According to a 2008 television programme, presented by Griff Rhys Jones, “ the flame has only been extinguished once, by a drunken Mexican football supporter on the night that France beat Brazil here in Paris ,” most likely referring to the 1998 FIFA World Cup Final.

Croatia, Norway, Hungary and France won their preliminary groups, but two of the teams failed to utilise their advantage ; Norway drew with Poland and lost to Slovenia, and needed to beat Croatia in the final match of the group stage.

They beat World Champions Italy 3 – 0 in their first match, followed by a 4 – 1 win over World Cup runners-up France.

* UEFA Euro 2000 Final ( France beat Italy )

* 2003 Confederations Cup ( France beat Cameroon )

* 1998 World Cup ( France beat Paraguay ) in the Round of 16.

The 2002 presidential election was the first ever in France to include a right-wing nationalist candidate in the run-off, as Le Pen beat the socialist candidate in the first round.

Bertrand du Guesclin, appointed Constable of France in 1370, beat back a major English offensive in northern France with an unnerving combination of raids, sieges and pitch battles.

On June 15, 1955, at the 50th IOC Session in Paris, France, Rome beat out Lausanne, Detroit, Budapest ( being the first city of the Eastern Bloc to bid for the Olympic Games ), Brussels, Mexico City and Tokyo for the rights to host the Games.

The tournament was won by France, who beat Brazil 3 – 0 in the final.

Pelé scored the only goal of their quarter-final match against Wales, and they beat France 5 – 2 in the semi-final.

After a very respectable campaign during which they beat Netherlands on penalties in the semi-final following a 1 – 1 draw with goals from Ronaldo and Patrick Kluivert, the team lost to host France 3 – 0 in a final game.

In popular folk dancing in France, in recent years ( after roughly 2005 ), the mazurka has evolved into a dance at a more gentle pace ( without the traditional ' hop ' step on the 3rd beat ), allowing for more intimate dancing and giving it the status of a seduction dance.

World traveller Nápoles began 1973 by retaining the title against Lopez again, by knockout in seven, then he visited Grenoble, France, where he retained the crown with a 15 round decision over Roger Menetrey, and Toronto, where he beat Clyde Gray, once again retaining the world title with a 15 round decision.

France won their first major title at home in the 1984 tournament, with their captain Michel Platini scoring 9 goals in just 5 games, including the opening goal in the final, in which they beat Spain 2 – 0.

France, the reigning world champions, were favoured to win, and they lived up to expectations when they beat Italy 2 – 1 after extra time, having come from being 1 – 0 down: Sylvain Wiltord equalized in the very last minute of the game and David Trezeguet scored the winner in extra time.

On their way to the final they also beat holders France as well as the Czech Republic with a silver goal, a rule which replaced the previous golden goal in 2003, before being abolished itself shortly after this tournament.

France beat bids of Turkey ( 7 – 6 in voting in second voting round ) and Italy, which had the least votes in first voting round.

England had four wins under Johnson going into 2009 ; in the 2009 Six Nations Championship they beat Italy 36 – 11, France 34 – 10 and Scotland 26 – 12 but were defeated by Ireland by 14 – 13 and to Wales by 23 – 15.

In the first semi-final on 15 November 2003, Australia beat New Zealand 22 – 10 and then in the second semi-final the following day England beat France 24 – 7.

They beat the four Home nations to earn their first Grand Slam and also went on to defeat France.

Australia had to beat France at Toulouse to reach the final in the last game of the preliminaries, a task which proved well within their capabilities.

The years 1812 and 1813 saw him in Germany and France again, but on this visit to Berlin he did not seek out the philosophers as he had on his first journey.

In the first half of the 20th century the Olympic Winter Games were held three times in Alpine venues: the 1924 Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France ; the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland ; and the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

The first regular auto racing venue was Nice, France, run in late March, 1897, as a " Speed Week.

New History in France: The Triumph of the Annales, ( 1994, first French edition, 1987 ) excerpt and text search

* 1908 – Wilbur Wright makes his first flight at a racecourse at Le Mans, France.

* 1893 – France becomes the first country to introduce motor vehicle registration.

* 1908 – Fantasmagorie, the first animated cartoon, created by Émile Cohl, is shown in Paris, France.

* 1978 – Double Eagle II becomes first balloon to cross the Atlantic Ocean when it lands in Miserey, France near Paris, 137 hours after leaving Presque Isle, Maine.

* 1944 – Alençon is liberated by General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, the first city in France to be liberated from the Nazis by French forces.

* 1875 – Captain Matthew Webb became the first person to swim across the English Channel, traveling from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in 22 hours.

He led two embassies to the Mongols: the first carried letters from Pope Innocent IV and the second bore gifts and letters from Louis IX of France to Güyük Khan.

In 1769, he worked on the first geological map of France.

In 1939 Grothendieck went to France and lived in various camps for displaced persons with his mother, first at the Camp de Rieucros, and subsequently lived for the remainder of the war in the village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, where he was sheltered and hidden in local boarding-houses or pensions.

The U. S. Army brought truck-towed Bofors 40 mm AA guns along with truck-mounted units fitted with mechanized turrets when they sailed, first for Great Britain and then onto France.

* 2005 – The superjumbo jet aircraft Airbus A380 makes its first flight from Toulouse, France.

* 1809 – Two Austrian army corps are driven from Landshut by a First French Empire army led by Napoleon I of France as two French corps to the north hold off the main Austrian army on the first day of the Battle of Eckmühl.

Unlike France or Germany, there are no special administrative courts of first instance in the Netherlands, but regular courts have an administrative " chamber " which specializes in administrative appeals.

The first Baron was Hamelin de Balun, from Ballon, a small town and castle in Maine-Anjou called " Gateway to Maine ", near Le Mans, today in the Sarthe département of France.

Around the same time, in France, Charles-Louis Havas extended the services of his news agency, Havas to include advertisement brokerage, making it the first French group to organize.

Anaïs Nin (; born Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell, February 21, 1903 – January 14, 1977 ) was a French-Cuban author, based at first in France and later in the United States, who published her journals, which span more than 60 years, beginning when she was 11 years old and ending shortly before her death, her erotic literature, and short stories.

Her father's grandfather had fled France during the Revolution, going first to Saint-Domingue, then New Orleans, and finally to Cuba where he helped build that country's first railway.

The Pals ' first day of action, Saturday 1 July 1916, took place in Serre in the north of France.

It was first performed in France in 1894.

Bauxite was named after the village Les Baux in southern France, where it was first recognised as containing aluminium and named by the French geologist Pierre Berthier in 1821.