Hot answers tagged france
17
In short:
It was true until 2006. Now he can still run for president of France, but through the standard way : he can acquire French nationality through naturalization (like anyone) and run for president as a French citizen!
More precisely :
This article (Sorry, Bill Clinton. You can't be president of France or Ireland) explains deeply why :
Clinton ...
16
The Phoney War (Sitzkrieg, Drôle de Guerre, etc.) seems destined to remain one of the great mysteries of history. It is difficult to comprehend now, after the fact, how such an astonishing combination of missed opportunities, wishful thinking, and indecisiveness on the part of not just one, but two great powers, could have carried on for more than half a ...
16
Because this question has been edited many times I have to clarify that I am answering the version that asks:
What caused the Iranian 1979 revolution to become Islamic?
Short Answer (more suited for causal conversations in bars): It was easier to portray the Shah as anti Islamic ruler in league with the Western powers bent on destroying Islam in an Islamic ...
12
What you are referring to is commonly known as the "French Column". I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that English movies and the English version of Wikipedia are pretty dismissive of it. After all, that was the opinion of everyone's favorite English General, Wellington. And he was certainly able to back it up.
The first thing you have to realize is that ...
11
Khomeini was in France because he had been expelled from Iran and then Iraq, and his aides had advised him to go to Europe, and because France granted him political asylum. He was at the time an aged and relatively obscure religious figure, a target of political persecution who had not been to his home country in well over a decade. They probably saw him as ...
11
First of all, France's goal is not to "undermine its relationship with Turkey" as you have implied. Instead, this is a product of France's policy of recognising what happened during WWI as a genocide.
I believe the most important part of your question is why has France been the most assertive when it comes to recognition of the Armenian genocide. This comes ...
8
Napoleon loved forward momentum - and he got it with the heavy column. The formation forced his infantry forward, the front ranks constantly pushed to the fore by the ranks behind them, and made opponents break formation to get the hell out of the way. This worked, because Napoleon was an artilleryman - he would disrupt opposing line formations with ...
7
First of all, Monaco was annexed by revolutionary France and was part of it from 1793 to 1814.
Before 1793 and from 1814 to 1860 it was surrounded by lands belonging to House of Savoy. (So for that specific timeframes, it would be pretty hard for France to annex Monaco without annexing Savoy's lands).
Monaco is surrounded by France from 1860 as a ...
6
Its true that he said it. However, the statement itself was not true. (Sorry, French Clinton fans!)
He apparently got that idea from an open letter a political scientist
wrote to him in the New York Times back in 2001 suggesting the idea.
The problem there, however, is that after that letter brought
attention to the Louisiana Purchase loophole, the ...
6
Columns are an aggressive formation, that work best against "inferior" (slower-firing, -marching) opponents. That's because at the point of contact, the column is very deep, which means that it has a good chance of breaking the enemy line. It's weakness is that against a well-drilled opponent, the defender will pull back the line on either side, let the ...
5
The French Republican Calendar started counting years from 22 September 1792, the day the French First Republic was proclaimed. Year I was the first year of the Republic, and so on.
You can read more about the calendar's design on Wikipedia.
5
Algeria was more then a colony, there were French Départements in Algeria, from 1848 on until 1962 it was an integral part of the French motherland.
See Wikipedia or the french wikipedia article for the French départements in Algeria
This does not mean, that Algerians were full citizens.
See also Process of Colonization:
Algeria was formally ...
5
Preparing for war takes place over a matter of months, if not years. This is true physically, logistically, and psychologically. Basically, the Germans were ready for war in September 1939, the Allies were not.
One advantage enjoyed by the German army was the "practice" it had obtained in the occupation of both Austria and the modern Czech Republic ...
5
The Vichy French Gendarmerie was set at 60,000 men by the armistice agreement and following orders by the occupying Germans. Local police retained their normal duties although they were subject to German orders. They were not allowed to retain heavy military weaponry or motorized transport. They were also compelled to work with German occupiers. If the ...
5
A New York bar's website is one of a few sites which provide the following (seemingly) credible explanation for this practice:
No one is exactly sure of the reasons why larger format bottles were given biblical names. But, according to the Champagne expert Francois Bonal, winemakers in Bordeaux had been using the name Jeroboam for the four-bottle size ...
4
There were sadly few writers of the Arab world who wrote in French until 1945. There were, however, lots of French writers who wrote about the Arab culture. My preferred one is René Guénon, also known as Shaykh `Abd al-Wahid Yahya. On the other side, the French culture influenced a lot of francophile writers. In Lebanon nowadays a lot of writers write in ...
4
I believe the greatest allies mistake was made before Poland, during Munich treaty.
Allies left Czechoslovakia to Germans in exchange of promised peace which never came.
Czechoslovakia had a great defence line, better tanks thank germans, same quality airplanes and totally awesome and modern artillery which Germans totally missed. If the allies supported ...
4
Algeria was considered a "back door" to France, from the south. In the hands of a hostile country, England, Germany, or even Libya/Egypt, it was seen as a potential invasion route to France. On the other hand, if France retained a foothold in Africa through Algeria, it could continue to influence its former colonies in "French West Africa" (which it does to ...
4
Bonaparte's biographer Vincent Cronin's mentions the British naval blockade but no further preventive countermeasures (that I could find upon brief reconsultation). Perhaps this is because this is a one-volume biography of a (in some ways :) big subject.
As to Sidney Smith's role (he is also mentioned in the Wikipedia article), his biographer Tom Pocock ...
3
The wikipedia page includes an extensive reference list of further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution#Further_reading
Here is the reading list from USC's class The Age of the French Revolution:
Jeremy Popkin, A Short History of the French Revolution
Laura Mason and Tracy Rizzo, eds., The French Revolution: A Document Collection
...
3
The first thing to remember is that Napoleon prized speed over everything else. Most of his campaigns he faced much larger armies led by different nations and leaders. When Napoleon arrived the opposing armies would be near one another but not yet (His apposing armies were separated due to forage and supply needs, or were traveling to meet one another at a ...
3
After French forces surrendered to German forces, they set up a new demi-Fascist government under one of the more reactionary French generals, known today as Vichy France.
Vichy France had full authority in the unoccupied southern half of France, and theoretical authority in the rest, and was officially a non-belligerant. Only Alsace-Lorraine was officially ...
3
There was a set of reforms introduced by Napoleon into conquered countries
The law based on Napoleonic code. The code forbade privileges based on birth, allowed freedom of religion, and specified that government jobs should go to the most qualified.
The code declared presumption of innocence, competitive trial and right to an attorney.
The code prohibited ...
2
As @T.E.D. suggests this kind of things is better understood from the inside. so here is how I see it from Paris.
President Sarkozy suddenly felt a hurry to push a so called "Armenian Genocide" law just before the last presidential election in order to rally the Armenian community which is quite influential in the French microcosm. That didn't help him to ...
2
From Wikipedia –
In all the French spent 1.3 billion livres to support the Americans directly, in addition to the money it spent fighting Britain on land and sea outside the U.S.
France's status as a great modern power was affirmed by the war, but it was detrimental to the country’s finances. Even though France's European territories were not ...
2
The Merovigians helped start the feudal system. They were actually weak kings. So they relied on a hierarchy of nobles to help them. To reward these people, they "farmed out" pieces of land to them in a manner that we would now call "fiefdoms."
Feudalism was unpopular because it was an expensive, clumsy way of governing. Most people (in the first millenium) ...
2
The other answers pointed out very correctly that Algiers was legally considered a part of France. What must be added is that there was a very large body of French colonists in Algiers, which was not the case with the other French possession, whatever their legal status.
2
Mozart played mainly at the court of Queen Maria Theresa of Austria. But she had a daughter, Marie Antoinette, who was Queen of France (and who hosted Mozart on a tour).
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/music/bios/mozart/
It's unlikely that Mozart was "never" popular in France before World War II. What MAY have been true is that Mozart, who had his ups and ...
2
Unless someone can find a "smoking gun" such as a diary, we'll never know for sure. But the "indications" appear to be no, for several reasons.
Marie had a difficult childbirth with her last child. She was the one that said no to further marital relations, which amplified any tendencies that Louis XV might have had toward infidelity. It's unlikely that a ...
1
There is the obvious geo-political gain of weakening their British enemies, who had seen such expansion in that theatre during the seven year war. Come the next war (Napoleonic, yes, unfortunately not so much of a gain for the Bourbons) the United states offered both trade to France and co-belligerency (1812 war). However, I get the feeling France expected ...
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