Christian socialism
Christian socialism is a form of religious socialism based on the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Many Christian socialists believe capitalism to be idolatrous and rooted in greed, which some Christian denominations consider a mortal sin. Christian socialists identify the cause of inequality to be the greed that they associate with capitalism. Christian socialism became a major movement in the United Kingdom beginning in the 19th century; the Christian Socialist Movement, since 2013 known as Christians on the Left, is one formal group. Other earlier figures are viewed as Christian socialists, such as the nineteenth century writers Frederick Denison Maurice, John Ruskin, Charles Kingsley, Thomas Hughes, Frederick James Furnivall, Adin Ballou, Francis Bellamy. Elements that would form the basis of Christian socialism are found in the New Testaments. Old Testament had divided perspectives on the issue of poverty. One part of the Jewish tradition held that poverty was judgment of God upon the wicked while viewing prosperity as a reward for the good, stating that "The righteous has enough to satisfy his appetite, but the belly of the wicked suffers want".
However, there are other sections. The Torah instructs followers to treat neighbours and to be generous to have nots, such as stating: You shall not oppress your neighbour...but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the Lord He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner therefore; when you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over the boughs again... When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not glean it afterward. You shall remember. Rescue the weak and the needy, he has distributed he has given to the poor. The prophet Isaiah to whom is attributed the first thirty-nine chapters of the Book of Isaiah, followed upon Amos' themes of justice and righteousness involving the poor as necessary for followers of God, denouncing those who do not do these things, stating: Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Many have come to ruin because of gold, their destruction has met them face to face.
It is a stumbling block to those who are devoted to it, every fool will be taken captive by it The most important quote of the Old Testament, recognized by Christian socialists is the verse from Ecclesiastes 3:13 that describes God as promoting an egalitarian society, stating: It is God's gift to humankind that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil In the New Testament, Jesus in Matthew 25:31–46 identifies himself with the hungry, the poor, the sick, the prisoners. Matthew 25:31–46 is a major component of Christianity and is considered the cornerstone of Christian socialism. Another key statement in the New Testament, an important component of Christian socialism is Luke 10:25–37 that follows the statement "You shall love your neighbour as yourself" with the question "And, my neighbour?", in the Parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus gives the revolutionary response that the neighbour includes anyone in need people we might be expected to shun. In the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus says, "Blessed are you poor.
Blessed are you that hunger now, for you shall be satisfied". Christian socialists note that James the Just, the brother of Jesus of Nazareth, in the Epistle of James criticizes the rich intensely and in strong language: Come now, you rich and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, their rust will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up for treasure for the last days. Behold, the wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out. You have lived in pleasure.
Bourgogne-Franche-Comté
Bourgogne-Franche-Comté is a region of France created by the territorial reform of French Regions in 2014, from a merger of Burgundy and Franche-Comté. The new region came into existence on 1 January 2016, after the regional elections of December 2015, electing 100 members to the regional council of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté; the region covers an area of 47,784 km2, has a population of 2,816,814. The text of the territorial reform law gives interim names for most of the merged regions, combining the names of their constituent regions separated by hyphens. Permanent names would be proposed by the new regional councils and confirmed by the Conseil d'État by 1 October 2016. Hence the interim name of the new administrative region is composed of the names of former administrative regions of Burgundy and Franche-Comté; the region chose to retain its interim name as its permanent name, a decision made official by the Conseil d'État on 28 September 2016. The merger represents a historic reunification of the Duchy of Burgundy and the Free County of Burgundy, for the first time since they were divided in 1477.
The territory, now Burgundy and Franche-Comté was united under the Kingdom of Burgundy. It was divided into two parts: the Duchy of Burgundy of France, the County of Burgundy of the Holy Roman Empire; the County was reintegrated as a free province within the Kingdom of France in the 17th century, separately from the Duchy which remained a vassal province of the Kingdom of France. These two former provinces were abolished during the French Revolution. Most of the area making up the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté used to belong to the former provinces of Burgundy and Franche-Comté, but it includes a significant part of the former provinces of Nivernais, Orléanais, the Territoire de Belfort, a small portion of Île-de-France. From 1941 to 1944, the regional prefecture of Vichy reunited Burgundy and Franche-Comté, as well as the igamie of Dijon from 1948 to 1964. During the creation of the regions of France and Franche-Comté once again became two separate regions, first as public establishments in 1972 as territorial collectivities in 1982.
On 14 April 2014, François Patriat and Marie-Guite Dufay announced in a press conference the desire for the reunification of the two regions, further to the declarations of Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who proposed a simplification of the administrative divisions of France. On 2 June 2014, the two regions were shown as one on the map presented by President François Hollande; these two regions are the only ones to have voluntarily discussed a merger, their alliance was the only one not needing revision by the National Assembly or the Senate. Under the Acte III de la décentralisation, the merger of the two regions was adopted on 17 December 2014, it became effective on 1 January 2016. The region borders Grand Est to the north, Île-de-France to the northwest, Centre-Val de Loire to the west, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes to the south and Switzerland to the east; the distances from Besançon, the capital of the region, to other cities are: Paris, the national capital, 410 km. Bourgogne-Franche-Comté comprises eight departments: Côte-d'Or, Jura, Nièvre, Haute-Saône, Saône-et-Loire, Territoire de Belfort.
Dijon Besançon Belfort Chalon-sur-Saône Nevers Auxerre Mâcon Burgundy Franche-Comté Regions of France Merger of the regions - France 3
Haut-Rhin
Haut-Rhin is a department in the Grand Est region of France, named after the river Rhine. Its name means Upper Rhine. Haut-Rhin is the smaller and less populated of the two departments of the former administrative Alsace region after the 1871 cession of the southern territory known since 1922 as Territoire de Belfort, although it is still densely populated compared to the rest of metropolitan France; the department consists of the following arrondissements: Altkirch Colmar-Ribeauvillé Mulhouse Thann-Guebwiller Haut-Rhin is one of the original 83 departments, created during the French Revolution, on 4 March 1790 through the application of the law of 22 December 1789 in respect of the southern half of the province of Alsace. Its boundaries have been modified many times: 1798, it absorbed Mulhouse a free city, the last Swiss enclave in the south of Alsace; the remaining French part formed the Territoire de Belfort in 1922. 1940, it was annexed de facto by Nazi Germany. 1944, it was recovered by France.
Haut-Rhin is bordered by the Territoire de Belfort and Vosges départements and the Vosges Mountains to the west, the Bas-Rhin département to the North, Switzerland to the south and its eastern border with Germany is the Rhine. In the centre of the département lies a fertile plain; the climate is semi-continental. Haut-Rhin is one of the richest French départements. Mulhouse is the home of a Peugeot automobile factory, manufacturing the 206 models; the lowest unemployment rate in France can be found in the Southern Sundgau region. The countryside is marked by hills. Many Haut-Rhinois work in Switzerland in the chemical industries of Basel, but commute from France where living costs are lower. Alsace and the adjacent Moselle department have a legal system different from the rest of France; the statutes in question date from the period 1871 - 1919 when the area was part of the German Empire. With the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France in 1919, Paris accepted that Alsace and Moselle should retain some local laws in respect of certain matters with regard to hunting, economic life, local government relationships, health insurance and social rights.
It includes notably the absence of any formal separation between church and state: several mainstream denominations of the Christian church benefit from state funding, in contrast to principles applied in the rest of France. Alsatian language Cantons of the Haut-Rhin department Communes of the Haut-Rhin department Arrondissements of the Haut-Rhin department General Council website Prefecture website Haut-Rhin at Curlie
Communes of France
The commune is a level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are analogous to civil townships and incorporated municipalities in the United States and Canada, Gemeinden in Germany, comuni in Italy or ayuntamiento in Spain; the United Kingdom has no exact equivalent, as communes resemble districts in urban areas, but are closer to parishes in rural areas where districts are much larger. Communes are based on historical geographic communities or villages and are vested with significant powers to manage the populations and land of the geographic area covered; the communes are the fourth-level administrative divisions of France. Communes vary in size and area, from large sprawling cities with millions of inhabitants like Paris, to small hamlets with only a handful of inhabitants. Communes are based on pre-existing villages and facilitate local governance. All communes have names, but not all named geographic areas or groups of people residing together are communes, the difference residing in the lack of administrative powers.
Except for the municipal arrondissements of its largest cities, the communes are the lowest level of administrative division in France and are governed by elected officials with extensive autonomous powers to implement national policy. A commune is city, or other municipality. "Commune" in English has a historical bias, implies an association with socialist political movements or philosophies, collectivist lifestyles, or particular history. There is nothing intrinsically different between commune in French; the French word commune appeared in the 12th century, from Medieval Latin communia, for a large gathering of people sharing a common life. As of January 2015, there were 36,681 communes in France, 36,552 of them in metropolitan France and 129 of them overseas; this is a higher total than that of any other European country, because French communes still reflect the division of France into villages or parishes at the time of the French Revolution. The whole territory of the French Republic is divided into communes.
This is unlike some other countries, such as the United States, where unincorporated areas directly governed by a county or a higher authority can be found. There are only a few exceptions: COM of Saint-Martin, it was a commune inside the Guadeloupe région. The commune structure was abolished when Saint-Martin became an overseas collectivity on 22 February 2007. COM of Wallis and Futuna, which still is divided according to the three traditional chiefdoms. COM of Saint Barthélemy, it was a commune inside the Guadeloupe region. The commune structure was abolished when Saint-Barthélemy became an overseas collectivity on 22 February 2007. Furthermore, two regions without permanent habitation have no communes: TOM of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands Clipperton Island in the Pacific Ocean In metropolitan France, the average area of a commune in 2004 was 14.88 square kilometres. The median area of metropolitan France's communes at the 1999 census was smaller, at 10.73 square kilometres. The median area is a better measure of the area of a typical French commune.
This median area is smaller than that of most European countries. In Italy, the median area of communes is 22 km2. Switzerland and the Länder of Rhineland-Palatinate, Schleswig-Holstein, Thuringia in Germany were the only places in Europe where the communes had a smaller median area than in France; the communes of France's overseas départements such as Réunion and French Guiana are large by French standards. They group into the same commune several villages or towns with sizeable distances among them. In Réunion, demographic expansion and sprawling urbanization have resulted in the administrative splitting of some communes; the median population of metropolitan France's communes at the 1999 census was 380 inhabitants. Again this is a small number, here France stands apart in Europe, with the lowest communes' median population of all the European countries; this small median population of French communes can be compared with Italy, where the median population of communes in 2001 was 2,343 inhabitants, Belgium, or Spain.
The median population given here should not hide the fact that there are pronounced differences in size between French communes. As mentioned in the introduction, a commune can be a city of 2 million inhabitants such as Paris, a town of 10,000 inhabitants, or just a hamlet of 10 inhabitants. What the median population tells us is that the vast majority of the French communes only have a few hundred inhabitants. In metropolitan France just over 50 percent of the 36,683 communes have fewer than 500 inhabitants a
Pierre Philippe Denfert-Rochereau
Pierre Philippe Marie Aristide Denfert-Rochereau, was a French serviceman and politician. He achieved fame by defending besieged Belfort during the Franco-Prussian War: this earned him the soubriquet the Lion of Belfort. Born in an upper-class, aristocratic Protestant family, he married a daughter of a leading Montbéliard family, Pauline Surleau-Goguel. Denfert-Rochereau graduated from Ecole Polytechnique in 1842, he distinguished himself during the French expedition in Rome in 1849, participated in the Crimean War in 1855, where he was wounded at the taking of Malakoff. He was sent to French Algeria from 1860 to 1864. Appointed commander of Belfort in 1870, Colonel Denfert-Rochereau was confronted from November 1870 with the attack and the subsequent siege of the city by the German armies under August von Werder; when asked to surrender the fortress, the Colonel responded: "We are aware of our duty towards France and the Republic, are resolved to respect it". Refusing to permit the evacuation of the civilian population, in December 1870 the Germans started to shell the city.
Denfert-Rochereau led with his garrison of 15 000 men and the city's population a 103 days resistance against the 40 000 soldiers of Werder. The heroic resistance would end only under the order of the Government of National Defense on the 18 February 1871: Denfert-Rochereau accepted to leave the stronghold with his troops and arms and unconquered, avoiding the humiliation of a defeat. Refusing the armistice, he urged President Thiers to pardon the young officer Louis-Nathaniel Rossel—also a Protestant— who had joined the Paris Commune after the French defeat. Rossel was executed on 27 November 1871; the resistance of Denfert-Rochereau saved the honour of France, otherwise humiliated by MacMahon's defeat at Sedan and Bazaine' surrender at Metz. It allowed Thiers to negotiate retention of the Belfort region which thereby was separated from the rest of German annexed-Alsace. A national hero, Denfert-Rochereau was elected to the National Assembly as a député. Here he supported Léon Gambetta's policy.
He died in Versailles in 1878. He is buried near to his spouse in the Montbéliard Cemetery; the Place Denfert-Rochereau in Paris was named after him in 1879, as well as other streets and places across France. Adolphe Robert, Gaston Cougny. Dictionnaire des parlementaires français de 1789 à 1889. Edgard Bourloton. Biography of Denfert-Rochereau on the Assemblée Nationale's website
Union for a Popular Movement
The Union for a Popular Movement was a centre-right political party in France, one of the two major contemporary political parties in France along with the centre-left Socialist Party. The UMP was formed in 2002 as a merger of several centre-right parties under the leadership of President Jacques Chirac. In May 2015, the party was succeeded by The Republicans. Nicolas Sarkozy the president of the UMP, was elected President of France in the 2007 presidential election, but was defeated by PS candidate François Hollande in a run-off five years later. After the November 2012 party congress, the UMP experienced internal fractioning and was plagued by monetary scandals which forced its president, Jean-François Copé, to resign. After his re-election as UMP president in November 2014, Sarkozy put forward an amendment to change the name of the party into The Republicans, approved and came into effect on 30 May 2015; the UMP enjoyed an absolute majority in the National Assembly from 2002 to 2012 and was a member of the European People's Party, the Centrist Democrat International and the International Democrat Union.
Since the 1980s, the political groups of the parliamentary right have joined forces around the values of economic liberalism and the building of Europe. Their rivalries had contributed to their defeat in the 1988 legislative elections. Before the 1993 legislative election, the Gaullist Rally for the Republic and the centrist Union for French Democracy formed an electoral alliance, the Union for France. However, in the 1995 presidential campaign they were both divided between followers of Jacques Chirac, elected, supporters of Prime Minister Edouard Balladur. After their defeat in the 1997 legislative election, the RPR and UDF created the Alliance for France in order to coordinate the actions of their parliamentary groups. Before the 2002 presidential campaign, the supporters of President Jacques Chirac, divided in three centre-right parliamentary parties, founded an association named Union on the Move. After Chirac's re-election, in order to contest the legislative election jointly, the Union for the Presidential Majority was created.
It was as such established as a permanent organisation. The UMP was the merger of the Gaullist-conservative Rally for the Republic, the conservative-liberal party Liberal Democracy, a sizeable portion of the Union for French Democracy, more the UDF's Christian Democrats, the Radical Party and the centrist Popular Party for French Democracy. In the UMP four major French political families were thus represented: Gaullism, Christian democracy and radicalism. Chirac's close ally Alain Juppé became the party's first president at the party's founding congress at the Bourget in November 2002. Juppé won 79.42% of the vote, defeating Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, the leader of the party's Eurosceptic Arise the Republic faction, three other candidates. During the party's earlier years, it was marked by tensions and rivalries between Juppé and other chiraquiens and supporters of Nicolas Sarkozy, the then-Minister of the Interior. In the 2004 regional elections the UMP suffered a heavy blow, winning the presidencies of only 2 out of 22 regions in metropolitan France and only half of the departments in the simultaneous 2004 cantonal elections.
In the 2004 European Parliament election on 13 June 2004, the UMP suffered another heavy blow, winning 16.6% of the vote, far behind the Socialist Party, only 16 seats. Juppé resigned the party's presidency on 15 July 2004 after being found guilty in a corruption scandal in January of the same year. Nicolas Sarkozy announced that he would take over the presidency of the UMP and resign his position as finance minister, ending months of speculation. On 28 November 2004, Sarkozy was elected to the party's presidency with 85.09% of the votes against 9.1% for Dupont-Aignan and 5.82% for Christine Boutin, the leader of the UMP's social conservatives. Having gained control of what had been Chirac's party, Sarkozy focused the party machinery and his energies on the 2007 presidential election; the failure of the referendum on the European Constitution on 25 May 2005 led to the fall of the government of Jean-Pierre Raffarin and to the formation of a new cabinet, presided by another UMP politician, Dominique de Villepin.
However, during this time, the UMP under Sarkozy gained a record number of new members and rejuvenated itself in preparation of the 2007 election. On 14 January 2007, Sarkozy was nominated unopposed as the UMP's presidential candidate for the 2007 election. On the issues, the party under Sarkozy publicly disapproved of Turkey's proposed membership in the European Union, which Chirac had endorsed several times publicly, took a more right-wing position. On 22 April 2007 Nicolas Sarkozy won the plurality of votes in the first round of the 2007 presidential election. On 6 May he faced the Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal in the second round and won, taking 53.06% of the vote. As a consequence, he resigned from the presidency of the UMP on 14 May 2007, two days before becoming President of the French Republic. François Fillon was appointed Prime Minister. On 17 June 2007, at a
Franche-Comté
Franche-Comté is a cultural and historical region of eastern France. It is composed of the modern departments of Doubs, Haute-Saône and the Territoire de Belfort. In 2016, its population was 1,180,397. From 1956 to 2015, the Franche-Comté was a French administrative region. Since 1 January 2016, it is part of the new region Bourgogne-Franche-Comté; the region is named after the Franche Comté de Bourgogne, definitively separated from the region of Burgundy proper in the fifteenth century. In 2016, these two halves of the historic Kingdom of Burgundy were reunited, as the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, it is the 6th biggest region in France. The name "Franche-Comté" is feminine because the word "comté" in the past was feminine, although today it is masculine; the principal cities are the capital Belfort and Montbéliard. Other important cities are Dole, Vesoul and Lons-le-Saunier; the region was occupied by the Gauls. Little touched by the Germanic migrations, it was part of the territory of the Alemanni in the fifth century the Kingdom of Burgundy from 457 to 534.
It was Christianized through the influence of St. Columbanus. In 534, it became part of the Frankish kingdom. In 561 it was included in the Merovingian Kingdom of Burgundy under Guntram, the third son of Clotaire I. In 613, Clotaire II reunited the Frankish Kingdom under his rule, the region remained a part of the Kingdom of Burgundy under the Merovingians and Carolingians; the name Franche Comté de Bourgogne did not appear until 1366. It had been a territory of the County of Burgundy from 888, the province becoming subject to the Holy Roman Empire in 1034, it was definitively separated from the neighboring Duchy of Burgundy upon the latter's incorporation into the Kingdom of France in 1477. That year at the Battle of Nancy during the Burgundian Wars, the last duke, Charles the Bold, was killed in battle. Although the County, along with the Duchy, was seized by King Louis XI of France, in 1492 his son Charles VIII ceded it to Philip of Austria, the grandson and heir of Charles the Bold; when Philip's son, Emperor Charles V, inherited the Spanish throne in 1516, the Franche-Comté, along with the rest of the Burgundian lands, passed to the Spanish.
The Franche-Comté was captured by France in 1668, but returned to Spain under the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. It was conquered a second time in 1674, was ceded to France in the Treaty of Nijmegen. Enclaves such as Montbéliard remained outside French control; the Franche-Comté was one of the last parts of France to have serfdom. In 1784, half of the population consisted of serfs, accounting for 400,000 out of the 1 million French serfs. Landowners took one-twelfth of the sales price. Serfs were not forced to stay on the land, but the lord could claim droit de suite, whereby a peasant who died away from his holding left it to the lord if he had heirs. A runaway serf's land was forfeit after ten years. Louis XVI issued a decree banning these practices on 8 August 1779, but the Parlement of Besançon blocked this until 1787; the population of the region fell by a fifth from 1851 to 1946, reflecting low French natural growth and migration to more urbanized parts of the country. Most of the decline occurred in Haute-Saône and Jura, which remain among the country's more agriculture-dependent areas.
This region borders Switzerland and shares much of its architecture and culture with its neighbour. Between the Vosges range of mountains to the north and the Jura range to the south, the landscape consists of rolling cultivated fields, dense pine forest, rampart-like mountains. Not so majestic as the Alps, the Jura mountains are more accessible and are France's first cross-country skiing area, it is a superb place to hike, there are some fine nature trails on the more gentle slopes. The Doubs and Loue valleys, with their timbered houses perched on stilts in the river, the high valley of Ain, are popular visitor areas; the Région des Lacs is a land of gorges and waterfalls dotted with tiny villages, each with a domed belfry decorated with mosaic of tiles or slates or beaten from metal. The lakes are perfect for swimming in the warmer months; the summits of Haut Jura have wonderful views toward the Alps. Forty percent of the region's GDP is dependent on manufacturing activities, most of its production is exported.
Construction of automobiles and their parts is one of the most buoyant industries there. Forestry exploitation is growing, 38% of the agriculture is dairy and 17% cattle farming; the region has a large and lucrative cheese-making industry, with 40 million tonnes of cheese produced here each year, much of, made by fruitières. Vosges and Jura coal mining basins Among the regional languages of France, the term Franc-comtois refers to two dialects of two different languages. Franc-comtois is the name of the dialect of Langue d'Oïl spoken by people in the northern part of the region; the dialect of Arpitan has been spoken in its southern part since as early as the thirteenth century (the southern two-thirds of Jura and the southern third o
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