How was the country formed. What came before? What happened after?
Actually for many non-colonial countries that is a really complicated question because the whole "there were natives, then we killed them and declared independence" narrative doesn't apply. The narrative goes more like "we were there and occasionally formed states while being busy killing each other".
The current german state (as defined by the constitution) exists since 1949, though you could make a good case for 1990, with the reunification and receiving full souvereignty.
The first unified german state is the empire of 1871, but that was seen by many people at that time as a sort of replacement of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (962 - 1806, or if you want to claim Charlemagne starting in 800).
Nationalist 19th century historians would go back even further and see the germanic tribes, in particular the confederations that formed against the romans, as the "beginning" of the country.
Similarly the current french constitution is from 1958, the revolution of 1789 would make sense as a beginning, though there were initially no territorial changes from the french monarchy before that. So you're back to the Capet kings, Charlemagne and the gaulic tribes.
It's like that for most european countries. Does Italy "start" in 1946, 1861 or 753 BC? How do you decide when "a country is formed" if you can pick from so many starting points?