Related top topics

United Kingdom

Italy

Canada

United States

Greece

Germany

Portugal

Poland

Spain

Guadeloupe

Did you know ...

• the French light cruiser Marseillaise was sabotaged by her own crew on November 27, 1942, in order to prevent the Germans from capturing the ship?
• the French Gothic Niederhaslach Church in Alsace was plundered in 1525 during the Peasants' War, burnt in 1633 during the Thirty Years' War, and became a slaughterhouse in 1744?
• the French flying boat Breguet 730 was designed in the 1930s, but didn't enter service in the French Navy until after the end of World War II due to the German occupation of that country?
• the French navigation authority Voies navigables de France manages 3,800-kilometre (2,400 mi) of canals and 2,900-kilometre (1,800 mi) rivers on the largest network of waterways in Europe?
• the French orientalist painter Étienne Dinet (pictured) was so fascinated by Arab culture that he converted to Islam?
• the French Minister of Cooperation Pierre Abelin initiated the process that culminated with the signing of the Lomé Convention in 1975?
• the French submarine Plongeur, built in 1863, was the first submarine in the world not to use human power for propulsion?
• the French pre-dreadnought battleship Henri IV was the first ship to mount a superfiring gun turret?
• the French admiral Dupetit Thouars took possession of the Tahiti archipelago against his government's will?
• the feminist Madeleine Pelletier (1874–1939) was the first female psychiatrist in France and that she dressed as a man to protest the oppression of women?
• the 1539 Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts, which mandated the use of French in official documents, contributed to the rise of French nationalism?
• the 5th-century baptistery of the Cathedral of Saint-Léonce, one of France's oldest Christian structures, was concealed after reconstructions in the 13th century and re-discovered in 1925?
• the 2007 French science fiction film Eden Log, created by first-time director Franck Vestiel, was shot using only hand-held cameras?
• the 1994 French–Romanian film An Unforgettable Summer depicts the persecution of Bulgarians by Romanian Army personnel, in a metaphor of the Yugoslav wars?
• the airship Patrie (pictured) broke free from its moorings at Souhesmes, France, blew across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and was eventually lost in the Atlantic Ocean?
• the F class destroyer HMS Fury (pictured) carried the former King Edward VIII to France the day after he abdicated the throne?
• the automobile factory in Poissy, France, built by Ford SAF, was later owned by Simca, Chrysler and finally Peugeot, and continues production to this day? (pictured)
• the French car Simca Vedette (pictured) was first marketed as a Ford and later manufactured as a Chrysler in Brazil?
• the French clothing brand Cacharel is named after a small bird that inhabits the Camargue?
• the Romanian mathematician Simion Stoilow was ambassador to France and a delegate to the Paris Peace Conference in 1946, just prior to serving as founding director of the Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy?
• the RTÉ television series The Great Escape follows families as they relocate to countries such as South Africa, Australia, Austria, Italy, France and Spain?
• the Louisiana short story writer Ada Jack Carver Snell had a French grandmother who encouraged her literary and intellectual pursuits?
• the Royal Navy sloop HMS Beagle captured three French privateers during her ten years of service?
• the tanker ship CHANT 26 ended up discharging her cargo in a French field during the Second World War?
• the British plan for the battle of Bazentin Ridge in 1916, was dismissed beforehand by one French commander as "an attack organized for amateurs by amateurs"?
• the tomb of Pope Clement II in the Bamberg Cathedral is the only extant papal tomb outside Italy and France?
• the lighthouse Rumeli Feneri was built in 1855 in order to provide safe navigation for the French and British war ships entering the Bosphorus from the Black Sea during the Crimean War?
• the John Lennon song "Beautiful Boy" features the lines "Every day in every way/It's getting better and better", which were inspired by the mantra of French psychologist Émile Coué?
• the French village of Giverny, best known as the home and landscape subject of Claude Monet, is a pre-Roman town known in ancient deeds as Warnacum?
• the French fast minelaying cruiser Pluton exploded in Casablanca Harbor, French Morocco, on 13 September 1939 while disembarking fuzed mines?
• the French colonial administration in Guinea opposed the founding of the political party Socialist Democracy in 1954, as they feared it would split the anti-Sékou Touré vote?
• the French won a victory over the Royal Navy in a naval battle off Cape Breton during the American Revolutionary War?
• the genre of Hispanic creative arts known as costumbrismo (example pictured) was influenced by Englishmen Joseph Addison and Richard Steele and Frenchmen Jouy and Louis-Sébastien Mercier?
• the Great Western Railway operated ships in connection with their trains to provide services to Ireland, the Channel Islands and France?
• the German prisoners of war built part of the Stade de Gerland stadium in Lyon, France, after the First World War?
• the 1999 hit song "Tomber la chemise" ("Take Off Your Shirt") was part of a sudden popularity trend by rappers of North African immigrant origins in France?
• technology from 18th-century France and China was used to improve the economy of Mysore kingdom?
• in 2002, a Trotskyist became the general secretary of the trade union centre C.G.T.G in the French overseas department of Guadeloupe?
• in 1907 French photographer Léon Gimpel became the first photographer to have his work published in color?
• in 1866, French chessplayer Napoleon Marache published one of the first chess books in the United States, which also discussed strategy for backgammon and dominoes?
• in 2007 French actress and comedienne Mimie Mathy was selected the fifth most popular French celebrity by the weekly Le Journal du Dimanche?
• in Bryan Talbot's graphic novel Grandville, France won the Napoleonic Wars, invaded Britain and guillotined the British Royal Family?
• in August 1936, British Ambassador to France Sir George Clerk warned Yvon Delbos of the dangers of French intervention in the Spanish Civil War?
• in April 1919, the crew of the French Courbet-class battleship Jean Bart (pictured) mutinied while helping defend Sevastopol from the advancing Bolsheviks?
• in France, the Picardy Spaniel is used for hunting snipes?
• in 1862, Phan Thanh Gian said that France's "wealth and strength are beyond description"?
• in 1787–1788, Barthélemy de Lesseps traveled overland the full length of Russia to deliver reports from the La Pérouse expedition to the French Ambassador in St. Petersburg and from there continued on to Paris?
• during the Italian War of 1542–1546, the population of Toulon, France was expelled to make room for an Ottoman naval base?
• during the German occupation of Luxembourg in World War I, over 1% of the Luxembourgian population died fighting for France, even though Luxembourg remained officially neutral?
• during the Siege of Paris, French inventor and photographer René Dagron used carrier pigeons carrying microfilms to send messages across German lines?
• having moved to South Africa to start his missionary work at age 22, Joseph Gérard died at age 83 in Lesotho without ever returning to his home country of France?
• in 1696, Catherine Bernard established the aesthetic principle of the French literary conte de fées with the dictum: "the [adventures] should always be implausible and the emotions always natural"?
• in 1772, Lieutenant Louis Aleno de St Aloüarn claimed sovereignty over Western Australia on behalf of France?
• in 1697 French Huguenot refugee Élie Bouhéreau brought church records from La Rochelle to Ireland to save them from destruction, and they remained there for nearly 200 years?
• in a few villages and towns of southern France and Spain it is illegal to die, and that there are attempts to have the same law in a town in Brazil?
• in his varied career in French politics, Raymond Janot was concurrently mayor of a small town and secretary-general of the international French Community?
• remnants of ancient amphorae indicate wine from Tuscany was exported to southern Italy and France as early as the 7th century BC?
• only one of the cardinal electors in the papal conclave, 1304–1305, which elected Pope Clement V, who began the Avignon Papacy, was French?
• one of many examples of territorial evolution of the Caribbean is that France sold the Caribbean island of Saint-Barthelemy to Sweden in 1784, who in turn sold it back to France in 1878?
• since 1978, countries including Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, and the United States have compiled government reports on groups referred to as cults?
• since 2005, after a gap of a century, stone traps are allowed again for bird trapping in selected regions of France?
• stencils known as Empègue (pictured) were placed by youths on houses in Beauvoisin, France in August 2000?
• some Nazi German anti-partisan operations later became the basis for counterinsurgency policies developed by countries such as France and the United States?
• on every December 8^th, families celebrating Fête des lumières in Lyon, France, line their windowsills with candles to express gratitude to Mary, mother of Jesus? (pictured)
• on January 21, 2006 Ilan Halimi, a French Jew, was kidnapped by a gang of Muslim immigrant youths and subsequently tortured to death, with the motive being either money or anti-Semitism?
• in the 17th century Jean Gery, a French deserter, later served as a guide and translator for the Spanish in North America?
• in the 1894–95 Madagascar expedition, France lost only 25 men in combat, but as many as 4,800 men to diseases?
• in the 1537 Siege of Corfu, the Ottoman Emperor Suleiman the Magnificent was joined by a French fleet under Baron de Saint-Blancard?
• in the Capture of Ré island in 1625, English and Dutch warships were used controversially to quell a revolt of French Huguenot coreligionaries?
• in the Siege of Esztergom (1543), the Ottoman Emperor Suleiman captured the Hungarian city of Esztergom with the support of French artillery?
• journalist Albert Londres was one of the 54 people killed in the fire onboard the French ocean liner Georges Philippar on 15 May 1932?
• in the 1679 Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Brandenburg was forced by France to return recently conquered Swedish Pomerania to Sweden?
• the Vietnamese "poet of love" Xuân Diệu wrote a poem about the love affair between the French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, fueling speculations that he himself was homosexual?
• the West African trade union centre CGTA, a splinter-group of the French CGT, rejected the notion of class struggle, stating that there were no antagonistic classes in Africa?
• the city of Strasbourg, France is the sole or main seat of over 20 international institutions?
• the church of Valmagne Abbey in south-central France has been used as a wine cave since the abbey was confiscated and sold during the French Revolution?
• the capture of the French frigate Modeste by the British in the neutral port of Genoa in 1793 created a diplomatic incident?
• the design of Notre-Dame-des-Missions-du-cygne d'Enghien in Épinay-sur-Seine, France was inspired by the architectural styles of five continents?
• the discovery of the Telfer Mine in Western Australia, officially attributed to Newmont Mining, has been claimed by French prospector Jean-Paul Turcaud?
• the first helicopter flight was in 1906 in Lisieux, France?
• the first Czechoslovakian flag was handed over by the French President in the small Vosges town of Darney?
• the final section of La Nouvelle branch (pictured), a canal in south-central France, was constructed in 1776 to link Narbonne to the Canal du Midi?
• the capture of King Louis IX during the Seventh Crusade prompted as many as 60,000 young shepherds in France to participate in the Shepherds' Crusade in 1251?
• the Roman marble head of a Polyclitan Diadumenos (pictured) found at the Abbey of Vauluisant in Bourgogne, France suggests that the site was once a Roman villa?
• the Treaty of Compiègne between France and the Dutch Republic compelled the Dutch to fight against their French Protestant coreligionists at the Capture of Ré island in 1625?
• the Tonkin commemorative medal was awarded to the French soldiers and sailors who participated in the Tonkin campaign and the Sino-French War, between 1883 and 1885?
• the T-18 tank, first produced in 1928, was the first tank designed and built in the Soviet Union, and that its design was based on the French Renault FT-17 of the First World War?
• the Vickers machine gun was the standard weapon on all British and French military aircraft after 1916?
• the Waterloo Vase is a massive marble urn, 15 feet (4.6 metres) high and weighing 15 tons (13.6 metric tons), which was commissioned by French leader Napoleon but ultimately became an ornament in the British monarch's Buckingham Palace Gardens?
• the June 2009 state funeral of Omar Bongo (pictured) was attended by 40 heads of state, including representatives from France, Spain and the President of the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe?
• the Académie de Poésie et de Musique, which was founded in 1570 under the auspices of Charles IX of France by the poet Jean-Antoine de Baïf and the musician Joachim Thibault de Courville, was the first academy in France?
• the first known arch dam was the Glanum Dam, built by the Romans in modern day France during the 1st century BC?
• the largest known metal vessel from antiquity is an elaborately decorated bronze volute krater (pictured) discovered at the Vix Grave in Burgundy, France in 1953?
• while in service as a troop transport after World War I, SS Ohioan carried two American recipients of the French Croix de Guerre, one of which was a homing pigeon?
• two cannons brought as gifts to Louis XIV of France by the Siamese embassy of 1686 (pictured) ended up being seized and used by revolutionaries in the Storming of the Bastille in 1789?
• the wealthy connoisseur Claude-Henri Watelet created the first romantic landscape garden in France?
• while the Berber scholar Arsène Roux of France collected and studied an enormous amount of Sous Berber texts and manuscripts, almost nothing from his scholarly work actually saw publication during his lifetime?
• with the Minas Gerais (pictured), Brazil became the third country to have a dreadnought under construction, ahead of traditional powers like France and Russia?
• within the Source Seine commune in France is the source of the Seine?
• with the Secret Treaty of Dover signed between England and France, King Charles II attempted to convert England to Catholicism?
• the town of Lille, Alberta, was named as such because its coal mine's financial backers resided in Lille, France?
• the top of the Chapel of Saint-Michel at Parc naturel régional d'Armorique is the highest point in Brittany, France?
• the real objective of the 1732 Treaty of Three Black Eagles, where Prussia, Austria and Russia agreed to support the Portuguese Infante Manuel, Count of Ourém in elections to the Polish throne, was to create a rift between France and Prussia?
• the plot of the "4-D" episode of The X-Files was inspired by French journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby, who could only communicate by blinking his left eyelid?
• the leader of the French Garden Gnome Liberation Front was given a suspended sentence after the group "liberated" over 150 garden gnomes (example pictured) in 1997?
• the spacious Hall of Lost Footsteps was added to the medieval Palace of Poitiers at the behest of Alienor of Aquitaine, Queen consort of France and England?
• the striking of a French consul with a fly-whisk by Ottoman ruler Hussein Dey was used as a pretext for the invasion of Algiers?
• the third of four expeditions sent in the late 19th century by French nobleman Marquis de Rays to an imaginary majestic colony called New France in present day Papua New Guinea, saw 123 Italian settlers perish of disease and famine?
• the term choral symphony was coined by French composer Hector Berlioz (pictured) when describing his symphony, Roméo et Juliette?
• the Siamese method (example pictured) is a simple method for creating magic squares, which was brought to France in 1688 following Simon de la Loubère's embassy to Siam?
• the Schneider CA1 was the first French tank?
• the Burgundy Wars led to the annexation of Burgundy by France?
• the bombardment of Brussels by French troops (ruins pictured) in 1695 was later described by Napoleon Bonaparte as being "as barbarous as it was useless?"
• the Black African Students Federation in France (F.E.A.N.F.) opposed the French 1965 Loi Cadre, which it considered as a move to Balkanize Africa?
• the Canadian Tomb of the Unknown Soldier contains the remains of a Canadian soldier who died in France during World War I?
• the Canal de Marseille, built in 1849, is an 80 kilometres (50 mi) canal which runs through Provence to bring water from the Durance to Marseille, in France?
• the Chinese House in Potsdam was Frederick the Great's attempt to follow the contemporary Chinese fashion, which originated in France?
• the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul (pictured) in Nantes, France took 457 years to complete?
• the Battle of Palikao was a victory for the British and French forces during the Second Opium War which enabled them to take Beijing and defeat the Qing Empire?
• the Battle of Beaune-la-Rolande resulted in the death of the French impressionist painter Frédéric Bazille whilst leading his unit in the attack?
• the Abbey of Fontenay, near Dijon in France, was founded by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in 1118 and is one of the oldest and most complete Cistercian abbeys in Europe?
• the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion was the first Canadian unit on the ground in France in the Invasion of Normandy on D-Day, 1944?
• the 14"/50 caliber railway guns (pictured), used in France during World War I, were created when the U.S. Navy mounted five spare battleship guns on specially-made railway cars?
• the Adrar des Ifoghas, a sandstone massif in Mali's Kidal Region, is half the size of France?
• the Amar Mahal Palace (pictured) in Jammu, India, built by a French architect on the lines of a chateau for Raja Amar Singh, is now run as a museum by the Hari-Tara charitable trust?
• the Barnenez Mound (pictured) in Brittany, France, is a cairn with 11 chambers built of 13,000 to 14,000 tons of stone dating to about 4500 BC, making it one of the earliest megalithic monuments in Europe?
• the Australian Corps was the largest corps fielded by the British army in France during World War I?
• the common mullein plant was burnt in France during celebrations on the second Sunday of Lent to protect against evil spirits and demons?
• the crown-cardinals of Austria, France, and Spain could exercise the jus exclusivae during papal conclaves from the 16th to 20th centuries?
• the Palace of Tau in Reims, France, is named after its shape, which resembles the letter T (tau, in the Greek alphabet)?
• the Opinel knife has been manufactured since the 1890s in the town of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne in the Savoie region of France?
• the old Rouen tramway was once the largest electric tramway in France, with 70 km (43 mi) of route?
• the Pariser Platz in Berlin is named after the French capital in memory of Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Leipzig in 1813?
• the Petit Pont in Paris, France has been destroyed at least 13 times since its construction in the Roman era?
• the Sausage Valley of WWI-era France was so named because the Germans frequently flew a sausage-shaped observation balloon above it?
• the Rhone Rangers, winemakers who promote the use of grapes from the Rhône Valley in France, were a driving force behind Syrah's increased popularity among Californian wines?
• the Nivelle Offensive during World War I involved around 1.2 million French troops and over 7,000 guns?
• the Martinican Communist Party became the largest political party in the French département d'outre-mer of Martinique in the 1960s?
• the Frot-Laffly landship (pictured) was an early tank design based on a compactor, and built by France in early 1915?
• the French Committee of National Liberation formed by Gens. Henri Giraud and Charles de Gaulle officially became the provisional government of France after its liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944?
• the Direction Nationale du Contrôle de Gestion is the administrative organisation responsible for monitoring the accounts of professional football clubs in France?
• the Harelle was a 1382 tax revolt that began in the city of Rouen and was emulated in many other French cities?
• the Iroise Sea on the Atlantic Ocean is France's first marine park?
• the Japanese submarine I-8 was a World War II Imperial Japanese Navy submarine, famous for completing a technology exchange mission between occupation forces in France?
• the irony mark is an atypical punctuation mark that, along with others, has been featured in some French artistic and literary publications to denote typographically different meanings in sentences?
• during the Second World War, SS Hispania was detained by the French, seized by the Vichy French, declared a war prize, passed to the Kriegsmarine and eventually sold back to her original owners?
• during World War II the British military successfully airdropped homing pigeons into German-occupied France so that they might carry the locals' intelligence reports back to England?
• Levantine architect of French descent Raymond Charles Père, who designed the landmark Izmir Clock Tower (pictured) in Turkey, was a native of Izmir?
• Juan Luna's The Parisian Life painting portrays three Filipino gentlemen and heroes glancing inquisitively at a woman while inside a café in Paris, France?
• Polish Military Intelligence chief Tadeusz Pełczyński suggested before 1939 that, if war approached, Poland share her Enigma-cipher-breaking techniques with France and Britain?
• Michigan, France, and the United States have all sued for claim to the “holy grail” of Great Lakes shipwrecks, French explorer La Salle’s ship Le Griffon (pictured) that sank in 1679?
• Philippe Pastour de Costebelle, the French governor of Plaisance, Newfoundland, ordered the destruction of St. John's after its capture by French forces in 1709?
• Russian admiral Vasily Zavoyko (pictured) defended against superior British-French forces in the 1854 Siege of Petropavlovsk, and even captured the British banner?
• Princess Stéphanie of Monaco’s song "Ouragan" was a number one hit in France?
• Polish general Józef Zając held military decorations from Poland, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austro-Hungary, and the short-lived state of Central Lithuania?
• German physicist Max von Laue wrote an article for Acta Crystallographica, which dealt with the absorption of x-rays under interference conditions, while in French military incarceration in 1945?
• French singer Patricia Kaas' 1990 album Scène de vie was certified Diamond in France, Double-platinum in Switzerland and Platinum in Canada?
• French poet and novelist Louis Pergaud was a pacifist who was killed in action during World War I in 1915?
• French painter Charles-André van Loo was the principal court painter to Louis XV of France?
• French painter Adélaïde Labille-Guiard was ordered to destroy her royal portraits after the French Revolution?
• French protests caused the Russians to award the contract for the Gangut-class battleship to a Russian firm rather than the German winner of the 1908 international design contest?
• French showman and soldier Tarrare could eat his own weight in meat every day?
• Frenchman Jean-Marie Le Bris accomplished the world's first powered flight in 1856, with a glider that was pulled behind a running horse?
• French top-ten single "Nuit" by the trio Fredericks Goldman Jones was penned in just a few hours?
• Russian painter Alexandre Jacovleff (pictured) participated in trans-Saharan and trans-Asian (from Syria to China) expeditions organized by the French car manufacturer Citroën?
• Senegalese marabout Mahmadu Lamine was executed by French soldiers for leading an 1886 rebellion against the French colonial government?
• Charles Le Gendre (pictured), was born in France, married in Belgium, but died an American general in 1899, working for King Gojong, Emperor of Korea?
• Charles Angibaud was the royal apothecary to Louis XIV of France, but left France in 1681 to avoid persecution as a Protestant Huguenot and moved to London, where he was later Master of the Society of Apothecaries?
• Château de Clermont (pictured) belonged to the French actor Louis de Funès?
• Christian Jouanin, a French ornithologist, has described three species of birds, including Jouanin's Petrel and the critically endangered Djibouti Francolin?
• David B. Barkley (pictured), who drowned in the Meuse River, France after completing a scouting mission behind enemy lines during World War I, was the U.S. Army's first Hispanic Medal of Honor recipient?
• Eric Borel, a teenager who killed 14 people in Cuers, Var, was the most deadly mass murderer in France since 1989?
• Demi-Brigades were military formations created by France, to help better organize the French Revolutionary Army?
• Château de Cayx is a royal residence of the Danish monarch in France?
• Cécile Guillaume was the first female engraver of postage stamps in France?
• trash cans in France are known as poubelles because Eugène Poubelle first imposed them on Paris?
• Tahitian nationalist Pouvanaa a Oopa was elected to the French Senate representing French Polynesia following his return from exile in France?
• soul singer Bettye Lavette's album Souvenirs was recorded in 1972, but was shelved by Atlantic Records until a French music collector discovered it and released it in 2000, sparking a continuing surge of interest in the singer?
• Turkey was so dissatisfied with its first set of stamps that it had France make the second set (example pictured)?
• Aeroplanes Voisin, a major French aircraft manufacturer during World War I, was dissolved after the war when its cofounder Gabriel Voisin became more interested in designing automobiles than planes?
• Benjamin Fondane, known as a Symbolist poet in Romania, a Jewish existentialist thinker in France and an avant-garde filmmaker in Argentina, was killed at Auschwitz in late 1944?
• Allen Bares, a former member of the Louisiana State Legislature, was awarded the Medal of Merit by France for promotion of the French language?
• French officer Charles Mangin was despised by his troops during World War I due to his aggressive tactics, which earned him the nickname "The Butcher"?
• French naturalist and explorer Théodore Monod had the same great-grandfather as biologist Jacques Monod and director Jean-Luc Godard?
• France has strengthened bilateral ties with India by signing agreements allowing it to purchase French-made nuclear reactors, the Mirage 2000 fighters, and the Scorpène submarines?
• Dylan McGrath's documentary The Pressure Cooker was criticised by Michelin star-winning French restaurateur Patrick Guilbaud but has been praised by L'Ecrivain owner Derry Clarke, a judge alongside Sammy Leslie on the Adare-produced Fáilte Towers?
• Confederate brigadier general James Morrison Hawes studied advanced military tactics at the Cavalry School of Saumur, France?
• France is the only former colonial power still to maintain territory in North America?
• France was the first country to adopt the 35-hour workweek?
• France's Madagascar expedition of 1883 (bombing action pictured) was triggered by the will to remove British economic and religious influence from the island of Madagascar?
• France was the first to issue official postage due stamps in 1859?
• cinematographer Lawrence Sher first developed an interest in photography after his father convinced him to take a 35mm camera on a Teaneck High School-sponsored trip to France?
• Catherine II's Instruction to the Legislative Assembly was banned in pre-revolutionary 18th-century France as a "libertarian book"?
• 18th century French artilleries were the most efficient at cannon operation (pictured), capable of firing 150 shots per cannon daily during siege?
• 18th century Franco-Portuguese industrialist Jácome Ratton (pictured) left a vivid account of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake in his memoirs and was exiled to the Azores during the Napoleonic Wars?
• 11-year old Prince Joseph Wenzel of Liechtenstein is regarded by Jacobites as third in line for the throne of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland?
• 18th century French salons were often led by those who were creating the Encyclopédie?
• footballer Edward King was honored for heroism in the Philippines and tactical skill in France and later became Commandant of the Army Command and General Staff College?
• Camille Le Mercier d'Erm and his colleagues formed the Breton Nationalist Party in 1911 to advocate the independence of Brittany from France?
• Cambodia's Mongkol Borei District was part of Thailand until the French demanded it back in 1907?
• France's Ford Vedette was the first car to feature MacPherson struts?
• French architect Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe designed the structure that initially housed the Hermitage Museum and the palace where Grigory Rasputin was murdered?
• French Sinologist Paul Pelliot was caught up in the Boxer Rebellion and trapped in the siege of Peking?
• French Olympic shooter Léon Moreaux won his first of seven Olympic medals at the age of 38?
• French Roman Catholic archbishop Marcel Lefebvre's father René Lefebvre died in a Nazi concentration camp?
• French soprano Germaine Lubin was imprisoned for three years after World War II for her alleged support of Nazi Germany?
• French tennis player Henri Leconte won 9 ATP titles in an 11 year period?
• French historian Augustin Cochin was the son of Denys Cochin, a prominent right wing Deputy in the National Assembly of France?
• French artist Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux and his son Paul created a cyclorama of the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg that drew over half a million viewers within a year of its premiere?
• French photographer Robert Demachy took hundreds of photographs and wrote more than a thousand articles on photography, but suddenly gave up the subject without any explanation?
• French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac once lived in the house on the Moika River Embankment which now hosts the Consulate-General of France in Saint Petersburg?
• French general Jean Touzet du Vigier served four governments in World War II – the Third Republic, the Vichy regime, Free France, and the Fourth Republic?
• French Champagne merchant Charles Heidsieck was imprisoned for espionage during the American Civil War, sparking an international incident?
• French cartographer Jacques Bertin was the first to provide a theoretical foundation to Information Visualization?
• French geography professor Henri Enjalbert theorized that Albania, the Ionian islands and southern Dalmatia were the only European regions with grapevines following the last Ice Age?
• French geologist Alexandre-Emile Béguyer de Chancourtois (pictured) was the first to arrange the chemical elements by atomic weight, but his design was ignored by many chemists?
• French Major General René Cogny, who later commanded French forces during the First Indochina War, was captured in June 1940 by the German army, and had to escape by crawling naked through a drainpipe?
• French lighthouse Phare de la Vieille (pictured) was operated manually as late as 1995?
• Etaples Military Cemetery is the largest Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in France, with over 11,500 burials?
• François-Marie Le Marchand de Lignery was awarded the Order of Saint Louis for his role in the French victory over British General Edward Braddock in the 1755 Battle of the Monongahela?
• a Franco-Hungarian alliance was formed in October 1528 between Francis I of France and Zapolya of Hungary?
• a "witch's egg" (pictured), the immature form of the carrion-odoured common stinkhorn, is eaten in parts of France and Germany?
• Sir James Hutchison, known as the "Pimpernel of the Maquis" for his liaison work with the French Resistance, was so well known to the Gestapo that he had plastic surgery before being parachuted into France after D-Day?
• a regiment of Spanish troops served in the French Army from 1809 to 1813, despite France and Spain being at war with each other in the Iberian Peninsula?
• a bridge has existed at the site of the Pont Notre-Dame (pictured) in Paris, France since antiquity?
• after France expelled the Vaudois Protestant group living in Piedmont in 1686, the latter fought their way back home during the War of the Grand Alliance?
• according to legend, the relics of Saints Ferreolus and Ferrutio were discovered in 370 by a military tribune whose dog chased a fox into a cave near present-day Besançon, France?
• a scandal caused by the suicide of French politician and suspected murderer Charles de Choiseul-Praslin helped foment the 1848 Revolution?
• French mycologist René Maire wrote a work on the local flora of the Haute-Saône in the Franche-Comté region of northeastern France when he was only 18 years old?
• Englishman Christopher Merret wrote the first description of the méthode champenoise used to make sparkling wine, long before it was documented in the Champagne region of France?
• Kabloona (1941) is a classic account of a Frenchman's life among Canadian Inuit?
• Jeûne genevois, a public holiday in Geneva, Switzerland, has its origins in the persecution of Protestants that took place in Lyon, France, over 400 years ago?
• Juliano Verbard escaped from a French prison in a hijacked helicopter?
• Papillon is a famous memoir written by Henri Charrière about his numerous escape attempts from a French penal colony in French Guiana?
• The Big Blowdown, a crime novel by American author George Pelecanos, was the recipient of the International Crime Novel of the Year award in France, Germany and Japan?
• Emperor Gia Long united Vietnam under the Nguyen dynasty after French missionary Pigneau de Behaine, whom he met in a forest while fleeing the Tay Son dynasty, sought French military assistance?
• Captain Alexander Hood of the Royal Navy was killed in battle between his ship Mars and the French Hercule in 1798?
  
• after Sweden entered the Thirty Years' War, Pomerania and France became her allies in the Treaty of Stettin (1630) and the Treaty of Bärwalde (1631)?
• after Bernard Natan directed and acted in hardcore heterosexual and bisexual pornographic films from 1920 to 1927, by 1929 he owned the giant French movie studio Pathé and later helped develop the anamorphic film lens?
• between 47,000 and 65,000 Filipinos live in France?
• at the Second Battle of the Aisne in World War I, the French suffered over 187,000 casualties?
• at least eleven of the twenty electors of the papal conclave, 1362 were from the Limousin province of France?
• both former German Federal Minister of Labor Norbert Blüm and former Secretary of State of France Alain Vivien have been recognized with the Leipzig Human Rights Award?
• despite strong support from England, all three Huguenot rebellions in southwestern France were suppressed by King Louis XIII?
• during World War I, U.S. YMCA worker and preacher William Howard Hoople sailed to France to serve on the front lines as an entertainer?
• despite the Allied siege, La Rochelle was the last French city to be liberated from German occupation in 1945?
• at Bougon, a prehistoric burial mound in France, archeologists found the skull of a man who had undergone three trepanations during his lifetime?
• although his crew were merely taking geological observations, the British Government believed Cyrille Pierre Théodore Laplace had claimed New Zealand for France?
• after an engagement (pictured) initiated by HMS Cleopatra, captained by Sir Robert Laurie, the larger French frigate Ville de Milan captured her attacker, but was so badly damaged in the battle that both ships were later captured in turn by HMS Leander?
• after a collision with the Scottish clipper Loch Earn, the French steamship Ville du Havre sank in only 12 minutes, with the loss of 226 lives?
• after William Montagu, 1st Earl of Salisbury (pictured) was captured by the French in the Hundred Years' War, he had to promise never to fight in France again?
• after the Champagne region, the Loire Valley produces more sparkling wine than any other region in France?
• after the French defeat at the Battle of Muong Khoua during the French Indochina War, the four surviving soldiers trekked 80 kilometres (50 mi) through the jungle of Laos to safety?
• after the fall of Napoleon in France, some 200 Bonapartists fled to the United States and attempted to establish an agricultural settlement to grow wine grapes and olive trees in the Alabama wilderness?
• after the Red Baron, French ace René Fonck had the most confirmed World War I aerial victories?
• Villeurbanne and Lyon form the second-largest conurbation in France?
• Valrhona, a company based in the small town of Tain l'Hermitage in the Rhône Valley in France, is one of the world's leading manufacturers of high-quality chocolate?
• Jean Desbouvrie persuaded the government of France to test swallows as an alternative to carrier pigeons?
• Jean-Baptiste Belley (pictured), a former slave from Saint-Domingue, became a member of the National Convention of France, where in 1794 he took part in the decision to abolish slavery?
• Jacqueline Audry was the first commercially successful woman film director of post-war France?
• Sir John Luttrell, an English soldier and diplomat under Henry VIII and Edward VI, was the subject of an allegorical portrait (pictured) by Hans Eworth celebrating peace with France and Scotland?
• Lucques (pictured), Aglandau, Salonenque, Picholine, Olivière, Tanche, Bouteillan, Cailletier, Grossane, Germaine, Cayon and Sabine are some of about a hundred French olive cultivars?
• Marc-André Raffalovich, a French poet, writer on homosexuality, and patron of the arts, had a life-long relationship with John Gray, the purported model for Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray?
• Makhir of Narbonne was a Babylonian-Jewish scholar who settled in Narbonne, France at the end of the 8th century, and his descendants were leaders of the local Jewish community who bore the title of "nasi" (prince)?
• International Gothic art is so called because very similar styles existed in centres as far apart as France, Bohemia, Italy and Burgundy?
• Henri Joseph Fenet, a soldier in World War II, was awarded both the Croix de Guerre by France and the Knight's Cross by Germany?
• Frank Brickowski played basketball in Italy, France and Israel for three years in the early 1980s, until the New York Knicks thought he was ready for the NBA?
• France Antarctique, a short-lived French colony, was not in Antarctica but in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil?
• France–Asia relations span more than two millennia, and have involved numerous alliances between France and Asian countries?
• Gavrinis, an island in the Gulf of Morbihan off the coast of Brittany, France, has a rich abundance of megalithic art from the New Stone Age?
• Gia Long, the first Emperor of Vietnam's Nguyen Dynasty unified the country for the first time in its modern state with French military assistance from his friend and Catholic priest Pigneau de Behaine?
• HMS Laura, captured by the French in 1812, became an American privateer, only to be recaptured by the British less than a year later?
• Greeks in pre-Roman Gaul founded Marseilles, the oldest city of France, circa 600 BCE?
• Marmoutier Abbey in France was destroyed four times between its construction in the 4th Century and the raising of a private school on its latest ruins?
• Marthe Richard was a former prostitute and spy who worked to make brothels illegal in France?
• Roderigue Hortalez and Company was a fictitious front organization set up by France to help American revolutionaries fight England?
• Raymond Monvoisin was a French painter and Legion of Honor recipient invited by the Chilean government to establish an Academy of Painting in Santiago, and who also dabbled in mining and ranching?
• Quan Thanh Temple (principal gate pictured), a Taoist temple in Hanoi, was once wrongly named as a Buddhist pagoda by the French?
• Rue de l'Abbaye in Paris takes its name from an abbey where the Merovingian kings of France used to be interred?
• Saint Foutin was a syncretic amalgam of the first bishop of Lyon, France and pre-Christian Gaulish phallic worship?
• Shmuel Flatto-Sharon successfully ran for election to the Knesset to avoid extradition to France, where he was wanted for embezzlement?
• Sausenburg Castle (pictured) in Germany was destroyed in 1678 by the army of French Marshall Creque during the Franco-Dutch War?
• Przemysław I Noszak, Duke of Cieszyn unsuccessfully tried to negotiate peace between England and France fighting the Hundred Years' War?
• Pierre Lacau was the French Egyptologist and Director of Antiquities who oversaw the discovery of Tutankhamun (mask pictured) in the Valley of the Kings?
• Monique Serf was only ten years old when she had to go into hiding during the German occupation of France in World War II?
• Mirosław Iringh, a leader of Slovak Platoon 535, wore a white-blue-red armband made out of a French military decoration once bestowed upon a fellow insurrectionist by Marshal Foch?
• Maurice Durand designed the lighthouses at the Île d'Yeu and the Pointe du Grouin du Cou in France to replace earlier structures that had been destroyed during World War II?
• Muhtar Kent, named to assume the post of CEO of the Coca-Cola Company on July 1, 2008, is the son of a Turkish diplomat, who risked his life to save Jews in France during the Holocaust?
• Nguyen Truong To was called to serve Emperor Tu Duc of Vietnam despite having earlier assisted France's colonization of southern Vietnam?
• Nicolas Sarrabat, a French scientist and Jesuit, conducted experiments on the circulation of plants, argued that magnetism was caused by a fire at the Earth's centre, and discovered the largest comet ever recorded?
• Nicolas-Charles Bochsa, who helped found the Royal Academy of Music in 1822, was only in London because he had fled France five years earlier to avoid prosecution for multiple counts of forgery and fraud?
• "4 Mots sur un piano", which deals with the theme of a romantic relationship between two men and one woman, was the fifth best-selling single of 2007 in France?