X-Nico

97 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.

A History of the Devil

It was originally published in France in 1993 as Histoire Générale du Diable.

Alexandre du Chayla

Count Armand Alexandre de Blanquet du Chayla (1885–1945) was a French nobleman who converted to Russian Orthodoxy.

Andy Akinwolere

His mother and father both lived abroad for a while and he spent a small part of his childhood living in Nancy, France.

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.

Auguste André Thomas Cahours

Auguste André Thomas Cahours (1813–1891) was a French chemist.

Banknotes of Hyderabad

In 1932, a quantity of unissued, but water stained Hyderabadi notes in 5, 10, and 100 rupee denominations were recovered from the S.S. Egypt, which sank off the island of Ushant near Brest, northern France in 1922.

Baudoinia compniacensis

Baudoinia compniacensis is black in colour and is partly responsible for the frequently observed phenomenon of 'Warehouse Staining', reported originally from the walls of buildings near brandy maturation warehouses in Cognac, France.

Carron du Villards

Charles Joseph Frédéric Carron du Villards (1801–1860) was a French ophthalmologist whose 1838 book Guide pratique pour l'étude et le traitement des maladies des yeux was an important early text in the field.

Championnat de France

Championnat de France can refer to many different championships in France.

Chantiers et Ateliers Augustin Normand

Chantiers et Ateliers A. Normand is a French shipyard in Le Havre.

Claude de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon

With his elder brother Claude de Rouvroy entered the service of Louis XIII as a page and found instant favour with the king.

Claude de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon (August 1607 – 3 May 1693), French courtier, was the second son of Louis de Rouvroy, seigneur du Plessis (died 1643), who had been a warm supporter of Henry of Guise and the Catholic League.

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.

Dalotel DM-165

The Dalotel DM-165 is a French two-seat training monoplane designed by Michel Dalotel.

David Hutchins

Hutchins was educated at Blundell's School and the École nationale des eaux et forêts (National School of Water Resources and Forestry) at Nancy, France.

De la Huerta–Lamont Treaty

In February 1919, the State Department granted approval to bring together American, British, and French banks concerned with investments in Mexico on the condition that control of the committee's policy remain in American hands.

De Lucy

The first records are about Adrian de Luci (born about 1064 in Lucé, Normandy, France) who went into England after William the Conqueror.

Derhan group

The Derhan group was an element of the French resistance in the Moselle department of France during World War II.

Edith Ker

Édith Ker, born Édith Denise Keraudren (1910–1997) was a French actress born in Brest (Finistère).

Edmund Knyvet

Knyvet's father was slain in a naval battle near Brest on 10 August 1512, and four months later Knyvet's mother died in childbirth between 13 and 21 December 1512.

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.

Etain

Étain, France, a commune in the Meuse département in France

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.

Eugène Anselme Sébastien Léon Desmarest

Eugène Anselme Sébastien Léon Desmarest (1816–1889) was a French zoologist and entomologist son of Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest (1734–1838).

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.

Ex-plicit linez

In addition to his solo works, EXP made numerous guest appearances internationally throughout Japan, China, France and Philippine.

Explicit Lyrics

Explicit Lyrics is the third studio album recorded by the French artist Ophélie Winter.

Fort-de-France

Originally named Fort-Royal, the administrative capital of Martinique was over-shadowed by Saint-Pierre, the oldest city in the island, which was renowned for its commercial and cultural vibrancy as "The Paris of the Caribbean".

France amateur national rugby union team

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

France-Albert René

While abroad, he became heavily involved in the politics of the Labour Party, at the time led by Clement Attlee and later Hugh Gaitskell.

Shortly after leaving their Royal Swazi National Airways aircraft, an airport security guard spotted a Kalashnikov assault rifle in their luggage; the discovery launched a gun battle in which hostages were taken.

France's Next Top Model

The first cycle ended with Alizée Sorel as the winner of the competition, while the second cycle (which was held in 2007) saw victory for seventeen-year-old Karen Pillet from Maintenon, France.

Francis Albarède

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

French state

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

Gau München-Oberbayern

Only the Pfalz, geographically separated from the rest of the state, became part of the French occupation zone.

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.

Global Alliance for Project Performance Standards

Following a Global Steering Committee meeting hosted by Services SETA of South Africa and held in London in August 2002, the first Working Session of the GAPPS (initially called Global Performance Based Standards for Project Management Personnel) was held in Lille, France in February 2003.

GP Ouest-France

Grand-Prix de Plouay Ouest-France (now known as GP Ouest-France) is an elite cycle race held annually in late summer around a circuit based on the small Breton village of Plouay since 1931.

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.

History of Île-de-France

This proved to be a failure, due to a lack of cooperation from the communes and the departments of the region; they refused to send their representatives to the district council.

Île-de-France tramway Line 2

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

James Sykes Gamble

Gamble later studied at the École nationale des eaux et forêts, Nancy.

Jaques Surcouf

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

Jean Amila

Jean Amila (Paris, 24 November 1910 – 6 March 1995, also known as John Amila, Jean Mekert, or Jean Meckert) was a French author and screenwriter.

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 Lennox Pawan

After studying at the Pasteur Institute in France he returned to Trinidad in 1913, first as an Assistant Surgeon at the Colonial Hospital in Port of Spain, and later as the District Medical Officer in Tobago and Cedros, in southwestern Trinidad.

Jules Guérin

Jules Guérin (14 September 1860 – 10 February 1910) was a French journalist and antisemitic activist.

Kaplan International Colleges

KIC also offers short, medium and long-term residential foreign language courses in China, Dominican Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Malta, Mexico, Russia and Spain through partner schools.

Katoucha Niane

In 2005, she worked as host of the French language television program France's Next Top Model.

Kosa Pan

The mission landed at the French port of Brest before continuing its journey to Versailles, constantly surrounded by crowds of curious onlookers.

Lakhdar Ben Tobbal

He was one of the original "historical leaders" of the FLN's November 1, 1954 uprising against French colonialism.

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.

Lioré et Olivier 300

The Lioré et Olivier 300 (abbreviated to LeO 300) was a 1930s French prototype night bomber.

Lorraine Campaign

The Third Army, lacking gasoline, was unable to swiftly take both Metz and Nancy, unlike the actions that characterized the rapid advance across France.

Lucienne Abraham

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

Lyon Tablet

The surviving bottom portion of the tablet was discovered in 1528 by a draper in his vineyard on Croix Rousse Hill (on the site of the Sanctuary of the Three Gauls), in Lyon, France.

Ma Nouvelle-France

"Ma Nouvelle-France" was written by Dion's longtime collaborator Luc Plamondon and produced by Christopher Neil ("Think Twice," "Where Does My Heart Beat Now").

Mahoran

Something of, from, or related to Mayotte, an overseas department of France consisting of a main island, Grande-Terre (or Mahoré), a smaller island, Petite-Terre (or Pamanzi), and several islets around these two.

Maquis du Limousin

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

But the Limousin was South to the line of demarcation and the resistance was mainly a passive one against Vichy France.

Marcel Labey

Marcel Labey (6 August 1875, Vésinet – 25 November 1968, Nancy) was a French conductor and composer.

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.

Methods of praying the rosary

Five methods of praying the rosary are presented within the works of Saint Louis de Montfort, a French Roman Catholic priest and writer of the early 18th century.

Mustapha Stambouli

A law student, he was active for the nationalist cause from the late 1930s in the Parti du peuple algérien (PPA), and was jailed several times by the colonial authorities of France.

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.

Operation Tamarisk

Operation Tamarisk was a Cold War-era operation run by the military intelligence services of the US, UK and France through their military liaison missions in East Germany, that gathered discarded paper, letters, and rubbish from Soviet trash bins and military maneuvers, including used toilet paper.

OPJ

In the context of French police and judicial proceedings, for Officier de Police Judiciaire ("officer of judicial police").

Order of Penitents

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

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.

Pan-Latinism

Pan-Latinism first arose in prominence in France particularly from the influence of Michel Chevalier who contrasted the "Latin" peoples of the Americas with the "Anglo-Saxon" peoples there.

Petitcollin

In the early 1800s, Nicolas Petitcollin, the company's founder, manufactured horn combs in Étain, Meuse, France.

Philip Keeney

During the Hitler-Stalin pact, the PLC sent a letter to FDR urging him not to aid Poland, France or the United Kingdom, all fighting for their lives under the Nazi onslaught.

Politeknik Ibrahim Sultan

In order to provide continuous routes, Politeknik Ibrahim Sultan will create articulation with John Moores University and implement twinning programs with Taylor's University for Hospitality program articulated by Toulouse University in France (in preparation for creating course of Bachelor Degree in Hotel & Catering Management soon which is expected in 2013-2015).

Pope Pius IX and France

They came from different countries including France, Holland (the majority), Belgium, Canada and England.

Prix Biennal

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

Prosper-René Blondlot

Born in Nancy, France, he spent most of his early years there, teaching physics at the University, being awarded three prestigious prizes of the Académie des Sciences for his experimental work on the consequences of Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism.

Ramadan Shlash

Ramadan Shlash (Fr. Chelache), although at one time an official in Deir ez-Zour, is most known for having taken a significant role in the nationalist, anti-colonialist revolt against the French of 1919-1921.

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).

Redressement Français

The Redressement Français (French Resurgence) was a French anti-parliamentarian movement founded in 1926 by electricity magnate Ernest Mercier.

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.

Robin Aiglon

Aiglon ia a French four-seat touring and training monoplane designed and built by Avions Robin.

Rodeo Massacre

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

Roissy-en-France

The closest station to Roissy-en-France is Aéroport Charles de Gaulle 1 station on line B of the Paris Region's express suburban rail system, the RER.

Shakespeare and Company

Shakespeare and Company (bookstore), an English-language bookshop in Paris, France; hosts the annual Shakespeare & Company Literary Festival in June.

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.

SNCAC Chardonneret

Chardonneret (sometimes known as the Aérocentre NC.840) was a 1940s French four-seat cabin monoplane.

Virgin Express France

Virgin Express France, originally Air Provence Charter, was a French subsidiary of the airline Virgin Express, with its head office on the grounds of Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Tremblay-en-France.

William VI, Count of Auvergne

William VI of Auvergne (1096–1136) was a French count of the historically independent region of Auvergne, today in central France.


Albert Vanhoye

Born on 23 July 1923 at Hazebrouck, France, Albert Vanhoye entered the Society of Jesus in 1941 and studied at Jesuit Scholasticates in France and Belgium, as well as obtaining a licentiate and doctorate in sacred scripture with a thesis on the Letter to the Hebrews, from the Pontifical Biblical Institute (the Biblicum) in Rome.

Alfred Gause

Bodo Zimmermann is in the background Gause rejoined Rommel in his postings in Italy and Northern France.

André Castaigne

During a six-year period in France where he divided his time between a winter studio in Paris and a summer studio in Angoulême, he illustrated William Milligan Sloane's The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Richard Whiteing's Paris of To-Day and Bertha Runkle's The Helmet of Navarre.

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.

Brassite

Villanière (slag locality), Salsigne, Mas-Cabardès, Carcassonne, Aude, Languedoc-Roussillon, France

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".

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.

Crazy on the Outside

Meanwhile, the fictional story about Tommy's "France" trip continues to evolve including a relationship with Simone, a French astronaut who was killed on the launchpad so that Tommy's mother would not fly everyone to France to meet her (because she does not exist).

Crossair Europe

Crossair Europe (European Continental Airways) was an airline headquartered on the grounds of EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg in Saint-Louis, Haut Rhin, France, near Basel, Switzerland.

Dewoitine D.332

The three D.333s were used on the Toulouse-Dakar sector of the Air France South American route for several years.Two of these planes were transferred to the Argentine Air Force after WWII and usde along with two 338s.

DSPACE GmbH

The company has Project Centers in Pfaffenhofen (near Munich) and Böblingen (near Stuttgart) and subsidiaries in the USA, UK, France, Japan and China.

Earl J. Atkisson

This regiment arrived in France on March 10, 1918 and eventually participated in the Aisne-Marne, St. Mihel, and Meuse-Argonne operations.

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.

Eric Heinze

After receiving his Licence and Maîtrise from the Université de Paris, Heinze enrolled as a DAAD scholar at the Freie Universität Berlin.

Fantômas se déchaîne

It was France's answer, with the Fantômas trilogy starting in 1964, to the James Bond phenomenon that swept the world at around the same time.

Gare de Franconville – Le Plessis-Bouchard

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

Gare de Pierrelaye

Pierrelaye is a railway station in the town of Pierrelaye, 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.

Gérard de Cortanze

He translated works of Spanish writers, such as the Mexican Jose Emilio Pacheco, the Nicaraguan Rubén Darío, Argentine exile in France Juan José Saer, the notebooks of the Spanish painter Antonio Saura (1930–1998), and poems, like those of Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo (1892–1938) and the Chilean Vicente Huidobro (1893–1948).

Gornji Hrašćan

Dražen Ladić, former goalkeeper of the Croatian national football team and winner of the bronze medal at the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France, grew up in the village.

History of the violin

In the 19th and 20th centuries numerous violins were produced in France, in Saxony and the Mittenwald in what is now Germany, in the Tyrol, now parts of Austria and Italy, and in Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic.

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

Jacopo Foroni

After studies with Alberto Mazzucato in Milan Foroni worked as a conductor in France, Belgium and Holland before arriving in Sweden in 1849 to work for Vincenzo Galli's opera company at the Mindre teatern where he gave the Swedish premieres of works by Bellini and Donizetti as well as the young Verdi.

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-Louis Jaley

Jean-Louis Nicolas Jaley (born in Paris in 1802, died in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1866) was a French sculptor.

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.

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.

Louis Pouzin

Louis Pouzin (born 1931 in Chantenay-Saint-Imbert, Nièvre, France) invented the datagram and designed an early packet communications network, CYCLADES.

Luçon Cathedral

Luçon Cathedral (Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption de Luçon) is a Roman Catholic cathedral, and a national monument of France, in Luçon in the Vendée.

Marylene Dosse

Ms Dosse was born in Domfront in Normandy, France - the only place in which her mother could find a hospital which had not been taken over by the invading German armed forces.

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).

Order of Interbeing

Plum Village Buddhist Center in the Dordogne region of France is established by TNH and Sister Chan Khong

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.

Sir George Staunton, 1st Baronet

He was born in Cargins, Co Galway, Ireland and educated at the Jesuit College, Toulouse, France (abtaining an MD in 1758) and the School of Medicine in Montpellier, France.

Talbot Tagora

Fewer than 20,000 Tagora models were ever built, all of them at the former Simca factory in Poissy, near Paris, France.

Torfou

Torfou, Maine-et-Loire, a commune of the Pays de la Loire region of France

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.

Wildenstein Castle

Château de Wildenstein, ruined castle in the Alsace region of France, situated in the commune of Kruth in the Haut-Rhin département

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.