The culture of France has profoundly influenced that of the entire Western world, particularly in the areas of art and letters, and Paris has long been regarded as the fountainhead of French culture.

France first attained cultural preeminence in Europe during the Middle Ages; later, the wealth of the French crown in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries provided a subsidization of art on a scale comparable to that of the papacy in Rome, attracting to Paris many of Europe's most talented artists and artisans.

Wealth also created a leisure class, which had both the time and the means for developing elegance in dress, manners, furnishings, and architecture. French styles still pervade much of Western culture.

Archeological remains indicate that humans have lived in what is now France for at least 100,000 years. From about 50,000 to 8000 BC, Paleolithic cultures lived in the area, leaving extraordinary paintings on cave walls.

The famous caves at Lascaux and elsewhere in southwest France date from this period. Neolithic cultures that populated France from 4000 to 2000 BC left behind thousands of stone monuments; the coastal regions of Brittany are especially rich in these prehistoric remains.

More sophisticated cultures began to develop by about 2000 BC, and by about 800 BC a semi-agricultural Iron Age culture was dominant in much of France. After this, the Celts began to dominate; between 500 BC and AD 500 they migrated from central Europe to form most of the population of central and western France.

France was one of the founding fathers of European integration as the continent sought to rebuild after the devastation of World War II.

In the 1990s Franco-German cooperation was central to European economic integration. The bond between the two countries was again to the fore in the new millennium when their leaders voiced strong opposition as the US-led campaign in Iraq began.

But France sent shockwaves through European Union capitals when its voters rejected the proposed EU constitution in a referendum in May 2005.

France's colonial past is a major contributing factor in the presence of a richly diverse multicultural population. It is home to more than five million people of Arab and African descent.

It has a number of territories overseas which, together with mainland France and Corsica, go to make up the 26 regions which the country comprises. It is further divided into 100 departements, four of which - French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Reunion - are geographically distant from Europe.

Government in France is known for its high degree of centralisation but in March 2003 parliament approved amendments to the constitution allowing for the devolution of quite wide-ranging powers to the regions and departements.

In the light of low election turnout, the move was widely seen as a bid to re-engage in the political process French people disillusioned by the ubiquitous influence of what is often perceived as the Paris elite.

France has produced some of the continent's most influential writers and thinkers from Descartes and Pascal in the 17th century, through Rousseau and Voltaire in the 18th, Baudelaire and Flaubert in the 19th to Sartre and Camus in the 20th.

In the last two centuries it has given the art world the works of Renoir, Monet, Cezanne, Gauguin, Matisse and Braque, to name but a few.

It is also famous for its strong culinary tradition. France produces more than 250 cheeses and some of the world's best-loved wines.