France's pacification under Henry IV laid much of the ground for the beginnings of France's rise to European hegemony.

Van Paassen was convinced that the British Empire's farsighted military planners and political leaders were not entirely displeased to see France's position weakened by Germany at that time, as it improved Britain's relative dominance over its ancient rival, France, in Britain's drive for worldwide hegemony.

France's pacification under Henry IV laid much of the ground for the beginnings of France's rise to European hegemony.

Approximately 20 % of the network is suitable for commercial boats of over 1000 tonnes and the VNF has an ongoing programme of maintenance and modernisation to increase depth of waterways, widths of locks and headroom under bridges to support France's strategy of encouraging freight onto water.

The former, located in Roissy near Paris, is the fifth busiest airport in the world with 60 million passenger movements in 2008, and France's primary international airport, serving over 100 airlines.

Images believed to depict the Great Auk were also carved into the walls of the El Pinto Cave in Spain over 35, 000 years ago, while cave paintings 20, 000 years old have been found in France's Grotte Cosquer.

It was not until word of France's ratification of emancipation arrived back in the colony that Toussaint Louverture and his corps of well-disciplined, battle-hardened former slaves came over to the French Republican side in early May 1794.

William III, king of the Netherlands, which still had sovereignty over Luxembourg, was willing to sell the grand duchy to France's Emperor Napoleon III in order to retain Limbourg but backed out when Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck expressed opposition.

In this painting, which commemorates France's Revolution of 1830, a half-clothed Liberty leads an armed mob over the bodies of the fallen.

These administrative groupings would be taken over by the Romans in their system of local control, and these civitates would also be the basis of France's eventual division into ecclesiastical bishoprics and dioceses, which would remain in place – with slight changes — until the French Revolution.

In the same vein, France's Napoleonic Code made adoption difficult, requiring adopters to be over the age of 50, sterile, older than the adopted person by at least fifteen years, and to have fostered the adoptee for at least six years.

Britain maintained a standing army of just 220, 000 at the height of the Napoleonic Wars, whereas France's strength peaked at over 2, 500, 000, as well as several hundred thousand national guardsmen that Napoleon could draft into the military if necessary ; however, British subsidies paid for a large proportion of the soldiers deployed by other coalition powers, peaking at about 450, 000 in 1813.

However, France's constant warfare with the combined forces of the other major powers of Europe for over two decades finally took its toll.

* Grasse produces over two-thirds of France's natural aromas ( for perfume and for food flavourings ).

With its 323. 7 people per km < sup > 2 </ sup > on just over 12, 400 km < sup > 2 </ sup >, it is a densely populated region, having some four million inhabitants — seven percent of France's total population, making it the fourth most populous region in the country — 83 % of whom live in urban communities.

A former major mechanical, food industry and textile manufacturing centre as well as a retail and finance center, Lille forms the heart of a larger conurbation, regrouping Lille, Roubaix, Tourcoing and Villeneuve d ' Ascq, which is France's 4th-largest urban conglomeration with a 1999 population of over 1. 1 million.

In 1697, the Treaty of Ryswick included the acknowledgement by Spain of France's dominion over the Western third of the island, now Haiti.

The quarter-finals saw France's Just Fontaine continue in similar form to the group stage, managing another two goals as France triumphed over Northern Ireland.

They shared Britain and France's concerns over a return to German militarism and the economic power of a reunified nation.

He even participated in France's Continental Blockade of Great Britain, over the objections of his Secretary of State, Consalvi, who was forced to resign.

There were few bridges over the dangerous river Loire, and Orléans had one of them, and so became – with Rouen and Paris – one of medieval France's three richest cities.

The battle had firmly turned in France's favour, but it was far from over.

After retaining its unique status as a Territoire for just over half a century, Belfort officially received recognition as France's 90th département in 1922.

Initially, her youthful beauty brought popularity but over time her sophistication and acting skills have made her one of France's most admired actresses.

That tenacity carried over to other areas in North America ; within four years, with the Treaty of Paris, most of France's possessions in eastern North America would be ceded to Great Britain.

The extension of European control over Africa and Asia added a further dimension to the rivalry and mutual suspicion which characterized international diplomacy in the decades preceding World War I. France's seizure of Tunisia ( 1881 ) initiated fifteen years of tension with Italy, which had hoped to take the country and which retaliated by allying with Germany and waging a decade-long tariff war with France.

Critically, he held the line on France's membership of the European Monetary System ( EMS ), giving priority to monetary stability over left-wing spending priorities.

Although the Royal Navy effectively disrupted France's extra-continental trade — both by seizing and threatening French shipping and by seizing French colonial possessions — it could do nothing about France's trade with the major continental economies and posed little threat to French territory in Europe.

The Royal Navy effectively disrupted France's extra-continental trade — both by seizing and threatening French shipping and by seizing French colonial possessions — but could do nothing about France's trade with the major continental economies and posed little threat to French territory in Europe.

He saw the EEC as a continental arrangement primarily between France and Germany, and if Britain joined France's role would diminish.

As a supporter of the rebellious British colonies in North America, it was in France's interest to avoid a continental engagement.

Europe was racked by two decades of war revolving around France's efforts to spread its revolutionary ideals, and the opposition of reactionary royalty.

To concentrate on the war in Europe, Napoleon signed the Louisiana Purchase in April, selling France's North American possessions to the United States.

In 1794, France's revolutionary armies began bringing pieces from Northern Europe, augmented after the Treaty of Tolentino ( 1797 ) by works from the Vatican, such as Laocoön and His Sons and the Apollo Belvedere, to establish the Louvre as a museum and as a " sign of popular sovereignty ".

Four of France's five republics have had presidents as their heads of state, making the French presidency the oldest presidency in Europe still to exist in some form.

Having lost the revenue potential of Haiti while escalating his wars against the rest of Europe, Napoleon gave up on an empire in North America and used the purchase money to help finance France's war campaign on its home front.

Stanisław was supported in his bid to regain the throne by his son-in-law, King Louis XV of France, who hoped to renew France's traditional alliance with Poland as a way to balance Russian and Austrian power in northern and eastern Europe.

Abercrombie saved something from the disaster when he sent John Bradstreet on an expedition that successfully destroyed Fort Frontenac, including caches of supplies destined for New France's western forts and furs destined for Europe.

French power rose quickly as Napoleon's armies conquered much of Europe but collapsed rapidly after France's disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812.

France's alliance with Austria had pulled France into the disastrous Seven Years ' War, in which France was defeated by the British, both in Europe and in North America.

NATO's Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe ( SHAPE ) was relocated in Casteau, a village near Mons, from Fontainebleau after France's withdrawal from the military structure of the alliance in 1967.

He was also a partisan of a " policy of nationalities " ( principe des nationalités ) re-casting the map of Europe, sweeping away small principalities to create unified nation-states, even when this seemed to have little relevance to France's material interests.

The war proved disastrous for France, but was advantageous in giving birth to the German Empire, which would supplant France's place as the major land power in Continental Western Europe to the end of World War I.

Between January and March 2011, France's GDP growth had been stronger than expected at 0. 9 %, one of the best figures in Europe but shrunk between April and June 2011 decreasing by-0. 1 %.

The " Plastics Valley " comprises 10 % of France's plastics industry which constitutes the highest concentration of plastics enterprises in Europe.

France's main adversary in central Europe was the Austrian Empire.

Crucially, despite Austrian attempts to trumpet their victory against Napoleon, its political consequences remained limited: there were no signs of a general uprising in Germany, Prussia was still unwilling to enter the war and Great Britain was not ready to launch its promised land expedition in northern Europe, while Russia, France's ally since 1807, was becoming increasingly aggressive against the Austrian forces in Galicia.

It called for the abolition of neutral nations ' carrying trade, meaning America's carrying trade, between France's Caribbean islands and Europe, including Great Britain.

France's revolution of July in the same year was a terrible blow to him, and filled him with the most dismal anticipations of the future of Europe.

On July 15, the government of Emile Ollivier declared war on Prussia, nominally over the Hohenzollern candidature for the throne of Spain, the pretext for France to declare war in order to satisfy France's increasing unease and desire to halt Prussian expansion in Europe.