This is the same question except the original author of this question is asking the question for the USA. I answered it that if the USA no longer exists it would make me sad of course you can see the details of my answer by clicking on the link of the original question.
I feel exactly the same for the UK, if such a thing were to happen to them it would be a tragedy.
But for France what is your opinion?
Do you think it would be a good thing if France disappeared as a nation?
The question is a bit too vague to answer. If France "disappeared"?
"Disappeared" in what sense? Wiped out in a nuclear exchange? Subsumed in a European Union transformed into a "United States of Europe?" (In which case, the "disappearance" will have been presumably a voluntary affair.) Simply there, but no longer of global account.
The answer matters a lot, and presumably the question - parallel to the inquirer's question about the United States - means "declined" and not "disappeared." This answer being also complicated in that France does indeed remain an important global power but she has certainly declined from where she was, say, in 1900 or 1800.
That all said, it would NOT be a good thing if France disappeared or even declined further. While France has, from the Anglo-American perspective, sometimes been the "problem child" (that was a joke) of the Western world. It has, on the whole, been culturally a force for good and in geopolitical terms an important power.
In terms of international culture, France has spread many Enlightenment ideals. To be sure, not all of those ideals are desirable. (French revolutionary ideals tended to be too complacent about man's underlying nature and far too careless about the value of tradition.) However, on balance - and this is a matter of weighing the goods and the bads - French culture has been a force for human liberty and greatness.
In the more immediate geopolitical sense, France has generally been a benefit to the West. Certainly in the world wars and the Cold War. Also, in terms of the current European seen, France has remained a counterweight to German influence in the European Union. This, interestingly, keeping Europe more tied to the West as Germany has tended to seek economic relations with Russia and China even as its' security interests remain generally, though not always, tied to the USA and the UK.
Further, France has given the West an access point into key areas of the Third World. The French have maintained diplomatic and economic influence in a number of their former colonies - much like the UK, albeit without an institutional mechanism like Britain has in the Commonwealth.
To be sure, this ebbs and flows. For example, French influence in Syria is fairly minimal at this point. Though interestingly, in the welter that is Lebanon, France has sometimes been - at least culturally - a stabilizing influence.
In that connection, there is no doubt that France is now being challenged by China - and to a lesser extent Russia - in its France's former colonies. However, on the whole, France affords a key access point to a number of these former colonies - now countries often with strategic positions or raw materials - and this is helpful, if not always decisively so, to the West.
Finally, France remains a major economic and military power. In economic terms, she is the 6th largest power on a planet of 200 countries. This is no small thing and France's value as a trading partner, in Europe but not only in Europe, should not be underestimated. Take France out of the picture, and the global economy shrinks - dramatically and likely quite painfully.
In strategic terms, to be sure, France is not where it was under Louis XIV, Napoleon or in the era before World War I. The empire is largely gone, though a few key "overseas departments" remain and are not to be lightly disregarded. They may prove valuable bases in a crisis.
However, France's armed forces lack the numbers, in part because France's population is aging as tends to happen in industrialized economies. However, in terms of equipment, training, technological sophistication, strategic and tactical flexibility, and of course a thermonuclear weapons arsenal, the French armed forces are among the best in the world. These are not to be easily dismissed.
Put it all together and if France "disappeared," it would be greatly missed. Especially among its Western allies whom it, to be sure, sometimes tended to irritate in the past. There are no unmixed blessings in international affairs, and on balance France is an important and valuable asset.
Well, the possibilities you mentioned are all possible. Disappearance because of a nuclear war etc..
But yeah it would be better to talk about decline. This is the most likely scenario given that even the IMF has predicted that France by 2050, that is to say tomorrow, will have an economy that will rank it 10th or 11th in the world, which means that it will not get better in the years after 2050.
But I believe that anyway it will not change much for the world even if France would decline to such a point that it would become insignificant. After all other nations will replace it and will compensate largely and certainly better the weight of France.
Of course as a French person it will make me sad lol but on a global level it would not be a good or bad thing it will be quite insignificant I think.
Whereas for example the decline of the US in the world would lead to an indescribable chaos in the world.
Well, actually, Russia currently has the 11th largest economy in the world and you would hardly say that it no longer matters. Suffice to say, much will depend on how France takes advantage of its assets and maximizes them to the fullest extent.
Please note, France is one of the most nationalistic and patriotic states in Western Europe, yet it joined the EEC - today the European Union - and pushed to abolish the franc in favor of the euro. At one level, this seems like an indicator of decline.
Yet, in fact, in a way, it was shrewd strategy. The idea was to harness German - and more generally European - wealth to the service of French national interests and military power. In effect, Germany is paying for French power and influence.
Of course, Germany has its own goals and so the strategy is not without tension. (See also France and Germany's somewhat divergent responses to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.) However, on the whole, France has magnified its power through the mechanism of the EU.
Yes, in the fullness of time, all things built by humans - their nation-states included - decline and fall. Yes, in time, other states and empires rise to replace those that have declined. (The international arena, like nature, abhors a vacuum.) However, for the foreseeable future, France is likely to remain a not insignificant force in the global arena.
Fall to what though? British Empire “fell” and the UK is still around, they didn’t stop existing.
Unfortunately, globalization necessitates that we must equalize with other nations if their standards are to rise. The battle here is trying to not compromise our standards while raising others up. And because developed nations got there first, it’s on developing nations to do what the fuck they’re told and depopulate so the earth can sustain higher qualities of life. If they have a problem with that, developed nations can cut them the fuck off like before and they’ll be back to being on their own, which won’t happen.
As much as some French leaders have frustrated me, from the Gaullists on the Right who just won't play with the Western Team, to the Leftists, who are, well, Leftist, I would be saddened if France fell apart. Their cultural and intellectual history is to be respected, even where it went "off the rails", which was sadly all too often.
nightdrot beat me to it, just read his response: "(French revolutionary ideals tended to be too complacent about man's underlying nature and far too careless about the value of tradition.)"
But anyway, while Jean Paul Sartre was a horrid Communist apologist, Albert Camus was awesome and great. You take the bad with the good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAQoTlgT8_Q
And back in Cold Way days, DeGaulle just would not play with the team, so to speak.
We had several discussions with nightdrot about the French revolution, I do not disagree completely but I look especially at the objective of the French revolutionaries at the geopolitical level.
De Gaulle has always supported the Western camp.
The problem is that you summarize the history of France of 15 centuries to specific moments while it is necessary to look at things in their globality.
No. I’d be gutted. I have a great love for France. I very much hope to return some day. I doubt that I’ll ever have the money to do so, and I’ll never really be able to explore Paris or experience France in the manner it deserves. It makes me quite sad, knowing that there is so much of the world and it’s people that I shall never witness.
Not a whole people, for example Rome disappeared as a political entity but the people who composed it remained.
For example the Romans who went to live in Gaul, at the fall of the empire these inhabitants remained in Gaul, thereafter this people composed of "Gallo-Romans" will be dominated by the Frankish people who will give birth to France. But Rome does not exist any more, a similar thing is possible lol
The land mass will still be there; and it still will be populated. As France culturally has more to offer than the U. S., the consequences will be affecting me a lot more.
If France disappeared? In reality no because it would mean that France owns a whole continent which is obviously not the case, moreover even today Russia and China have actually replaced France. The nature has horror of the vacuum.
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