Country profile: France Country profile: France A key player on
the world stage and a country at the political heart of Europe,
France paid a high price in both economic and human terms during
the two world wars. The years which followed saw protracted
conflicts culminating in independence for Algeria and most other
French colonies in Africa as well as decolonisation in south-
east Asia. France was one of the founding fathers of European
integration as the continent sought to rebuild after the
devastation of World War II. In the 1990s Franco-German
cooperation was central to European economic integration. The
bond between the two countries was again to the fore in the new
millennium when their leaders voiced strong opposition as the
US-led campaign in Iraq began. But France sent shockwaves
through European Union capitals when its voters rejected the
proposed EU constitution in a referendum in May 2005. France’s
colonial past is a major contributing factor in the presence of
a richly diverse multicultural popul