In spite of the closure of most of France's tram systems in earlier years, a fast growing number of France's major cities have modern tram or light rail networks, including Paris, Lyon ( Lyon having the biggest one ), Toulouse, Montpellier, Saint-Étienne, Strasbourg and Nantes.

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 entering class that year was one of the most brilliant of the nineteenth century and many of his classmates, such as Jean Jaurès and Henri Bergson would go on to become major figures in France's intellectual history.

Loudoun, a capable administrator but a cautious field commander, planned only one major operation for 1757: an attack on New France's capital, Quebec.

A second major railroad, the Dakar-Niger built from 1906 – 1923, linked Dakar to Bamako and consolidated the city's position at the head of France's West African empire.

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.

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

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.

The military port of Toulon is the major naval centre on France's Mediterranean coast, home of the French Navy aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle and her battle group.

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.

Two major exceptions were France's Grande Armée ( although in 1812, regulations changed grenadier uniforms to those more similar to the ones of fusiliers, except in guard regiments ) and the Austrian Army.

The industrial tissue of the department of Ain is also a result of its metal processing ( cables, wire drawing, electrical wires ) and engineering industry ( automobile industry, France's most important site for truck production ) as shows the presence of several major companies in this sector ( Tréfileurope, Alcatel Cables, Renault Trucks ).

A second goal from Bruno Bellone in injury time at the end of the match secured France's first major title in international football.

The first completed lines radiated out of Paris, connecting France's major cities to the capital.

France's major upscale department stores are Galeries Lafayette and Le Printemps, which both have flagship stores on Boulevard Haussmann in Paris and branches around the country.

In the 1920s he also donated a substantial amount towards the restoration and rehabilitation of major buildings in France after World War I, such as the Rheims Cathedral, the Château de Fontainebleau and the Château de Versailles, for which in 1936 he was awarded France's highest decoration, the Grand Croix of the Légion d ' honneur ( subsequently also awarded decades later-in 2000-to his son, David Rockefeller ).

Despite France's declaration of war on Germany at the beginning of the Second World War, there was no major combat at the Siegfried Line at the start of the campaign in the west.

Abdel Nasser's material, emotional and political support of the Algerian movement would come to cause him troubles, as it played a major role in France's choice to wage war on him during the 1956 Suez Crisis.

In 1970 the " University of Paris VIII " was established in Vincennes as France's first major experiment in open admissions education, as a result of the academic reforms which followed the student risings of 1968.

Although largely discredited, the trend started by Boulanger was still visible inside the far right ( the anti-Dreyfusards ) during France's next major scandal, the Dreyfus Affair.

Europe's political balance underwent a major shift in the summer of 1527, when, in a somewhat unplanned operation, mercenary forces of the emperor occupied Rome and drove Pope Clement VII, one of France's principal allies, to capitulate.

John used some of this money to pay for new alliances on Philip's eastern frontiers, where the growth in Capetian power was beginning to concern France's neighbours.

* France was nearly surrounded by territory controlled by the two Habsburg states ( Spain and the Holy Roman Empire ), and was eager to exert its power against the weaker German states ; this dynastic concern overtook religious ones and led to Catholic France's participation on the otherwise Protestant side of the war.

France's seeming intransigence in settling a colonial war that tied down half the manpower of its armed forces was also a source of concern to its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies.

Of particular concern to BEA in this context were Air France's plans to replace Caravelles with new 727-200s on most of its London – Paris flights.

Their colony was described as " commercially unimportant but strategically located "; most of France's energies went into their administration of French Indochina, and their main concern in China was the protection of Roman Catholic missionaries, rather than the promotion of trade.

and the author, who seemed the embodiment of France's rising spirit of resistance to her conquerors, was much complimented for his daring military action.

At the age of 25, he was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences, France's most elite scientific society, for an essay on street lighting and in recognition of his earlier research.

The reality is that Micheline Musseli Pozzo di Borgo, a French aristocrat who at 20 was France's youngest lawyer ever, brought considerable wealth to her marriage to Lerner and lost most of it through him, including nearly $ 600, 000 from the sale of her Parisian apartment, which Lerner placed in investments that either failed or were looted by him during periods of financial desperation.

However, it was not until 21: 00 that the Marquis de Blanzac, who had taken charge in Clérambault's absence, reluctantly accepted the inevitability of defeat, and some 10, 000 of France's best infantry had laid down their arms.

In the course of France's July Monarchy, Louis-Philippe I was styled " King of the French " rather than " King of France ".

Anne experienced icing problems, it was decided to construct a much larger fortification at Louisbourg to improve defences at the entrance to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and defend France's fishing fleet on the Grand Banks.

In 1654, New England raiders attacked Acadian settlements on the Annapolis Basin, starting a period of uncertainty for Acadians throughout the English constitutional crises under Oliver Cromwell, and only being properly resolved under the Treaty of Breda in 1667 when France's claim to the region was reaffirmed.

The prohibitive cost of maintaining the colony, France's last outpost on the continent, was another factor that compelled observers to doubt that the French would attempt to hold on to the territory.

The period between Henry's accession and the birth of Eleanor's youngest son was turbulent: Aquitaine, as was the norm, defied the authority of Henry as Eleanor's husband ; attempts to claim Toulouse, the rightful inheritance of Eleanor's grandmother and father, were made, ending in failure ; the news of Louis of France's widowhood and remarriage was followed by the marriage of Henry's son ( young Henry ) to Louis ' daughter Marguerite ; and, most climactically, the feud between the King and Thomas Becket, his Chancellor, and later Archbishop of Canterbury.

His reign was marked by large scale public works, the development of social policy, and the extension of France's influence throughout the world.

Napoleon III was deposed on 4 September 1870, after France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War.

Mussolini was aware that Italy did not have the military capacity to carry out a long war with France or the United Kingdom and waited until France was on the verge of imminent collapse and surrender from German invasion before declaring war on France and the United Kingdom on 10 June 1940, on the assumption that the war would be short-lived following France's collapse.

France's inefficient and antiquated financial system was unable to manage the national debt, something which was both partially caused and exacerbated by the burden of an inadequate system of taxation.

La Fontaine's model was subsequently emulated by England's John Gay ( 1685 – 1732 ); Poland's Ignacy Krasicki ( 1735 – 1801 ); Italy's Lorenzo Pignotti ( 1739 – 1812 ) and Giovanni Gherardo de Rossi ( 1754 – 1827 ); Serbia's Dositej Obradović ( 1742 – 1811 ); Spain's Félix María de Samaniego ( 1745 – 1801 ) and Tomás de Iriarte y Oropesa ( 1750 – 1791 ); France's Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian ( 1755 – 94 ); and Russia's Ivan Krylov ( 1769 – 1844 ).

The founding of a Fifth Republic was supported by the French people, while France's colonies were given the choice between more autonomy in a new French Community and immediate independence.

One of the foreign policy issues on which Palmerston and Russell disagreed apparently was the type of relationship that England should have with France and especially France's ruler, Louis Bonaparte.

As he was forming his new imperial government, Napoleon III sent an ambassador to the Ottoman Empire with instructions to assert France's right to protect Christian sites in Jerusalem and the Holy Land.

Napoleon Bonaparte was France's most successful general in the Revolutionary wars, having conquered large parts of Italy and forced the Austrians to sue for peace.

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

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.

Although England was an ally of Spain, one of France's principal enemies, the war was mostly about Henry's desire for personal glory, regardless of the fact that his sister Mary was married to the French king Louis XII.