LMAO ! France is Western Europe breh. Ain't nobody from Picardie, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Lorraine or Alsace who'll claim "Central Europe".
Central Europe is a recent (15/20 years) invention to put Germany and the countries around (on which it has influence) in a region to determine its influence on the map because Germany was split in 2 (East/West) because of the Cold War. Eastern feelings from the East part of Germany (poorer, more industrial) was (and maybe is) still strong and there was no way that their culture, their identity was to be swallowed by the West. The "Central Europe" term came handy as it avoided some politically divided countries in the early 90s to be definitely labeled to an identity that around half of them was despising. Look at Ukraine atm, divided between pro West and pro Russia (East), well there is no way one of those camp will accept to live under the other one, or if it does, it's only to explode after a while so a third solution is the easiest (and more peaceful) one. That is "Central Europe".
The Western countries are the European old block as it is the core of the EU's creation. To make a long story short, look at the EU and its growth : pre 1995 (and Maastricht Treaty) are the Western countries and post 2004 additions are the Eastern countries.
Obviously, you could have a case if you mix cultures, languages or religions (northern orthodox cultures ; scandinavia ; southern/catholic ; latin-speaking ; anglo-saxons ; francophones ; celtic countries and so on) because the East/West is a political one but at this point, it wouldn't be East/West/Central. It would be 10 and even more different types of super regions because Europe is way too diverse to be divided in 3 definite blocks.
Many European countries share a part of their cultures with totally different countries due to the past invasions and the chaotic growth of Europe
For example, in France (which I know better than the rest), culture-wise :
- the Northern part is very close to Belgium
- the Western part is close to celtic cultures (UK)
- the Southeast part is mediterranean and close to Italy/Greece
- the Southwest part is more basque and close to (the Northern part of) Spain
- the Eastern part is close to Germany (annexed and de-annexed a number of times by the Germans)
- the Center is very french because it's the deep-down France.
- And Corsica which feel Corsicans.
Even inside the countries the identities diverge. I won't even talk about Italy or Spain for example because it's even worse than France. That's why when talking about Europe, objectively, you stop at West/East.
