| > What does it mean for a country to exist non-continuously? What does "country" means? State? Geography? Leadership? Ancestry? People? If you get far back enough the birth of France starts with Gaul which bears more than a passing resemblance with today's France: https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/3044d40d-8af2-47aa-81e5-785... And around 50BC with Vercingétorix surrendering to the Romans at Alésia the tide turns and it gets administratively split up largely to ensure they don't come together as a force against the Roman Empire again. Then as the Roman Empire starts showing cracks, various local powers emerge again: https://www.alex-bernardini.fr/histoire/images/division-gaul... Then "France" itself starts to exist since Clovis I united Franks in 481 and around 511 looks somewhat the same as today again if you squint hard enough: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/fb/3b/79/fb3b7985c2063f6a9839c6918... But then in 840 it gets split in three after infighting among Charlemagne grandchildren, tearing the whole thing apart again: https://www.lhistoire.fr/sites/lhistoire.fr/files/img_portfo... Middle one's fate is to dwindle, west one will become France, right one will become Germany. France's shape will then vary a lot through time, alliances, weddings, and battles, sometimes eaten at on the east, west, north, south, but more or less gravitating around the center part. But then here comes Prussia in 1870, then WW1, then WW2, culminating in the partial occupation then administration of northern and western France between 1940-42 and a literal fork of France leadership and government: France de Vichy led by Pétain in the south east, France Libre led by De Gaulle exiled in London. In theory the Vichy government was also leading occupied the north of France but in practice it was ruled by Germany. 1942 comes and Germany resolves the conundrum by forcefully merging south with north, France de Vichy becomes devoid of any power (not that it had much before, being a satellite state of Germany), France is de facto a part of Germany, essentially leaving only France Libre as an actual French government, which is not even in any part of the territory! So again, what does "country" means? State? Geography? Leadership? Ancestry? People? There's definitely some ship of Theseus going on along these 2k years, as well as forks, takeovers, infighting, and whatnot. This abridged version only highlights so much as there's much more intricacy to it, reality is incredibly messy, yet somehow "France" going all the way back to Gaul over 2k years carries some sense. |
