1.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
2.
Normandy
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Normandy is one of the regions of France, roughly corresponding to the historical Duchy of Normandy. Administratively, Normandy is divided into five departments, Calvados, Eure, Manche, Orne and it covers 30,627 km², forming roughly 5% of the territory of France. Its population of 3.37 million accounts for around 5% of the population of France, Normans is the name given to the inhabitants of Normandy, and the region is the homeland of the Norman language. The historical region of Normandy comprised the region of Normandy, as well as small areas now part of the départements, or departments of Mayenne. For a century and a following the Norman conquest of England in 1066, Normandy and England were linked by Norman. Archaeological finds, such as paintings, prove that humans were present in the region in prehistoric times. Celts invaded Normandy in successive waves from the 4th to the 3rd century BC, when Julius Caesar invaded Gaul, there were nine different Celtic tribes living in Normandy. The Romanisation of Normandy was achieved by the methods, Roman roads. Classicists have knowledge of many Gallo-Roman villas in Normandy, in the late 3rd century, barbarian raids devastated Normandy. Coastal settlements were raided by Saxon pirates, Christianity also began to enter the area during this period. In 406, Germanic tribes began invading from the east, while the Saxons subjugated the Norman coast, the Roman Emperor withdrew from most of Normandy. As early as 487, the area between the River Somme and the River Loire came under the control of the Frankish lord Clovis, the Vikings started to raid the Seine Valley during the middle of the 9th century. As early as 841, a Viking fleet appeared at the mouth of the Seine, after attacking and destroying monasteries, including one at Jumièges, they took advantage of the power vacuum created by the disintegration of Charlemagnes empire to take northern France. The fiefdom of Normandy was created for the Norwegian Viking leader Hrólfr Ragnvaldsson, Rollo had besieged Paris but in 911 entered vassalage to the king of the West Franks, Charles the Simple, through the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte. In exchange for his homage and fealty, Rollo legally gained the territory which he, the name Normandy reflects Rollos Viking origins. The descendants of Rollo and his followers adopted the local Gallo-Romance language and they became the Normans – a Norman-speaking mixture of Saxons and indigenous Franks and Celts. Besides the Norman conquest of England and the subsequent conquests of Wales and Ireland, Norman families, such as that of Tancred of Hauteville, Rainulf Drengot and Guimond de Moulins played important parts in the Norman conquest of southern Italy and Crusades. They also carved out a place for themselves and their descendants in the Crusader states of Asia Minor, the 14th century Norman explorer Jean de Béthencourt established a kingdom in the Canary Islands
3.
Argentan
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Argentan is a commune and the seat of two cantons and of an arrondissement in the Orne department in northwestern France. Argentan is located 180 km NE of Rennes,131 km ENE of the Mont Saint-Michel,188 km SE of Cherbourg,58 km SSE of Caen,133 km SW of Rouen and 100 km N of Le Mans, Argentan is situated near the Orne River. Although the region was populated during the Gallo Roman period the town is not mentioned until 1025–1026. The toponym comes from the Gaulois words, argentos and magos, the town grew in importance during the Middle Ages. Following the Viking invasion on the coast of northern France, the part of Neustria became Normandy. The Viking chief, Rollo, left the town to one of his lieutenants, throughout the Middle Ages, Argentan was either a rich place or totally burnt. English forces occupied the city several times, the Plantagenet had considered this town as one of the most important of Normandy. During the reign of Louis XIV, Colbert set Alençon against Argentan in a competition on lace making. Thus, the point dArgentan and the point dAlençon were created, Argentan became a very important town for traditional industry. It also gained in importance with the building of a Benedictine Abbey. During World War I, the French 104th Infantry Regiment/14th Infantry Brigade was stationed at Argentan and it participated in the battle of Verdun in 1916. During World War II, the city was almost totally destroyed, on 5 June 1944, on the eve of the Allied D-Day landing on the beaches of Normandy, the city suffered an important air raid in which the train station was destroyed. The city suffered damage when it was bombed on 6 and 7 June by B-17. The greatest part of the city was, however, left in two and half months later, at the end of August, during the battle of the Argentan-Falaise Pocket. Third Army, under the command of general George S. Patton liberated Argentan after eight days of violent combat against the German 9th Panzer Division, the U. S. 80th Infantry Division liberated the city in the morning of 20 August. Donjon of Argentan Tour Marguerite, a medieval tower Ducal Castle and it houses the St. archive. org/web/20110711022230/http, //www. france-horizons. com/Normandie/61-Orne/Argentan/fr/tourisme-argentan. html Tourism site]
4.
Union for a Popular Movement
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The Union for a Popular Movement was a centre-right political party in France that was one of the two major contemporary political parties in France along with the centre-left Socialist Party. The UMP was formed in 2002 as a merger of several parties under the leadership of President Jacques Chirac. In May 2015, the party was renamed and succeeded by the Republicans, Nicolas Sarkozy, then the president of the UMP, was elected President of France in the 2007 presidential election, but was defeated by PS candidate François Hollande in a run-off five years later. After the November 2012 party congress, the UMP experienced internal fractioning and was plagued by scandals which forced its president, Jean-François Copé. After his re-election as UMP president in November 2014, Sarkozy put forward an amendment to change the name of the party into The Republicans, since the 1980s, the political groups of the parliamentary right have joined forces around the values of economic liberalism and the building of Europe. Their rivalries had contributed to their defeat in the 1981 and 1988 legislative elections, before the 1993 legislative election, the Gaullist Rally for the Republic and the centrist Union for French Democracy formed an electoral alliance, the Union for France. However, in the 1995 presidential campaign they were divided between followers of Jacques Chirac, who was eventually elected, and supporters of Prime Minister Edouard Balladur. After their defeat in the 1997 legislative election, the RPR, before the 2002 presidential campaign, the supporters of President Jacques Chirac, divided in three centre-right parliamentary parties, founded an association named Union on the Move. After Chiracs re-election, in order to contest the election jointly. It was renamed Union for a Popular Movement and as established as a permanent organisation. In the UMP four major French political families were represented, Gaullism, republicanism, Christian democracy. Chiracs close ally Alain Juppé became the partys first president at the founding congress at the Bourget in November 2002. Juppé won 79. 42% of the vote, defeating Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, the leader of the partys Eurosceptic Arise the Republic faction, and three other candidates. During the partys earlier years, it was marked by tensions, in the 2004 European Parliament election on 13 June 2004, the UMP also suffered another heavy blow, winning 16. 6% of the vote, far behind the Socialist Party, and only 16 seats. Juppé resigned the presidency on 15 July 2004 after being found guilty in a corruption scandal in January of the same year. Nicolas Sarkozy rapidly announced that he would take over the presidency of the UMP and resign his position as finance minister, ending months of speculation. On 28 November 2004, Sarkozy was elected to the presidency with 85. 09% of the votes against 9. 1% for Dupont-Aignan and 5. 82% for Christine Boutin. Having gained control of what had been Chiracs party, Sarkozy focused the party machinery, however, during this time, the UMP under Sarkozy gained a record number of new members and rejuvenated itself in preparation of the 2007 election
5.
Estuary
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An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a zone between river environments and maritime environments. They are subject both to marine influences—such as tides, waves, and the influx of saline water—and to riverine influences—such as flows of fresh water and sediment. The inflows of sea water and fresh water provide high levels of nutrients both in the water column and in sediment, making estuaries among the most productive natural habitats in the world. Most existing estuaries formed during the Holocene epoch with the flooding of river-eroded or glacially scoured valleys when the sea began to rise about 10. Estuaries are typically classified according to their geomorphological features or to water-circulation patterns, the banks of many estuaries are amongst the most heavily populated areas of the world, with about 60% of the worlds population living along estuaries and the coast. The word estuary is derived from the Latin word aestuarium meaning tidal inlet of the sea, there have been many definitions proposed to describe an estuary. However, this definition excludes a number of water bodies such as coastal lagoons. This broad definition also includes fjords, lagoons, river mouths, an estuary is a dynamic ecosystem having a connection to the open sea through which the sea water enters with the rhythm of the tides. The sea water entering the estuary is diluted by the water flowing from rivers. The pattern of dilution varies between different estuaries and depends on the volume of water, the tidal range. Drowned river valleys are known as coastal plain estuaries. In places where the sea level is rising relative to the land, sea water progressively penetrates into river valleys and this is the most common type of estuary in temperate climates. Well-studied estuaries include the Severn Estuary in the United Kingdom and the Ems Dollard along the Dutch-German border, the width-to-depth ratio of these estuaries is typically large, appearing wedge-shaped in the inner part and broadening and deepening seaward. Water depths rarely exceed 30 m, examples of this type of estuary in the U. S. are the Hudson River, Chesapeake Bay, and Delaware Bay along the Mid-Atlantic coast, and Galveston Bay and Tampa Bay along the Gulf Coast. They are relatively common in tropical and subtropical locations and these estuaries are semi-isolated from ocean waters by barrier beaches. Formation of barrier beaches partially encloses the estuary, with only narrow inlets allowing contact with the ocean waters, bar-built estuaries typically develop on gently sloping plains located along tectonically stable edges of continents and marginal sea coasts. They are extensive along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the U. S. in areas with active coastal deposition of sediments, barrier beaches form in shallow water and are generally parallel to the shoreline, resulting in long, narrow estuaries
