Humans have inhabited France for around 90,000 years. The Celtic Gauls arrived between 1500 and 500 BC; after several centuries of conflict with Rome, Gauls lost the territory to Julius Caesar in 52 BC, and by the second century AD the country had been partly christianised. In the 5th century the Franks (thus 'France') and other Germanic groups overran the country.

The Middle ages were marked by a succession of power struggles against warring Frankish dynasties. During this period France was also embroiled in the Crusades, a holy war instigated by the Church against non-Christians.

France fought against England in the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453), which featured 17-year-old firebrand Jeanne d'Arc.

Religious and political persecution continued to threaten France's stability during the 16th century culminating the the Wars of Religion (1562-98). By the early 17th century the country was held in thrall by Cardinal Richelieu, who established an absolute monarchy and increased French power in Europe.

King Louis XIV ascended to the throne in 1643 aged five and ruled until 1715. Throughout his reign he hounded Protestants, quashed the feuding aristocracy and created the first centralised French state. As the 18th century progressed the old order became dangerously out of sync with the rest of the country. France's involvement with the Seven Years' War (1756-63) and the American War of Independence (1776-83) was financially ruinous for the country, and the latter provided ammunition for opponents for French absolution.

The First Republic of France was set up in 1792 following a revolution in 1789 in response to the king trying to neutralise the power of reform-minded economists. Ultimately the revolution turned on it's own, and many of it's leaders were guillotined.

Buoyed by a series of military victories abroad, mercurial Napoleon Bonapart assumed domestic power in 1799. sparking a series of wars in which France came to control most of Europe. Bonapart was to suffer disastrous consequences in a campaign against Russia in 1812. He was then banished to a small Mediterranean Island of Elba. He escaped and was reinstalled as Emperor for just 100 days before he was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo by the English. The English exiled him to the remote South African Island of Saint Helena, where he died in 1821. Before he died Napoleon established the Napoleonic Code, which still forms the basis of the French legal system.

During the 19th century France was characterised by inept government, quixotic wars and the founding of the Third Republic (1870). The importance of the army and church was reduced.

France's involvement in WWI came at high cost: over a million troops were killed and large parts of the country were devastated. The country didn't fare much better in WWII, when in capitulated to Germany and the lackey Vichy government was put in place. General Charles de Gaulle, France's under-secretary of war, set up a government-in-exile and underground resistance in London. France was liberated by Allied forces in mid-1944.

De Gaulle returned to Paris and setup a provisional government, but resigned as president in 1946. De Gaulle returned to power once more in 1958 and negotiated an end to the war in Algeria four years later, in the meantime, almost all the other French colonies in Africa had achieved independence.

De Gaulle resigned as president in 1969 following protests from students and striking workers that almost brought the country to a standstill. François Mitterand was France's president from 1981 to 1995, when he was succeeded by Jacques Chirac who defeated the demoralised socialists and Jean-Marie Le Pen's anti-immigrant Front National (FN).

Chirac strongly endorsed the European Union (EU), which raised his popularity, but his decision to conduct nuclear tests on the Polynesian island of Mururoa towards the end of 1995 was met with a local and international outcry.