r/europe • u/MarktpLatz Lower Saxony (Germany) • May 08 '17

Series What do you know about... France?

This is the sixteenth part of our ongoing series about the countries of Europe. You can find an overview here.

Todays country:

France

France is the second most populous country in the EU. They were the most important voice in creating the EU (and its predecessors), to elevate their own power and to prevent further war with Germany. Hence, French is a very important language for the EU and especially for some institutions like the ECJ whose working language is French. They have just elected a new president last sunday and they will have parliamentary elections in june.

So, what do you know about France?

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u/3dom Georgia May 08 '17 edited May 09 '17

French army is the most successful military force of previous millennium.

French army have formed / unified Italy, Germany, Canada, US. Government have gone bankrupt and lost influence and control over nation due to expenses during US independence war and it resulted in the revolution.

France is the home of Joan phenomenon which resulted in decisive victories over British forces and expelled English state from their continental territories.

Also there was another phenomenon: beast of Gevaudan killed almost 100 people according to some reports.

Lately the state and people of France have suffered from savage terror attacks on Bataclan club, Charlie Hebdo and in Nice. Yet people didn't give up on freedom, democracy and sanity - as we could see during recent elections.

edit: the last paragraph.

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u/chairswinger Deutschland May 09 '17

Yeah I think Italians and Germans have a different view on the reasons for unification

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u/Gremlinator_TITSMACK May 09 '17

French army have formed/unified Germany

By getting beaten by Prussia?

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u/-Golvan- France May 09 '17

Well, the French destroyed the Holy Roman Empire under Napoleon, and created the Confederation of the Rhine, later followed by the Germanic Confederation when Napoleon was beaten. The Germans then beat the Austrians, and managed to lure Napoleon III into a trap after having taken control of all the German minor states. Their victory over the French allowed them to unify Germany.

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u/Gremlinator_TITSMACK May 09 '17

And France was against the unification of Germany. So they didn't really unify Germany, they just lost the war against em.

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u/-Golvan- France May 09 '17

But without them destroying the HRE, chances are there wouldn't even be a Germany

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u/Gremlinator_TITSMACK May 09 '17

  • Implying German nationalism wouldn't have emerged anyway

  • Just because Napoleon destroyed HRE it doesn't mean that the French unified Germany. France opposed unified Germany and couldn't fulfill their wishes.

It is such a petty claim by the French, almost as bad as "We were kings" by European and American blacks.

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u/-Golvan- France May 09 '17

If the HRE had not been destroyed, it is impossible to be sure that Germany would have unified. The Austrians would most likely have had the upper hand

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u/Gremlinator_TITSMACK May 09 '17 edited May 09 '17

But Austria was weaker than Prussia.

I am honestly appalled by the amount of people who think that Germany couldn't have existed if Napoleon didn't abolish the HRE. Heck, even Moldova has a state. Yugoslavia shattered because of a few million people disagreeing with other factions' few million. And now you are saying that the great German nation would have remained fractured if it weren't for Napoleon?

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u/-Golvan- France May 09 '17

You can't compare central Europe to the Balkans though...

I'm saying that the French played a big part in the creation of a unified Germany

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u/[deleted] May 09 '17 edited May 09 '17

But Austria was weaker than Prussia.

Austria infliucted enormous losses on prussia during the seven years war and definitely put up much more effective resistance against Napoleon during the napoleonic wars (eg Battle of Wagram vs Battle of Jena). It was absolutely not clear who would win before Königsrätz. The austrian artillery was superior to the Prussian one and Austrian high command effectively negated Prussian advantage when it came to rifles. Advantages of te prussians were mostly using more of their resources on the military and using the railway effectively, but that such would happen was not the predetermined flow of history.

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u/BkkGrl Ligurian in Zürich (💛🇺🇦💙) May 09 '17

they unified the germans against them :D

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u/[deleted] May 09 '17

Absolutely ! And also Napoleon led to the dissolve of the HRE

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u/Zaungast kanadensare i sverige May 12 '17

The French army unified Canada by surrendering to the British on the Plains of Abraham, then trading Quebec for Guadaloupe in the Treaty of Paris. Now I don't disagree that they are among the most formidible of all time, but not because of what happened in the Seven Years' War.

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u/our_best_friend US of E May 09 '17

What??