France regions (five of which are situated overseas) span a combined area of and a total population of 67.3 million (). France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille and Nice. During the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, holding it until the arrival of Germanic Franks in 476, who formed the Kingdom of France. France emerged as a
What is Philosophy? (Deleuze and Guattari) The physicists Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont, writing in "Fashionable Nonsense" (1997), state that "What is Philosophy" became a best-seller in France in 1991. They argue that in attempting to show how philosophy and science are distinct, Deleuze and Guattari use scientific terms such as "chaos" in incorrect or misleading ways, and that while in some passages they seem to discuss serious problems in the philosophy of science and mathematics, these passages prove to be largely meaningless on close inspection. The philosopher Roger Scruton, writing in "Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left" (2016), criticized "What is Philosophy?",