X-Nico

87 unusual facts about France


2006 GP Ouest-France

The 2006 GP Ouest-France, the 69th edition of the GP Ouest-France, took place on August 27, 2006 in the French region of Brittany, in a race in and around the village of Plouay.

28 cm SK L/40 gun

During World War II these guns were transferred to Brest.

Alexandre Auffredi

Alexandre Auffredi was a wealthy bourgeois of the city of La Rochelle in France, who in 1196 sent a fleet of seven ships to Africa to tap the riches of the continent.

Alexis Bruix

Alexis Vital Joseph, Baron of Bruix, (Brest, France, 1790 - Callao, Peru, 1825), Alejo Bruix in Spanish, was French military who joined to the patriot armies to fought in the Spanish American Wars of Independence.

Anglo-French

Anglo-French is a term used in contexts involving France and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK).

Antoine Mariotte

After having been performed at Nancy, Le Havre, Marseille, Geneva, and Prague, Mariotte's Salomé was seen at the Opéra on 1 July 1919 with Lucienne Bréval.

Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design

An Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design student was the first American to win the 2005 International Competition for Young Fashion Designers in Paris, France.

Arches paper

Arches paper is valued for its durability, and is still made today at the Arches paper mill in Lorraine, France.

Armenia Fund

All-Armenian Fund through its 25 affiliate organizations has presence in 22 countries around the world: United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Great Britain, France, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon, Syria, and Australia.

Auguste Fernbach

Auguste Fernbach (1860-1939) was a French biologist.

Bathonian Series

The "Bathonien" of some French geologists differs from the English Bathonian in that it includes at the base the zone of the ammonite Parkinsonia Parkinsoni, which in England is placed at the summit of the Inferior Oolite.

Besson MB.35

The Besson MB.35 was a French two-seat spotter and observation floatplane, designed by Besson.

Brain stem stroke syndrome

Jean-Dominique was instrumental in forming the Association du Locked-In Syndrome (ALIS) in France.

Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope

The corporation is bound by a tripartite agreement between the University of Hawaii, the National Research Council (NRC) in Canada and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France.

Castiglioni Dragon Fly 333

French UAV manufacturer CAC Systèmes created a drone version named the Héliot for use in reconnaissance and as an aerial target, but the aircraft did not enter production.

CFL Line 90

The terminus at the north end is Luxembourg railway station, whilst the terminals at the south are the French towns of Metz and Nancy.

Château Beauséjour

Château Beauséjour was a historic estate in Saint-Émilion in the Bordeaux region of France that until 1869 formed a single property, since divided into two neighbouring wineries.

Claude Carliez

Claude Carliez (born 10 January 1925 in Nancy) is a French master at arms in classical fencing who became a period and fencing advisor to French films.

Count of Penamacor

He accompanied King Afonso V to France in 1477 where he had been sent as Ambassador earlier and was Ambassador to Rome to negotiate Afonso V's marriage to Queen Joana, La Beltraneja, Queen Isabel's nemesis.

Cultural movement

Began in Germany and spread to England and France as a reaction against Neoclassicism and against the Age of Enlightenment.

Democratic elements of Roman Republic

Octavian on the other hand received the Roman provinces of the west: Italia (modern Italy), Gaul (modern France), Gallia Belgica (parts of modern Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg), and Hispania (modern Spain and Portugal), these territories were poorer but traditionally the better recruiting grounds; and Lepidus was given the minor province of Africa (modern Tunisia) to govern.

Derhan group

The group had been given the missions of collecting arms for the Liberation, distributing pro-Gaullist propaganda, inciting German draft resisters and French citizens avoiding the Reichsarbeitsdienst labor corps.

Elizaveta Polonskaya

In 1914 she graduated from medical school, and after the outbreak of the First World War, she worked for a few months at a hospital in Nancy and then helped run a newly organized military hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine.

Essential Monet

Essential Monet is a discussion book about the paintings of famed French artist Claude Monet.

Eugen Kölbing

Eugen Kölbing (1846-1899) was a German philologist, a specialist in the study of Nordic, English, and French language and literature and comparative linguistics and literature.

Eugen Ritter von Schobert

He received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for his leadership of the VII Corps in the breakthrough of the Maginot Line and the capture of Nancy and Toul.

Europa City

The first aspect considered how well each group accounted for an inclusion of Europa City within the greater area of Roissy-en-France and within the public development project already taking place in and around Gonesse.

Flame tank

While the British used a squadron of Churchill Crocodiles during the fighting at Brest in September 1944, the US Army received a smaller American designed flamethrower mounted upon the M4 Sherman tank during the same month.

Foreign espionage in New Zealand

In 1985, agents of the DGSE, the primary foreign intelligence agency of France, bombed the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour.

France amateur national rugby union team

The France Amateurs are the amateur national rugby union team of France.

France-Albert René

"Mad Mike" Hoare and 43 others posed as members of the "Ancient Order of Froth Blowers", a defunct charitable beer-drinking fraternity, visiting the islands as tourists.

Francis Albarède

In 1979 he was promoted to professor at the National School of Geology in Nancy, where he remained for 12 years.

François-Antoine Devaux

Devaux trained as a lawyer and worked briefly for a lawyer cousin in Nancy.

Frankenthal Porcelain Factory

--(1775 berühmter Farbenprobeteller in London).--> By 1776 the Frankenthal porcelain factory had shops in Aachen, Basle, Frankfurt am Main, Livorno, Mainz, Munich and Nancy.

French North Africa

French North Africa was a collection of territories in North Africa controlled by France and centering on French Algeria.

French state

Vichy France, 'French state' was the official name of the regime first directed by Philippe Pétain, explicitly opposed to the French Republic

Fundacion Yannick y Ben Jakober

Yannick Vu, president of the foundation, a painter and sculptor born in France (1942) is now British.

Georges Guibourg

Born at Mantes-la-Ville, Yvelines, Île-de-France, France, he began studying the piano at the age of 11 and at age 16 went to Paris where he performed on stage, singing extracts of traditional operettas and lovesongs.

Heilbronn League

The Heilbronn League was an alliance between Sweden, France, and the Protestant princes of Western Germany against the Catholic League during the Thirty Years' War.

Henri de La Ferté-Senneterre

In 1632 the French army invaded Lorraine and Henri II naturally found himself before Nancy in 1633.

Île-de-France tramway Line 2

Tramway line T2 (Trans Val-de-Seine) is a tramway in Île-de-France.

Isaac La Peyrère

La Peyrère also argued that Messiah would join with the king of France (that is, the Prince of Condé, not Louis XIV of France) to liberate the Holy Land, rebuild the Temple and set up a world government of the Messiah with the king of France acting as regent.

Jaques Surcouf

He was the President of la Société entomologique de France in 1921.

Jean Antoine Coquebert de Montbret

Jean Antoine Coquebert de Montbret (1753, Paris- 6 April 1825) was a French entomologist.

Jean Sainteny

Jean Sainteny or Jean Roger (May 29, 1907 in Vésinet - February 25, 1978) was a French politician who was sent to Vietnam after the end of the Second World War in order to accept the surrender of the Japanese forces and to attempt to reincorporate Vietnam into French Indochina.

Joseph Merklin

In 1867 the company's grand organ built for the Basilica of St. Epvre in Nancy received a Gold Medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris and Merklin was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur.

Juan de Lángara

For a short while, after the alliance between France and Spain had been concluded, in 1795, Lángara co-operated with Napoléon Bonaparte during his Italian campaign of 1796, and sailed from Cádiz with nineteen ships of the line and ten frigates, brushing aside Rear-Admiral Man's division which Jervis had posted to watch Cádiz, and passed into the Mediterranean Sea.

Le chemin

Le Chemin, France, commune in the Marne department in the Champagne-Ardenne region in north-eastern France

Leading sire in France

The list below shows the leading Thoroughbred sire of racehorses in France for each year since 1887.

Libération-Nord

Libération-Nord was one of the principal resistance movements in the northern occupied zone of France during the Second World War.

Louvet

The name Louvet appearing on its own usually refers to Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvrai, French writer during the Revolution.

Lovers' Park

Following a year of research, French designer architect Pierre Rambach presented the sketches of the new Lovers' Park project in 2006 and received the approval of the Yerevan City Council.

Luca Coscioni

Afterwards, he began to collaborate with an influential French institute based in Nancy.

Lucienne Abraham

Lucienne Abraham (1916 – 1970), also known as Michèle Mestre, was a French Trotskyist politician.

Madeleine Biardeau

Madeleine Biardeau (16 May 1922 Niort - 1 February 2010 Cherveux) was a prominent Indologist from France.

Maquis du Limousin

It is considered to be the first act of resistance of World War II in France.

March for Equality and Against Racism

The March for Equality and Against Racism (French: Marche pour l’égalité et contre le racisme), also called Beurs’ March (Marche des beurs) by French media (beur is the contraction of beu-ra-a which is the backslang of arabe), was an anti-racist march that took place in France in 1983, from October 15 to December 3.

Maria Justeau

Along with her husband, Eugene Justeau, she saved the lives of many American, Canadian and French soldiers in the area of Saint-Seglin, Brittany, France.

Matignon Agreements

The Matignon Agreements of 1936, an agreement between the French government, employers and labour guaranteeing trade union membership and negotiating rights, a 40-hour working week and paid workers' holidays.

Mhamed Yazid

He joined the nationalist Parti du Peuple Algérien (PPA) in 1942, and later, after moving to Paris, France for university studies, its successor organization, the MTLD, where he became a member of the central committee.

Microsoft Office 2000

All retail editions of Office 2000 sold in Australia, Brazil, China, France, and New Zealand and academic copies sold in Canada and the United States required the user to activate the product via the Internet.

Nemo me impune lacessit

The French city of Nancy has a similar motto, Non inultus premor ("I cannot be touched unavenged"), also a reference to the thistle, which is the symbol of the region of Lorraine.

Nicolas Joseph Laurent Gilbert

Having completed his education at the college of Dole, he devoted himself for a time to a half-scholastic, half-literary life at Nancy, but in 1774 he found his way to the capital.

Not Sokute

Not Sokute is an EP containing five songs and the debut release by French indie singer-songwriter SoKo.

Onra

He moved to France at the age of three and shortly after, lived between France and Côte d'Ivoire, where his mother was based for over twenty years.

Order of Penitents

:Also called Nuns or Hospitallers of Our Lady of Nancy, founded at Nancy in 1631 by Ven.

Order of the Crescent

Recipients (usually naval or army officers or representatives of Britain or France, highly present in the region during the Napoleonic Wars) were awarded a lozenge-shaped silver radiant star, embroidered in silver thread on an azure background with a star and crescent in the centre, and a red ribbon, to be worn with the crescent to the star's left.

Organ donation

In some nations (for instance, Belgium, Poland, Portugal and France) everyone is automatically an organ donor, although some jurisdictions (such as Singapore, Portugal, Poland,or New Zealand) allow opting out of the system.

Organisation civile et militaire

The Organisation civile et militaire (OCM, "Civil and military organization") was one of the great movements of the French Resistance in the zone occupée, the northern German-occupied region of France, during the Second World War.

Originality in Canadian copyright law

Other countries such as France and the United States require the author of a work to demonstrate some level of creativity.

Paul Rivière

After a first airdrop, he was arrested and detained four months by Vichy France police.

PlayStation 2 retail configurations

The V12 model was first released in black, but a silver edition was available in the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, United Arab Emirates and other GCC Countries, France, Italy, South Africa, and finally, North America.

Pleix

Pleix is a group of digital artists based in Paris, France.

Prix Biennal

Prix Biennal is the former title of two separate horse races in France.

Race to Mars

Jumping to 2029, the narrator explains the mission, 'Project Olympus' and shows the four NTR spacecraft: Cargo lander Shirase, Mars Surface Habitat Atlantis, Mars lander Gagarin, and Crew Transfer Vehicle Terra Nova. In early 2030, the international crew of six astronauts from the United States, Russia, France, Canada and Japan board Terra Nova to begin their 582 day-month journey to Mars and back.

Rancho Honcut

So he sold a half-interest in Rancho Honcut to a former employee, Charles Julian Covillaud (b. 21 Nov 1816 in Cognac, France; d. 05 Feb 1867 in Marysville).

Résistance-Fer

The actions of Résistance-Fer were especially effective during the liberation of France.

Rigault RP.01B

The Rigault RP.01B was a French-built high-wing single-engined ultralight aircraft of the 1950s.

Rodeo Massacre

Rodeo Massacre is the sixth album released by French post-rock band Ulan Bator.

Roissy-en-France

Roissy is the location where the action of the two explicit sadomasochistic novels Story of O (Histoire d'O), and its sequel Retour à Roissy by Pauline Réage take place.

Salvage ethnography

Salvage ethnography started to be applied methodically in visual anthropology as ethnographic film since the fifties by filmmakers such as Jean Rouch in France, Michel Brault and Pierre Perrault in Canada, or António Campos in Portugal (early sixties), followed by others (seventies).

SETCA Milan

The SETCA Milan was a French-built two-seat light utility aircraft of the 1940s.

Sicovam

Sicovam, an acronym for Société Interprofessionnelle pour la Compensation des Valeurs Mobilières, is both a security identifier system used to identify French securities listed on French stock exchanges, as well as the company set up to assign them.

Sisters of Mercy of St. Borromeo

They were originally a pious association of ladies formed in 1626 for the care of the sick in the hospital of St. Charles at Nancy, but became a religious congregation in 1652, after being generously endowed by the father of Emmanuel Chauvenel, a young advocate who had given his life in the service of the sick.

STIF

Syndicat des transports d'Île-de-France, the organizing public transport authority for Paris and the surrounding Île-de-France region.

Synod of Homberg

Even before Luther's dramatic appearance, the lords of the State in Germany, no less than in France and England, had extended their prerogatives into the sphere of ecclesiastical affairs.

Thonon Black Panthers

The Black Panthers of Thonon is a football club French of American football based at Thonon-les-Bains (Haute-Savoie) and created in 1987 by Benoît Sirouet, Nicolas Schpoliansky and Frederic Mériguet.


1937–38 Detroit Red Wings season

In Europe, the teams played a nine-game series in England and France.

30th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS

Soldiers of the division together with an unspecified Italian unit killed 40 civilians in Étobon, France on 27 September 1944, in retaliation of the support given by villagers to the French partisans.

AAC Middle Wallop

After D-Day, both the 67th RG moved to its Advanced Landing Ground at Le Molay-Littry (ALG A-9) and IX FC Headquarters moved to Les Obeaux, France in late June 1944 ending the USAAF presence at Middle Wallop.

Alexandros Skourletis

In the early 1920s, Alexandros moved to France where he studied Law and Political Science at the University of Paris.

Ashe County, North Carolina

Helen Keller visited an Ashe County native, Marvin Osborne, in 1944 when he was wounded in France in World War Two.

Australian Government Future Fund

In May 2011 the Future Fund was criticized by The Age newspaper for investing A$135.4 million in 15 foreign-owned companies involved in the manufacture of nuclear weapons for the United States, Britain, France and India.

Automated guideway transit

The VAL (Véhicule Automatique Léger) system in Lille, France, opened in 1983, is often cited as the first AGT installed to serve an existing urban area.

Ceol an Ghrá

At the Contest, it was performed third on the night, following France's Betty Mars with "Comé-comédie" and preceding Spain's Jaime Morey with "Amanece".

Chaumont, New York

In 1750, Ray had bought the Chaumont castle (named from the Old French for "bald hill", and built in two periods around 1500), in the Loire Valley of France.

Christina Bauer

She was born in Bergen, Norway during a Christmas holiday to a French father, Jean-Luc Bauer, a professional volleyball player, and a Norwegian mother, Tone Bauer, a handball player who played several years in France.

Clem Sohn

Sohn's career came to an end on April 25, 1937, in Vincennes, France.

Commercial Cable Company

Connections from Waterville to Weston-super-Mare in England and Le Havre in France were soon established by the submarine route after initial use of landlines from Waterville onward to mainland Britain.

Dominique Fidanza

In 2006, she moved to France to participate at the French reality television show Star Academy France and she arrived at the end of the show but she lost against Cyril Cinélu.

Downhill Challenge

Downhill Challenge is a view-from-behind 3d skiing game developed by Microïds in 1988, published in the US by Brøderbund Software and in France by Loriciel (as Super Ski; in the UK it also had an Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards license).

Duleek

The village’s four crosses and the lime tree on the village green are reminders of Duleek’s links to the struggle between William and James and to wider European unrest at the time of Louis XIV of France.

Eclaireuses et Eclaireurs israélites de France

The Eclaireuses et Eclaireurs israélites de France (EEIF, Jewish Guides and Scouts of France) is a Jewish Scouting and Guiding organization in France.

Elsie Ferguson

Following her final marriage at age 51, she and her husband acquired a farm in Connecticut and divided their time between it and her Cap d'Antibes home on the Mediterranean Sea in the south of France.

France national under-20 rugby union team

The France Under 20's won two of their five matches and finished 4th in the 2010 Six Nations Championship

Frédéric Dorion

In 1949, Dorion spoke out against the extradition from Canada of Count Jacques Charles Noel Duge de Bernonville, a Vichy France police official who had been an aide to Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie and was wanted in France for having collaborated with the Nazis.

Fritz Knipschildt

After training at the Hotel and Restaurant School of Denmark, Knipschildt worked in the Mont Blanc area of France twice, and also in southern Spain.

Gare de Franconville – Le Plessis-Bouchard

Franconville - Le Plessis-Bouchard is a station in Franconville, a northwestern suburb of Paris, France.

George J. Walker

He served tours in France, Germany, Korea and Vietnam as well as stateside assignments at Seneca Army Depot, Romulus, New York; Fort Holabird, Maryland; Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; Fort Huachuca, Arizona; Fort Hood, Texas; Washington, DC; and Fort McPherson, Georgia.

Horatio Walpole, 1st Baron Walpole

He got on intimate terms with Fleury and seconded his brother in his efforts to maintain friendly relations with France; he represented Great Britain at the congress of Soissons and helped to conclude the treaty of Seville (November 1729).

Jackie Duffin

Sorbonne, History and Philosophy of Science (PhD)
1985 Diplôme de l'Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, IV Section, Paris
1983 D.E.A.Paris-I-Sorbonne, France
1979 F.R.C.P.(C) Internal medicine
1979 F.R.C.P.(C) Hematology
1979 C.S.P.Q. Hématologie
1974 M.D. University of Toronto

Jacqueline Robin

Jacqueline Robin (December 11, 1917 in Saint-Astier, Dordogne – February 3, 2007 in Taverny) was a French pianist.

Jean Elichagaray

Jean Baptiste Pierre Eugène Elichagaray (September 3, 1886 – June 8, 1987) was a French rower who competed in the men's eights event at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm.

Jean-Jacques Ampère

Moving to Paris, he taught at the Sorbonne, and became professor of the history of French literature at the Collège de France.

Jean-Paul Bertrand-Demanes

Jean-Paul Bertrand-Demanes (born 13 May 1952 in Casablanca, Morocco) is a former football goalkeeper from France, who earned eleven international caps for the French national team during the 1970s and was part of the French team in the 1978 FIFA World Cup.

Jeita Grotto

In December 2003, on behalf of the Beirut-based private company MAPAS, Jeita received a prestigious award from the fifth Tourism Summits in Chamonix, France.

Jervis B. Webb Company

The company headquarters is in Farmington Hills, Michigan, with offices and manufacturing plants internationally including Carlisle, South Carolina; Harbor Springs, Michigan; Boyne City, Michigan; Hamilton, Ontario; Northampton, England; Ludwigshafen, Germany; Palaiseau, France; Barcelona, Spain; Shanghai, China and Bangalore, India.

Karl Heeremans

From this time on, numerous awards and recognitions were presented to him, such as the 1964 - price of Namur, Belgium 1962–1967 Italian Olivetti, Knokke and Ronse, Belgium and Cannes, France.

Kevin Ayers

After living for many years in Deià, Majorca, he returned to the United Kingdom in the mid-1990s before moving to the south of France.

La Vallon Airfield

La Vallon Airfield is an abandoned World War II military airfield in France, which is located approximately 6 km north-northeast of Montbrison (Departement de la Loire,Rhone-Alpes); about 385 km south-southeast of Paria.

La Varenne

La Varenne, Maine-et-Loire, a commune in the Maine-et-Loire department in France

Lombez Cathedral

Lombez Cathedral (Cathédrale Sainte-Marie de Lombez) is a Roman Catholic cathedral, and a national monument of France, in Lombez.

Mlle Raucourt

By 1770 she was back in France at Rouen, and her success as Euphmie in Belloy's Gaston et Bayard caused her to be called to the Comédie Française, where, in 1772, she made her debut as Dido.

Montmorency, Victoria

Montmorency was named after a local farm, Montmorency Estate, which in turn was named for the town of Montmorency, Val-d'Oise, where the French Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau lived briefly.

Nicolae Dărăscu

He traveled extensively and lived in the south of France (Toulon and Saint-Tropez, 1908), to Venice (1909), in Romania (to Vlaici, Olt County, 1913, and in Southern Dobruja - Balchik, 1919).

Pegaso Z-102

A Pegaso Z-102 coupé by Saoutchick, owned by Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza, was in this respect the epitome of coachwork sophistication, as it had seats upholstered with leopard skin and controls in gold, and in such a finish it won the 1953 Enghien-les-Bains (France) Grand Prix d'Elegance.

Potentilla delphinensis

It is endemic to France, where it is limited to the southern French Alps (Savoie et Dauphiné: Bauges; Isère; Hautes-Alpes, Col du Lautaret).

St Mary's Church, Ickworth

The 6th Marquess (d. 1985) was buried in Menton (France) for 25 years until the 8th Marquess had him reinterred in the vault of Ickworth Church in October 2010.

Stratos Boats

Stratos began building boats in 1984, and sells throughout a network of dealers throughout the United States, Australia, France, Japan, Mexico, Portugal, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Italy and Venezuela.

Tiarama Adventist College

The only way to recruit new Adventist teachers was to send trainees to the college (now Saleve Adventist University) at Collonges-sous-Salève in France.

Vauvenargues

Vauvenargues, a commune of the Bouches-du-Rhône département in southern France, near Aix-en-Provence

Vedat Dalokay

Later in 1952, he completed his post-graduate studies at the Institute of Urbanism and Urban Development of Sorbonne University in Paris, France.

Walther Linis

They started in France and sailed through the Suez Canal to Arabia where they unloaded oil and continued over the Pacific shoreline to San Diego in California and on into the Panama Canal to the Gulf island of Aruba, waterless island but they could get oil board and then took 12 trips between many U.S. cities in the east shore, the boat went several times to the port of Tampico in Mexico from 1957-58.

Wartenberg Trust

WartenbergTrust is a global multi-family office, wealth management and investment advisory firm established in 1921 to manage financial and other assets of the Wartenberg family in German-speaking Europe and from 1931 also in France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, the US and Italy.

Zakaria Bakkali

After Bakkali's superb Champions League-debut, Belgium coach Marc Wilmots selected him in the 25-man squad in the friendly-game against France.

ZChocolat.com

zChocolat.com is headquartered in Aix-en-Provence, France, and has a dedicated logistics center in Forcalquier Alpes de Haute Provence and U.S. office in Ojai, California.