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The French Third Republic (Fren: Troisième République, sometimes written as La IIIe République) wis the system o government adopted in France frae the 4th o September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War, tae the 10th o July 1940, efter the Fall o France during World War II led tae the formation o the Vichy government. The French Third Republic wis a parliamentary republic.
In the early days, the Third Republic faced a heap o political disruption caused by the Franco-Prussian War o 1870-71, which they continued tae wage efter the fall o Emperor Napoleon III in 1870. There wis social upheaval an' the Paris Commune that came afore the final defeat. The German Empire, proclaimed by the invaders in the Palace o Versailles, annexed the French regions o Alsace (keeping the Territoire de Belfort) an' Lorraine (the northeastern bit, i.e. the present-day department o Moselle). The early governments o the French Third Republic thought aboot bringing back the monarchy, but they couldnae agree on what kind o monarchy it should be or who should sit on the throne. As a result, the Third Republic, originally meant tae be a provisional government, became the permanent form o government in France. The French Constitutional Laws o 1875 defined the makeup o the Third Republic. It contained a Chamber o Deputies an' a Senate for the legislative branch o government, an' a president as head o state. Calls for bringing back the monarchy dominated the terms o the first twa presidents, Adolphe Thiers an' Patrice de MacMahon, but as support for the republican form o government grew among the French, an' with a series o republican presidents in the 1880s, the chances o a monarchy comin' back shrank. The Third Republic established a braw lot o French colonies, includin' French Indochina, French Madagascar, French Polynesia, an' big territories in West Africa during the Scramble for Africa, aw acquired during the last twa decades o the 19th century. The early 20th century wis dominated by the Democratic Republican Alliance, which started oot as a centre-left political alliance, but over time it became the main centre-right party. The period frae the start o World War I tae the late 1930s saw politics sharply polarized, between the Democratic Republican Alliance an' the Radicals. The government fell in less than a year eftir World War II kicked off, when Nazi forces took over muckle o France, an' it wis replaced by rival governments o Charles de Gaulle's Free France (La France libre) an' Philippe Pétain's French State (L'État français). Durin' the 19th an' 20th centuries, the French colonial empire wis the second largest in the world, bein' only behind the British Empire; it stretched over 13,500,000 km2 (5,200,000 sq mi) at its peak in the 1920s an' 1930s. In terms o population, though, just before World War II, France an' its colonies had only 150 million folk, compared tae 330 million for British India alane. Adolphe Thiers called republicanism in the 1870s "the form o government that divides France least"; but, politics under the Third Republic were sharp-like polarized. On the left stood reformist France, heir tae the French Revolution. On the right stood conservative France, rooted in the peasantry, the Catholic Church, an' the army. In spite o France's sharply divided electorate an' constant attempts tae oust it, the Third Republic endured for 70 years, makin' it the longest-lastin' system o government in France since the collapse o the Ancien Régime in 1789.