France uses a civil legal system;[62] that is, law arises primarily from written statutes; judges are not to make law, but merely to interpret it (though the amount of judicial interpretation in certain areas makes it equivalent to case law). Basic principles of the rule of law were laid in the Napoleonic Code (which was, in turn, largely based on the royal law codified under Louis XIV). In agreement with the principles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen law should only prohibit actions detrimental to society. As Guy Canivet, first president of the Court of Cassation, wrote about the management of prisons: Freedom is the rule, and its restriction is the exception; any restriction of Freedom must be provided for by Law and must follow the principles of necessity and proportionality. That is, Law should lay out prohibitions only if they are needed, and if the inconveniences caused by this restriction do not exceed the inconveniences that the prohibition is supposed to remedy.
The basic principles that the French Republic must respect are found in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
rench law is divided into two principal areas: private law and public law. Private law includes, in particular, civil law and criminal law. Public law includes, in particular, administrative law and constitutional law. However, in practical terms, French law comprises three principal areas of law: civil law, criminal law and administrative law. Criminal laws can only address the future and not the past (criminal ex post facto laws are prohibited). While administrative law is often a subcategory of civil law in many countries, it is completely separated in France and each body of law is headed by a specific supreme court: ordinary courts (which handle criminal and civil litigation) are headed by the Court of Cassation and administrative courts are headed by the Council of State.
To be applicable, every law must be officially published in the Journal Officiel de la République Française.
France does not recognize religious law, nor does it recognize religious beliefs or morality as a motivation for the enactment of prohibitions. As a consequence, France has long had neither blasphemy laws nor sodomy laws (the latter being abolished in 1791). However, "offenses against public decency" (contraires aux bonnes mœurs) or disturbing public order (trouble à l'ordre public) have been used to repress public expressions of homosexuality or street prostitution. With such emphasis on public order, laws sentencing racism, sexism or antisemitism are also old and important. For instance, laws prohibiting discriminatory speech in the press are as old as 1881.[99] Some consider however that hate speech laws in France are too broad or severe and damage freedom of speech.
France's attitude towards freedom of religion is complex. Freedom of religion is guaranteed by the constitutional rights set forth in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. However, since the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State, the State tries to prevent its policy-making from being influenced by religion and became suspicious in recent decades towards new religious tendencies of the French society: the Parliament has listed many religious movements as dangerous cults since 1995, and has banned wearing conspicuous religious symbols in schools since 2004. In 2010, it banned the wearing of face-covering Islamic veils in public. As some have complained that they have suffered from discrimination thus, and after criticism by human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch,[100][101] these laws remain controversial, although they are supported by most of the population.[102]
France is tolerant of the LGBT community. Since 1999, civil unions for homosexual couples are permitted, and since May 2013, same-sex marriage and LGBT adoption are legal in France.
France is a member of the United Nations and serves as one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council with veto rights.[104] It is also a member of the G8, World Trade Organization (WTO),[105] the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC)[106] and the Indian Ocean Commission (COI).[107] It is an associate member of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS)[108] and a leading member of the International Francophone Organisation (OIF) of fifty-one fully or partly French-speaking countries.[109]
French President François Mitterrand and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, in 1987.
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and United States President Barack Obama, before NATO summit, in Strasbourg, on 3 April 2009
France hosts the headquarters of the OECD,[110] UNESCO,[111] Interpol,[112] Alliance Base[113] and the International Bureau for Weights and Measures.[114] France has the second largest network of diplomatic missions in the world, second only to the USA.[115] In 1953, France received a request from the United Nations to pick a coat of arms that would represent it internationally. Thus the French emblem was adopted and is currently used on passports.[116]
Postwar French foreign policy has been largely shaped by membership of the European Union, of which it was a founding member. Since the 1960s, France has developed close ties with reunified Germany to become the most influential driving force of the EU.[117] In the 1960s, France sought to exclude the British from the European unification process,[118] seeking to build its own standing in continental Europe. However since 1904, France has maintained an "Entente cordiale" with the United Kingdom, and there has been a strengthening of links between the countries, especially on a military level.
France is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), but under President de Gaulle, it excluded itself from the joint military command to protest the special relationship between the United States and Britain and to preserve the independence of French foreign and security policies.[119] France vigorously opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq,[120][121] straining bilateral relations with the US[122][123] and the UK.[124] However, as a result of Nicolas Sarkozy's (much criticised in France by the leftists and by a part of the right)[125][126] pro-American politics, France rejoined the NATO joint military command on 4 April 2009.
In the early 1990s, the country drew considerable criticism from other nations for its underground nuclear tests in French Polynesia.[127]
France retains strong political and economic influence in its former African colonies (Françafrique)[128] and has supplied economic aid and troops for peace-keeping missions in Côte d'Ivoire and Chad.[129] Recently, after the unilateral declaration of independence of northern Mali by the Tuareg MNLA and the subsequent regional conflict with several Islamist groups including Ansar Dine and MOJWA, France and other African states intervened to help the Malian Army to retake control.
In 2009, France was the second largest (in absolute numbers) donor of development aid in the world, behind the US, and ahead of Germany, Japan and the UK.[130] This represents 0.5% of its GDP, in this regard rating France as tenth largest donor on the list.[131] The organisation managing the French help is the French Development Agency, which finances primarily humanitarian projects in sub-Saharan Africa.[132] The main goals of this help are "developing infrastructure, access to health care and education, the implementation of appropriate economic policies and the consolidation of the rule of law and democracy.
The French Armed Forces (Armées françaises) are the military and paramilitary forces of France, under the president as supreme commander. They consist of the French Army (Armée de Terre), French Navy (Marine Nationale), the French Air Force (Armée de l'Air) and the auxiliary paramilitary force, the National Gendarmerie (Gendarmerie nationale) and are among the largest armed forces in the world. While administratively a part of the French armed forces, and therefore under the purview of the Ministry of Defence, the Gendarmerie is operationally attached to the Ministry of the Interior.[citation needed]
The gendarmerie is a military police force which serves for the most part as a rural and general purpose police force. It encompasses the counter terrorist units of the Parachute Intervention Squadron of the National Gendarmerie (Escadron Parachutiste d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale) and the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale). One of the French intelligence units, the Directorate-General for External Security (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure) reports to the Ministry of Defence. The other, the Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence (Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur), reports directly to the Ministry of the Interior. There has been no national conscription since 1997.[133]
France is a permanent member of the Security Council of the UN, and a recognised nuclear state since 1960. France has signed and ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT)[134] and acceeded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. France's annual military expenditure in 2011 was US$62.5 billion, or 2.3% of its GDP making it the fifth biggest military spender in the world after the United States, China, Russia and the United Kingdom.[14]
French nuclear deterrence, (formerly known as “Force de Frappe”), relies on complete independence. The current French nuclear force consists of four Triomphant class submarines equipped with submarine-launched ballistic missiles. In addition to the submarine fleet, it is estimated that France has about 60 ASMP medium-range air-to-ground missiles with nuclear warheads,[135] of which around 50 are deployed by the Air Force using the Mirage 2000N long-range nuclear strike aircraft, while around 10 are deployed by the French Navy's Super Étendard Modernisé (SEM) attack aircraft which operate from the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle. The new Rafale F3 aircraft will gradually replace all Mirage 2000N and SEM in the nuclear strike role with the improved ASMP-A missile with a nuclear warhead.
France has major military industries with one of the largest aerospace industries in the world.[136][137] Its industries have produced such equipment as the Rafale fighter, the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, the Exocet missile and the Leclerc tank amongst others. Despite withdrawing from the Eurofighter project, France is actively investing in European joint projects such as the Eurocopter Tiger, multipurpose frigates, the UCAV demonstrator nEUROn and the Airbus A400M. France is a major arms seller,[138][139] with most of its arsenal's designs available for the export market with the notable exception of nuclear-powered devices.
The military parade held in Paris each 14 July for France's national day is the oldest and largest regular military parade in Europe
In April and May 2012, France held a presidential election in which the winner François Hollande had opposed austerity measures, promising to eliminate France's budget deficit by 2017. The new government stated that it aimed to cancel recently enacted tax cuts and exemptions for the wealthy, raising the top tax bracket rate to 75% on incomes over a million euros, restoring the retirement age to 60 with a full pension for those who have worked 42 years, restoring 60,000 jobs recently cut from public education, regulating rent increases; and building additional public housing for the poor.
In June, Hollande's Socialist Party won a supermajority in legislative elections capable of amending the French Constitution and enabling the immediate enactment of the promised reforms. French government bond interest rates fell 30% to record lows,[141] less than 50 basis points above German government bond rates.[142]
French government debt
The French government has run a budget deficit each year since the early 1970s. In mid-2012, French government debt levels reached 1.833 billion euros.[143] This debt level was the equivalent of 91% of French GDP.[143]
Under European Union rules, member states are supposed to limit their debt to 60 percent of output or be reducing the ratio structurally towards this ceiling, and run public deficits of no more than 3.0 percent of GDP.[143]
In late 2012, credit rating agencies warned that growing French government debt levels risked France's AAA credit rating, raising the possibility of a future credit downgrade and subsequent higher borrowing costs for the French government
A member of the G8 group of leading industrialised countries, it is ranked as the world's fifth largest and Europe's second largest economy by nominal GDP;[145] with 39 of the 500 biggest companies of the world in 2010, France ranks world's 4th and Europe's 1st in the Fortune Global 500 ahead of Germany and the UK. France joined 11 other EU members to launch the euro on 1 January 1999, with euro coins and banknotes completely replacing the French franc (?) in early 2002.[146]
France derives 79% of its electricity from nuclear power, the highest percentage in the world.[147]
France has a mixed economy which combines extensive private enterprise (nearly 2.5 million companies registered)[148][149] with substantial (though declining[150]) state enterprise and government intervention (see dirigisme). The government retains considerable influence over key segments of infrastructure sectors, with majority ownership of railway, electricity, aircraft, nuclear power and telecommunications.[150] It has been gradually relaxing its control over these sectors since the early 1990s.[150]
France is part of a monetary union, the Eurozone (dark blue), and of the EU single market.
The government is slowly corporatising the state sector and selling off holdings in France Télécom, Air France, as well as the insurance, banking, and defence industries.[150] France has an important aerospace industry led by the European consortium Airbus, and has its own national spaceport, the Centre Spatial Guyanais.
According to the World Trade Organization (WTO), in 2009 France was the world's sixth-largest exporter and the fourth-largest importer of manufactured goods.[151] In 2008, France was the third-largest recipient of foreign direct investment among OECD countries at $117.9 billion, ranking behind Luxembourg (where foreign direct investment was essentially monetary transfers to banks located in that country) and the United States ($316.1 billion), but above the United Kingdom ($96.9 billion), Germany ($24.9 billion), or Japan ($24.4 billion).[152][153]
In the same year, French companies invested $220 billion outside of France, ranking France as the second most important outward direct investor in the OECD, behind the United States ($311.8 billion), and ahead of the United Kingdom ($111.4 billion), Japan ($128 billion) and Germany ($156.5 billion).[152][153] With 39 of the 500 biggest companies of the world in 2010, France ranks 4th in the Fortune Global 500, behind the USA, Japan and China, but ahead of Germany and the UK.[154]
Financial services, banking and the insurance sector are an important part of France's economy. The Paris stock exchange market (French: La Bourse de Paris) is an ancient institution, as it was created by Louis XV in 1724.[155] In 2000, the stock exchanges of Paris, Amsterdam and Bruxelles merged into Euronext.[156] In 2007, Euronext merged with the New York stock exchange to form NYSE Euronext, the world's largest stock exchange.[156] Euronext Paris, the French branch of the NYSE Euronext group is Europe's second largest stock exchange market, behind the London Stock Exchange.
French companies have maintained key positions in the Insurance and Banking industries: AXA is the world's largest insurance company, and is ranked by Fortune the ninth richest corporation by revenues. The leading French banks are BNP Paribas and the Crédit Agricole, ranking as the world's 1st and 6th largest banks in 2010[157] (determined by the amount of assets), while the Société Générale group was ranked the world's eight largest in 2008–2009.
France is the smallest emitter of carbon dioxide among the seven most industrialized countries in the world, due to its heavy investment in nuclear power.[158] As a result of large investments in nuclear technology, most of the electricity produced in the country is generated by 59 nuclear power plants (78% in 2006,[159] up from only 8% in 1973, 24% in 1980, and 75% in 1990). In this context, renewable energies (see the power cooperative Enercoop) are having difficulties taking off the ground
The basic principles that the French Republic must respect are found in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
rench law is divided into two principal areas: private law and public law. Private law includes, in particular, civil law and criminal law. Public law includes, in particular, administrative law and constitutional law. However, in practical terms, French law comprises three principal areas of law: civil law, criminal law and administrative law. Criminal laws can only address the future and not the past (criminal ex post facto laws are prohibited). While administrative law is often a subcategory of civil law in many countries, it is completely separated in France and each body of law is headed by a specific supreme court: ordinary courts (which handle criminal and civil litigation) are headed by the Court of Cassation and administrative courts are headed by the Council of State.
To be applicable, every law must be officially published in the Journal Officiel de la République Française.
France does not recognize religious law, nor does it recognize religious beliefs or morality as a motivation for the enactment of prohibitions. As a consequence, France has long had neither blasphemy laws nor sodomy laws (the latter being abolished in 1791). However, "offenses against public decency" (contraires aux bonnes mœurs) or disturbing public order (trouble à l'ordre public) have been used to repress public expressions of homosexuality or street prostitution. With such emphasis on public order, laws sentencing racism, sexism or antisemitism are also old and important. For instance, laws prohibiting discriminatory speech in the press are as old as 1881.[99] Some consider however that hate speech laws in France are too broad or severe and damage freedom of speech.
France's attitude towards freedom of religion is complex. Freedom of religion is guaranteed by the constitutional rights set forth in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. However, since the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State, the State tries to prevent its policy-making from being influenced by religion and became suspicious in recent decades towards new religious tendencies of the French society: the Parliament has listed many religious movements as dangerous cults since 1995, and has banned wearing conspicuous religious symbols in schools since 2004. In 2010, it banned the wearing of face-covering Islamic veils in public. As some have complained that they have suffered from discrimination thus, and after criticism by human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch,[100][101] these laws remain controversial, although they are supported by most of the population.[102]
France is tolerant of the LGBT community. Since 1999, civil unions for homosexual couples are permitted, and since May 2013, same-sex marriage and LGBT adoption are legal in France.
France is a member of the United Nations and serves as one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council with veto rights.[104] It is also a member of the G8, World Trade Organization (WTO),[105] the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC)[106] and the Indian Ocean Commission (COI).[107] It is an associate member of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS)[108] and a leading member of the International Francophone Organisation (OIF) of fifty-one fully or partly French-speaking countries.[109]
French President François Mitterrand and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, in 1987.
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and United States President Barack Obama, before NATO summit, in Strasbourg, on 3 April 2009
France hosts the headquarters of the OECD,[110] UNESCO,[111] Interpol,[112] Alliance Base[113] and the International Bureau for Weights and Measures.[114] France has the second largest network of diplomatic missions in the world, second only to the USA.[115] In 1953, France received a request from the United Nations to pick a coat of arms that would represent it internationally. Thus the French emblem was adopted and is currently used on passports.[116]
Postwar French foreign policy has been largely shaped by membership of the European Union, of which it was a founding member. Since the 1960s, France has developed close ties with reunified Germany to become the most influential driving force of the EU.[117] In the 1960s, France sought to exclude the British from the European unification process,[118] seeking to build its own standing in continental Europe. However since 1904, France has maintained an "Entente cordiale" with the United Kingdom, and there has been a strengthening of links between the countries, especially on a military level.
France is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), but under President de Gaulle, it excluded itself from the joint military command to protest the special relationship between the United States and Britain and to preserve the independence of French foreign and security policies.[119] France vigorously opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq,[120][121] straining bilateral relations with the US[122][123] and the UK.[124] However, as a result of Nicolas Sarkozy's (much criticised in France by the leftists and by a part of the right)[125][126] pro-American politics, France rejoined the NATO joint military command on 4 April 2009.
In the early 1990s, the country drew considerable criticism from other nations for its underground nuclear tests in French Polynesia.[127]
France retains strong political and economic influence in its former African colonies (Françafrique)[128] and has supplied economic aid and troops for peace-keeping missions in Côte d'Ivoire and Chad.[129] Recently, after the unilateral declaration of independence of northern Mali by the Tuareg MNLA and the subsequent regional conflict with several Islamist groups including Ansar Dine and MOJWA, France and other African states intervened to help the Malian Army to retake control.
In 2009, France was the second largest (in absolute numbers) donor of development aid in the world, behind the US, and ahead of Germany, Japan and the UK.[130] This represents 0.5% of its GDP, in this regard rating France as tenth largest donor on the list.[131] The organisation managing the French help is the French Development Agency, which finances primarily humanitarian projects in sub-Saharan Africa.[132] The main goals of this help are "developing infrastructure, access to health care and education, the implementation of appropriate economic policies and the consolidation of the rule of law and democracy.
The French Armed Forces (Armées françaises) are the military and paramilitary forces of France, under the president as supreme commander. They consist of the French Army (Armée de Terre), French Navy (Marine Nationale), the French Air Force (Armée de l'Air) and the auxiliary paramilitary force, the National Gendarmerie (Gendarmerie nationale) and are among the largest armed forces in the world. While administratively a part of the French armed forces, and therefore under the purview of the Ministry of Defence, the Gendarmerie is operationally attached to the Ministry of the Interior.[citation needed]
The gendarmerie is a military police force which serves for the most part as a rural and general purpose police force. It encompasses the counter terrorist units of the Parachute Intervention Squadron of the National Gendarmerie (Escadron Parachutiste d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale) and the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale). One of the French intelligence units, the Directorate-General for External Security (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure) reports to the Ministry of Defence. The other, the Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence (Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur), reports directly to the Ministry of the Interior. There has been no national conscription since 1997.[133]
France is a permanent member of the Security Council of the UN, and a recognised nuclear state since 1960. France has signed and ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT)[134] and acceeded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. France's annual military expenditure in 2011 was US$62.5 billion, or 2.3% of its GDP making it the fifth biggest military spender in the world after the United States, China, Russia and the United Kingdom.[14]
French nuclear deterrence, (formerly known as “Force de Frappe”), relies on complete independence. The current French nuclear force consists of four Triomphant class submarines equipped with submarine-launched ballistic missiles. In addition to the submarine fleet, it is estimated that France has about 60 ASMP medium-range air-to-ground missiles with nuclear warheads,[135] of which around 50 are deployed by the Air Force using the Mirage 2000N long-range nuclear strike aircraft, while around 10 are deployed by the French Navy's Super Étendard Modernisé (SEM) attack aircraft which operate from the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle. The new Rafale F3 aircraft will gradually replace all Mirage 2000N and SEM in the nuclear strike role with the improved ASMP-A missile with a nuclear warhead.
France has major military industries with one of the largest aerospace industries in the world.[136][137] Its industries have produced such equipment as the Rafale fighter, the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, the Exocet missile and the Leclerc tank amongst others. Despite withdrawing from the Eurofighter project, France is actively investing in European joint projects such as the Eurocopter Tiger, multipurpose frigates, the UCAV demonstrator nEUROn and the Airbus A400M. France is a major arms seller,[138][139] with most of its arsenal's designs available for the export market with the notable exception of nuclear-powered devices.
The military parade held in Paris each 14 July for France's national day is the oldest and largest regular military parade in Europe
In April and May 2012, France held a presidential election in which the winner François Hollande had opposed austerity measures, promising to eliminate France's budget deficit by 2017. The new government stated that it aimed to cancel recently enacted tax cuts and exemptions for the wealthy, raising the top tax bracket rate to 75% on incomes over a million euros, restoring the retirement age to 60 with a full pension for those who have worked 42 years, restoring 60,000 jobs recently cut from public education, regulating rent increases; and building additional public housing for the poor.
In June, Hollande's Socialist Party won a supermajority in legislative elections capable of amending the French Constitution and enabling the immediate enactment of the promised reforms. French government bond interest rates fell 30% to record lows,[141] less than 50 basis points above German government bond rates.[142]
French government debt
The French government has run a budget deficit each year since the early 1970s. In mid-2012, French government debt levels reached 1.833 billion euros.[143] This debt level was the equivalent of 91% of French GDP.[143]
Under European Union rules, member states are supposed to limit their debt to 60 percent of output or be reducing the ratio structurally towards this ceiling, and run public deficits of no more than 3.0 percent of GDP.[143]
In late 2012, credit rating agencies warned that growing French government debt levels risked France's AAA credit rating, raising the possibility of a future credit downgrade and subsequent higher borrowing costs for the French government
A member of the G8 group of leading industrialised countries, it is ranked as the world's fifth largest and Europe's second largest economy by nominal GDP;[145] with 39 of the 500 biggest companies of the world in 2010, France ranks world's 4th and Europe's 1st in the Fortune Global 500 ahead of Germany and the UK. France joined 11 other EU members to launch the euro on 1 January 1999, with euro coins and banknotes completely replacing the French franc (?) in early 2002.[146]
France derives 79% of its electricity from nuclear power, the highest percentage in the world.[147]
France has a mixed economy which combines extensive private enterprise (nearly 2.5 million companies registered)[148][149] with substantial (though declining[150]) state enterprise and government intervention (see dirigisme). The government retains considerable influence over key segments of infrastructure sectors, with majority ownership of railway, electricity, aircraft, nuclear power and telecommunications.[150] It has been gradually relaxing its control over these sectors since the early 1990s.[150]
France is part of a monetary union, the Eurozone (dark blue), and of the EU single market.
The government is slowly corporatising the state sector and selling off holdings in France Télécom, Air France, as well as the insurance, banking, and defence industries.[150] France has an important aerospace industry led by the European consortium Airbus, and has its own national spaceport, the Centre Spatial Guyanais.
According to the World Trade Organization (WTO), in 2009 France was the world's sixth-largest exporter and the fourth-largest importer of manufactured goods.[151] In 2008, France was the third-largest recipient of foreign direct investment among OECD countries at $117.9 billion, ranking behind Luxembourg (where foreign direct investment was essentially monetary transfers to banks located in that country) and the United States ($316.1 billion), but above the United Kingdom ($96.9 billion), Germany ($24.9 billion), or Japan ($24.4 billion).[152][153]
In the same year, French companies invested $220 billion outside of France, ranking France as the second most important outward direct investor in the OECD, behind the United States ($311.8 billion), and ahead of the United Kingdom ($111.4 billion), Japan ($128 billion) and Germany ($156.5 billion).[152][153] With 39 of the 500 biggest companies of the world in 2010, France ranks 4th in the Fortune Global 500, behind the USA, Japan and China, but ahead of Germany and the UK.[154]
Financial services, banking and the insurance sector are an important part of France's economy. The Paris stock exchange market (French: La Bourse de Paris) is an ancient institution, as it was created by Louis XV in 1724.[155] In 2000, the stock exchanges of Paris, Amsterdam and Bruxelles merged into Euronext.[156] In 2007, Euronext merged with the New York stock exchange to form NYSE Euronext, the world's largest stock exchange.[156] Euronext Paris, the French branch of the NYSE Euronext group is Europe's second largest stock exchange market, behind the London Stock Exchange.
French companies have maintained key positions in the Insurance and Banking industries: AXA is the world's largest insurance company, and is ranked by Fortune the ninth richest corporation by revenues. The leading French banks are BNP Paribas and the Crédit Agricole, ranking as the world's 1st and 6th largest banks in 2010[157] (determined by the amount of assets), while the Société Générale group was ranked the world's eight largest in 2008–2009.
France is the smallest emitter of carbon dioxide among the seven most industrialized countries in the world, due to its heavy investment in nuclear power.[158] As a result of large investments in nuclear technology, most of the electricity produced in the country is generated by 59 nuclear power plants (78% in 2006,[159] up from only 8% in 1973, 24% in 1980, and 75% in 1990). In this context, renewable energies (see the power cooperative Enercoop) are having difficulties taking off the ground
