I think every state that currently exists can be put into one of these categories:
1) Small state / entity conquers its neighbours and grows into its current state. Sometimes this happened so far back, that it's not much in the cultural consciousness of the people (e.g. Denmark, Sweden, England re Wessex), sometimes it's not so long ago and there are regions that till harken back to their old independence (the U.K. based on England, with Scotland, Ireland and Wales still feeling -ahem- "differently" about the Union; Russia & Muscovy; Modern Germany and Prussia; Italy and Sardinia-Piedmont; Spain & Castilia).
2) Part of a pre-existing state gains independence; this part may have been a sovereign state before (e.g. the Baltic Republics) or simply have gained a separate identity over time (e.g. Belarus) or they may be administrative constructs of the former imperial power (e.g. most African countries). Such countries often define themselves in relation to the country to which they belonged before, especially if the struggle for independence was long and bloody and happened relatively recently.
France is a case of 2) - like the HRE, it's a successor state to the Kingdom of the Franks (and BTW, the French start counting their kings from Clovis, and count Charlemagne as one of the French kings - they see themselves as the successor of the Frankish kingdom); in the early Middle Ages, there was a period when the power of the French kings didn't reach far beyond Paris, and later they consolidated their kingdom from that point - which is similar to the way the Svear united Sweden or the Piasts united Poland, only the areas united already owed allegiance to the king of France before they were united politically.