ABSTRACT
France is one of the most widely discussed and most frequently visited countries in the world. Its study has long been a matter of particular interest to students of comparative politics. It is one of the major democracies, and its institutional system has served a number of European countries as a model. Like the United States, France has a written constitution that commits it to basic liberties, the separation of state and religion, and competitive elections based on universal suffrage. Like Germany, France has had an uneven political development, facing challenges by antidemocratic forces; like Great Britain, it is a unitary country, but with increasing cognizance of regional and local variations; and like most continental democracies, it has a multiparty system. Finally, as a host to many immigrants, it is, like other Western democracies, beset by collective self-doubts about its national identity.
