1.
France
–
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.
Union for a Popular Movement
–
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
3.
Gallo-Roman culture
–
This article covers the culture of Romanized areas of Gaul. For the political history of the brief Gallic Empire of the third century, the term Gallo-Roman describes the Romanized culture of Gaul under the rule of the Roman Empire. This was characterized by the Gaulish adoption or adaptation of Roman morals, the well-studied meld of cultures in Gaul gives historians a model against which to compare and contrast parallel developments of Romanization in other, less-studied Roman provinces. The barbarian invasions beginning in the fifth century forced upon Gallo-Roman culture fundamental changes in politics, in the economic underpinning. The Gothic settlement of 418 offered a double loyalty, as Western Roman authority disintegrated at Rome, the plight of the highly Romanized governing class is examined by R. W. Mathisen, the struggles of bishop Hilary of Arles by M. Heinzelmann. Into the seventh century, Gallo-Roman culture would persist particularly in the areas of Gallia Narbonensis that developed into Occitania, Cisalpine Gaul and to a lesser degree, the formerly Romanized north of Gaul, once it had been occupied by the Franks, would develop into Merovingian culture instead. Based on mutual intelligibility, David Dalby counts seven languages descended from Gallo-Romance, Gallo-Wallon, French, Franco-Provençal, Romansh, Ladin, Friulian, however, other definitions are far broader, variously encompassing the Rhaeto-Romance languages, Occitano-Romance languages, and Gallo-Italic languages. Over the course of the Roman period, a proportion of Gauls gained Roman citizenship. In 212 the Constitutio Antoniniana extended citizenship to all men in the Roman Empire. During the Crisis of the Third Century, from 260 to 274, in reaction to local problems the Gallo-Romans appointed their own emperor Postumus. The capital was Trier which was used as the northern capital of the Roman Empire by many emperors. The Gallic Empire ended when Aurelian decisively defeated Tetricus I at Chalons, assimilation was eased by interpreting indigenous gods in Roman terms, such as with Lenus Mars or Apollo Grannus. Otherwise, a Roman god might be paired with a goddess, as with Mercury. In at least one case – that of the equine goddess Epona – a native Gallic goddess was also adopted by Rome, eastern mystery religions penetrated Gaul early on. These included the cults of Orpheus, Mithras, Cybele, some of the communities had origins that predated the third-century persecutions. The exhibition of Gallo-Roman silver highlighted specifically Gallo-Roman silver from the treasures found at Chaourse, Mâcon, Graincourt-lès-Havrincourt, Notre-Dame dAllençon, the two more Romanized of the three Gauls were bound together in a network of Roman roads that linked cities. Via Domitia, reached from Nîmes to the Pyrenees, where it joined the Via Augusta at the Col de Panissars, via Aquitania reached from Narbonne, where it connected to the Via Domitia, to the Atlantic Ocean through Toulouse to Bordeaux. Via Scarponensis connected Trier to Lyon through Metz, Lyon, the capital of Roman Gaul, is now the site of the Gallo-Roman Museum of Lyon, associated with the remains of the theater and odeon of Roman Lugdunum
4.
Oppidum
–
An oppidum is a large fortified Iron Age settlement. They continued in use until the Romans began conquering Europe, north of the River Danube, where the population remained independent from Rome, oppida continued to be used into the 1st century AD. Oppidum is a Latin word meaning the settlement in any administrative area of ancient Rome. The word is derived from the earlier Latin ob-pedum, enclosed space, possibly from the Proto-Indo-European *pedóm-, in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico, Julius Caesar described the larger Celtic Iron Age settlements he encountered in Gaul during the Gallic Wars in 58 to 52 BC as oppida. Although he did not explicitly define what features qualified a settlement to be called an oppidum and they were important economic sites, places where goods were produced, stored and traded, and sometimes Roman merchants had settled and the Roman legions could obtain supplies. They were also political centres, the seat of authorities taking decisions that affected large numbers of people, Most of the places that Caesar called oppida were city-sized fortified settlements. However, Geneva, for example, was referred to as an oppidum, Caesar also refers to 20 oppida of the Bituriges and 12 of the Helvetii, twice the number of fortified settlements of these groups known today. That implies that Caesar likely counted some unfortified settlements as oppida, a similar ambiguity is in evidence in writing by the Roman historian Livy, who also used the word for both fortified and unfortified settlements. In his work Geographia, Ptolemy listed the coordinates of many Celtic settlements, however, research has shown many of the localisations of Ptolemy to be erroneous, making the identification of any modern location with the names he listed highly uncertain and speculative. An exception to that is the oppidum of Brenodurum at Bern, in particular, Dehn suggested defining an oppidum by four criteria, Size, The settlement has to have a minimum size, defined by Dehn as 30 hectares. Topography, Most oppida are situated on heights, but some are located on areas of land. Fortification, The settlement is surrounded by a wall, usually consisting of three elements, a facade of stone, a construction and an earthen rampart at the back. Chronology, The settlement dates from the late Iron Age, the last two centuries BC and they could be referred to as the first cities north of the Alps. The period of 2nd and 1st centuries BC places them in the known as La Tène. A notional minimum size of 15 to 25 hectares has often been suggested, however, the term is not always rigorously used, and it has been used to refer to any hill fort or circular rampart dating from the La Tène period. One of the effects of the inconsistency in definitions is that it is uncertain how many oppida were built, in European archaeology, the term oppida is also used more widely to characterize any fortified prehistoric settlement. For example, significantly older hill-top structures like the one at Glauberg have been called oppida, the Spanish word castro, also used in English, means a walled settlement or hill fort, and this word is often used interchangeably with oppidum by archaeologists. According to prehistorian John Collis oppida extend as far east as the Hungarian plain where other settlement types take over, central Spain has sites similar to oppida, but while they share features such as size and defensive ramparts the interior was arranged differently
5.
Atlantic Ocean
–
The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the worlds oceans with a total area of about 106,460,000 square kilometres. It covers approximately 20 percent of the Earths surface and about 29 percent of its surface area. It separates the Old World from the New World, the Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Eurasia and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. The Equatorial Counter Current subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean, in contrast, the term Atlantic originally referred specifically to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and the sea off the Strait of Gibraltar and the North African coast. The Greek word thalassa has been reused by scientists for the huge Panthalassa ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea hundreds of years ago. The term Aethiopian Ocean, derived from Ancient Ethiopia, was applied to the Southern Atlantic as late as the mid-19th century, many Irish or British people refer to the United States and Canada as across the pond, and vice versa. The Black Atlantic refers to the role of ocean in shaping black peoples history. Irish migration to the US is meant when the term The Green Atlantic is used, the term Red Atlantic has been used in reference to the Marxian concept of an Atlantic working class, as well as to the Atlantic experience of indigenous Americans. Correspondingly, the extent and number of oceans and seas varies, the Atlantic Ocean is bounded on the west by North and South America. It connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea, to the east, the boundaries of the ocean proper are Europe, the Strait of Gibraltar and Africa. In the southeast, the Atlantic merges into the Indian Ocean, the 20° East meridian, running south from Cape Agulhas to Antarctica defines its border. In the 1953 definition it extends south to Antarctica, while in later maps it is bounded at the 60° parallel by the Southern Ocean, the Atlantic has irregular coasts indented by numerous bays, gulfs, and seas. Including these marginal seas the coast line of the Atlantic measures 111,866 km compared to 135,663 km for the Pacific. Including its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers an area of 106,460,000 km2 or 23. 5% of the ocean and has a volume of 310,410,900 km3 or 23. 3%. Excluding its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers 81,760,000 km2 and has a volume of 305,811,900 km3, the North Atlantic covers 41,490,000 km2 and the South Atlantic 40,270,000 km2. The average depth is 3,646 m and the maximum depth, the bathymetry of the Atlantic is dominated by a submarine mountain range called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It runs from 87°N or 300 km south of the North Pole to the subantarctic Bouvet Island at 42°S, the MAR divides the Atlantic longitudinally into two halves, in each of which a series of basins are delimited by secondary, transverse ridges. The MAR reaches above 2000 m along most of its length, the MAR is a barrier for bottom water, but at these two transform faults deep water currents can pass from one side to the other
6.
Mediterranean Sea
–
The sea is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it is usually identified as a separate body of water. The name Mediterranean is derived from the Latin mediterraneus, meaning inland or in the middle of land and it covers an approximate area of 2.5 million km2, but its connection to the Atlantic is only 14 km wide. The Strait of Gibraltar is a strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Gibraltar. In oceanography, it is called the Eurafrican Mediterranean Sea or the European Mediterranean Sea to distinguish it from mediterranean seas elsewhere. The Mediterranean Sea has a depth of 1,500 m. The sea is bordered on the north by Europe, the east by Asia and it is located between latitudes 30° and 46° N and longitudes 6° W and 36° E. Its west-east length, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Iskenderun, the seas average north-south length, from Croatia’s southern shore to Libya, is approximately 800 km. The Mediterranean Sea, including the Sea of Marmara, has an area of approximately 2,510,000 square km. The sea was an important route for merchants and travelers of ancient times that allowed for trade, the history of the Mediterranean region is crucial to understanding the origins and development of many modern societies. In addition, the Gaza Strip and the British Overseas Territories of Gibraltar and Akrotiri, the term Mediterranean derives from the Latin word mediterraneus, meaning amid the earth or between land, as it is between the continents of Africa, Asia and Europe. The Ancient Greek name Mesogeios, is similarly from μέσο, between + γη, land, earth) and it can be compared with the Ancient Greek name Mesopotamia, meaning between rivers. The Mediterranean Sea has historically had several names, for example, the Carthaginians called it the Syrian Sea and latter Romans commonly called it Mare Nostrum, and occasionally Mare Internum. Another name was the Sea of the Philistines, from the people inhabiting a large portion of its shores near the Israelites, the sea is also called the Great Sea in the General Prologue by Geoffrey Chaucer. In Ottoman Turkish, it has also been called Bahr-i Sefid, in Modern Hebrew, it has been called HaYam HaTikhon, the Middle Sea, reflecting the Seas name in ancient Greek, Latin, and modern languages in both Europe and the Middle East. Similarly, in Modern Arabic, it is known as al-Baḥr al-Mutawassiṭ, in Turkish, it is known as Akdeniz, the White Sea since among Turks the white colour represents the west. Several ancient civilisations were located around the Mediterranean shores, and were influenced by their proximity to the sea. It provided routes for trade, colonisation, and war, as well as food for numerous communities throughout the ages, due to the shared climate, geology, and access to the sea, cultures centered on the Mediterranean tended to have some extent of intertwined culture and history. Two of the most notable Mediterranean civilisations in classical antiquity were the Greek city states, later, when Augustus founded the Roman Empire, the Romans referred to the Mediterranean as Mare Nostrum
7.
Nostradamus
–
Michel de Nostredame, usually Latinised as Nostradamus, was a French physician and reputed seer who published collections of prophecies that have since become widely famous. He is best known for his book Les Propheties, the first edition of which appeared in 1555, the earliest ancestor who can be identified on the paternal side is Astruge of Carcassonne, who died about 1420. Michels known siblings included Delphine, Jean, Pierre, Hector, Louis, Bertrand, Jean II, at the age of 15 Nostredame entered the University of Avignon to study for his baccalaureate. After little more than a year, he was forced to leave Avignon when the university closed its doors during an outbreak of the plague, after leaving Avignon, Nostredame, by his own account, traveled the countryside for eight years from 1521 researching herbal remedies. In 1529, after years as an apothecary, he entered the University of Montpellier to study for a doctorate in medicine. The expulsion document, BIU Montpellier, Register S2 folio 87, however, some of his publishers and correspondents would later call him Doctor. After his expulsion, Nostredame continued working, presumably still as an apothecary, in 1531 Nostredame was invited by Jules-César Scaliger, a leading Renaissance scholar, to come to Agen. There he married a woman of uncertain name, who bore him two children, in 1534 his wife and children died, presumably from the plague. After their deaths, he continued to travel, passing through France, finally, in 1547, he settled in Salon-de-Provence in the house which exists today, where he married a rich widow named Anne Ponsarde, with whom he had six children—three daughters and three sons. But it seems he could have dabbled in horoscopes, necromancy, scrying, following popular trends, he wrote an almanac for 1550, for the first time Latinising his name from Nostredame to Nostradamus. He was so encouraged by the success that he decided to write one or more annually. Taken together, they are known to have contained at least 6,338 prophecies, as well as at least eleven annual calendars, all of them starting on 1 January and not, as is sometimes supposed, in March. When obliged to attempt this himself on the basis of the tables of the day, he frequently made errors. He then began his project of writing a book of one thousand mainly French quatrains, for technical reasons connected with their publication in three installments, the last fifty-eight quatrains of the seventh Century have not survived in any extant edition. The quatrains, published in a book titled Les Propheties, received a reaction when they were published. Some people thought Nostradamus was a servant of evil, a fake, or insane, catherine de Médicis, wife of King Henry II of France, was one of Nostradamus greatest admirers. After reading his almanacs for 1555, which hinted at unnamed threats to the family, she summoned him to Paris to explain them. In 1538 he came into conflict with the Church in Agen after an Inquisitor visited the area looking for Anti-Catholic views
8.
Durance
–
The Durance is a major river in south-eastern France. Its source is in the south-western Alps, in Montgenèvre ski resort near Briançon and it flows south-west through the departments and cities, Hautes-Alpes, Briançon. The Durances main tributaries are the Bléone and Verdon, the Durance itself is a tributary of the Rhône and flows into the Rhône near Avignon. The Durance is the second longest of the tributaries of the Rhône, the Durance is documented in Ancient Greek as drouentios potamos and in Latin as Druentia, Durantia and Durentia. The traditional forms are probably derivatives of *Dūrantia, based on the Celtic dour, the Latin form drou changed into the proto-Occitan dur. Similar names are found in the names of rivers in the Western Alps, Dora in Italy, Dranse in Haute-Savoie. All these rivers have their sources in mountains, and are fast-running, the Durance retains its name rather than either the Clarée or Guisane, even though the latter two are longer than the Durance when they each merge. The Durance is better known than the two rivers because the Durance valley is an old and important trade route, whereas the valleys of the Clarée. The Durance is 305 kilometres long from its source at the foot of Sommet des Anges, at 2,390 metres high, above Montgenèvre, however, a longer route is traced by the Clarée-Durance system with a length of 325 kilometres. Its descent is unusually rapid at 81 m/km in its first 12 km, then 15 m/km to its confluence with the Gyronde, and then still nearly 8 m/km to the confluence with the Ubaye. This descent stays relatively steep after this confluence, then shallows to approximately 0. 33% in its middle course and it drops 1,847 metres from its source to Mirabeau and approximately 2,090 metres from its source to the confluence with the Rhône. The Durance catchment area extends to three departments, Var, Drôme and Alpes-Maritimes. The Durance is the longest river in Metropolitan France without a department named after it, the source of La Durance is on the northern slope of the Sommet des Anges, where the first small streams combine into a river. This runs near to Montgenèvre and then flows into the larger Clarée river and it then continues south combining with the Gyronde — the Écrins glacial stream — at LArgentière-la-Bessée. The confluence with the Guil occurs below Guillestre and Mont-Dauphin, the Durance then flows south-south-west and flows into the Lac de Serre-Ponçon just downstream of Embrun. The confluence with the Ubaye was flooded as the lake filled, the middle part of the Durance runs through a landscape that changes as the valley increasingly widens. The river itself becomes steeply banked by terraces, and carves a channel, sometimes a few metres deep, in its middle and lower reaches the Durance is affected by the Mediterranean climate, flooding after autumnal rains, with low water levels in summer. Just before the narrow gap in the mountains at Sisteron, the Durance joins Buëch, water also flows in from the EDF Canal
.svg)
Aranda de Duero, Castile and León, Spain
Wertheim am Main, Germany
Huntingdon, England, United Kingdom
Gubbio, Italy
Szentendre, Hungary
