors were cheering. And the highest punishment recieved was only 1 year of house arrest.
I was like YESSSSSSSS! THAT'S the France I once loved.
Military? Yeah, not the most powerful but up their. Economically? Eh, I don't know enough to say precisely but from what I hear they are having some serious issues (from what I can tell due to Macron mostly). Politically? Again, I can't really say, but I would hazard a guess that yeah, maybe not in the top three but again, they are up their.
Absolutely not. it's a middling power, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But being in the EU and under German domination isn't compatible with being a great power.
Yes but not for much longer. France has a racial time bomb that will inevitably shift the country to a third world status, similar to what happened in South Africa.
Yes of course. What I say counts for multiple countries. It's much worse in England and America for example. With the difference being that there is still much living space in America while England is an island where they destroy more and more of their environment to house thee never ending waves of people from all over the planet flowing in.
Militarily speaking, France is also doing fine. And the reason why France ranks so high is because a lot of diplomatic institutions are centered in France, France has some of the most wide diplomatic and cultural ties, France has a lot of direct economic power over many African nations
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