Definition of "France"

For a long time the dormouse and polecat had seemed to him overfeeble enemies for his restless valour, even as the granary floor seemed to afford too narrow a field. Every day he read the papers of the previous day in the servants' hall of the houses he visited, and it appeared to him that this war in America, which was hailed as the awakening of the spirit of liberty and justice in the New World, ought to produce a revolution in France.

1837, George Sand, translated by Stanley Young, Mauprat‎, Cassandra Editions, published 1977, page 237

Although scholars have offered different chronologies and causalities for the move toward modernity, most have resolved the paradox of the two Frances by placing them in sequence: "diverse France gave way over time as modern centralized France gathered force."

1998, Shanny Peer, France on Display: Peasants, Provincials, and Folklore, page 2

Hollande told cheering supporters in his rural fiefdom of Corrèze in south-west France that he was best-placed to lead France towards change, saying the vote marked a "rejection" of Sarkozy and a "sanction" against his five years in office.

2012 April 23, Angelique Chrisafis, “François Hollande on top but far right scores record result in French election”, in the Guardian‎