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| | France. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05 |
 | | In the immediate postwar years the Communists, notably Maurice Thorez, a major figure in the PCF and a fixture in government throughout the Fourth Republic and into the Fifth, the moderate Mouvement Républicain Populaire, founded by Georges Bidault, and the Socialists were the strongest of the many political parties; the pattern of short-lived coalitions reappeared. |
 | | Within a few years after the death of Charles IV, who was also without a male heir, progress toward national unification was halted, and for more than a century France was rent by warfare and internal upheaval. |
 | | But in 486 (10 years after the traditional date for the fall of Rome) the Franks, under Clovis I, routed Syagrius, last Roman governor of Gaul. |
| www.bartleby.com /65/fr/France.html (6467 words) |
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