- published: 14 Aug 2013
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France (English i/ˈfræns/ FRANSS or /ˈfrɑːns/ FRAHNSS; French: [fʁɑ̃s] (
listen)), officially the French Republic (French: République française [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is often referred to as l’Hexagone ("The Hexagon") because of the geometric shape of its territory. It is the largest western European country and it possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone in the world, covering 11,035,000 km2 (4,260,000 sq mi), just behind that of the United States (11,351,000 km2 / 4,383,000 sq mi).
Over the past 500 years, France has been a major power with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and around the world. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonised great parts of North America and Southeast Asia; during the 19th and early 20th centuries, France built the second largest colonial empire of the time, including large portions of North, West and Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and many Caribbean and Pacific Islands.
Philip V (French: Philippe le Long; 1292 – 3 January 1322), the Tall, was King of France and, as Philip II, King of Navarre and Count of Champagne. He reigned from 1316 to his death and was the penultimate monarch of the House of Capet. Considered a wise and politically astute ruler, Philip took the throne under questionable circumstances, but he became a "strong and popular" king over the course of his reign. Notable as a prominent figure in the late crusading movement, Philip died while embroiled in the administrative reform of southern France.
Philip was born in Lyon, the second son of King Philip IV of France and Queen Joan I of Navarre, assuming the title of the Count of Poitou. Modern historians have described Philip V as a man of "considerable intelligence and sensitivity", and the "wisest and politically most apt" of Philip IV's three sons. Philip was influenced both by the troubles and unrest that his father had encountered during 1314, and the difficulties that his older brother – Louis X, known as "the Quarreler" had faced during the intervening few years. At the heart of both Philip IV and Louis X's problems were taxes, and the difficulty in raising them outside of crises.
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