France is among the globe’s oldest nations, the product of an alliance of duchies and principalities under a single ruler in the  Middle Ages. Today, as in that era, central  authority  is vested in the state, even though a measure of autonomy has been granted to the country’s regions  in recent decades. The French people look to the state as the primary guardian of liberty, and the state in turn provides a generous program of amenities for its citizens, from free education to health care and pension plans. Even so, this centralist tendency is often at odds with another long-standing theme of the French nation: the insistence on the supremacy of the individual. France is a diverse country, with a hazy, lazy Mediterranean climate in the south and a maritime one in its north. You can also taste the delights of Spain in its southern cuisine while some corners of Strasbourg feel more German than they do French.