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In war or peace, France's commitment to Europe

France has gifted several great statesmen to Europe, from Charlemagne to Robert Schuman

18th century engraving of Charlemagne's Empire in 814. (B. STEFANO/LEEMAGE/AFP)

In the run-up to the European Parliamentary elections (May 23-26), we present another in La Croix's series on the member states and their contribution to the development of the Old Continent.

With the Iberian and Italian peninsulas to the south and the Germanic-speaking regions to the north and east, France occupies a special geographic position in Europe.

It is one of "The Six" founder states of what is now the European Union as a signatory to the 1951 treaty that established the European Community of Coal and Steel. In 1957, it signed the Treaty of Rome that created the European Economic Community.

With 67.1 million people, France has the second largest population in Europe behind Germany.

Romanized by Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars then Christianized through the baptism of Clovis in 496, it has an eminently European history.

This is true even though its influence extends beyond the continent into the Mediterranean and the whole French-speaking world as well via the universal impact of the 1789 Declaration of Rights of Man and the Citizen.

France has given Europe two emperors. The first was Charlemagne (742-814), whose Carolingian Empire continued its extension to the Kingdom of the Francs under Clovis, who died in 511.

Although the latter made Paris his capital, the former opted for the city of Aachen, which is now located in Germany.

Next came Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), whose First Empire achieved its apogee in 1812, encompassing 130 departments, including Belgium, the Netherlands, part of Italy and Spain. It also exercised guardianship over the rest of Spain and Italy as well as over parts of Germany and Poland.

France has also waged war many times with two of its European neighbors.

On one side, it fought England on both land and sea. Yet, the Hundred Years War also gave France Joan of Arc, the woman recognized (after Mary) as "the second patron and the first daughter of the Roman Church."

On the other side, it battled Germany in a series of conflicts over the Alsace and Moselle regions, resulting in the Franco-German war of 1870-71, which led to the fall of the Second Empire. These were followed by the First World War (1914-18) and the Second World War (1939-45).

Out of the bloodshed of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, there developed the 19th century concept of an association of nations in order to preserve the peace. In an 1851 speech to the National Legislative Assembly, for example, Victor Hugo proposed the creation of a "United States of Europe."

In the wake of the two world wars, the idea developed at international level, leading initially to the creation of the League of Nations. This was followed by the foundation of United Nations as well as the European Community of Coal and Steel and the current European Union.

Robert Schuman's declaration at the Quai d'Orsai, the seat of France's Foreign Ministry on May 9, 1950 is regarded as the founding act of the latter.

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