 A common identity for the peoples within France’s natural boundaries of the Alps, Jura mountains, Pyrenees, the river Rhine and the Atlantic coast was successfully cultivated and propagated.France’s regional identities were presented as parts of a wider whole in an effort to create common bonds across a much larger territorial area.In the new socialist countries that arose in the 20th century religious and other cultural distinctions were played down in an effort to promote a new shared common citizenship.