France as Federal Republic?

France has been progressively more and more centralized from the time of Louis XIV through the French Revolution and Napoleon, on. The current system of tiny "departments" was set up during the Revolution.

To make a Federal system, you'd have to change that, and change it significantly.
A PoD before the Revolution would make it at least possible.

A PoD after 1900? Ouch.
You'd need to have something weird like an Allied occupation of France after an alt-WWII, with e.g. the Netherlands and Belgium administering Flanders, Spain administering much of the South, the US the central part, and Britain the rest of the North. Have all of that last for a generation, so people in those various areas start feeling a sense of regional identity, and you MIGHT be able to get a federal france out it in the end. Of course, even in such a scenario, it's more likely that patriotic French will rebel against the artificially imposed borders, and demand a unified, centralized France.

Second possibility. France (somehow) retains Algeria, French West Africa and Vietnam (for instance) then the 'Federal' union consists of the Metropole, and the various supercolonies.
 
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