France
General information
France, the largest country in Western Europe, lies between three big countries - Spain, Germany and Italy. France has 5,500 kilometres of shoreline and its diverse environment attracts visitors who enjoy leisure activities all year round. The French Revolution made France, once a grand monarchy, a republic. Since then republican and imperial forms of government followed one after another until the Fifth Republic and the French Community came into being in 1958. Over the last 20 years urban development and technological progress have changed French people's everyday life profoundly.