Six countries pooled coal and steel, and built the EU's machinery
The European Coal and Steel Community put French and German heavy industry under one authority in 1952. Its commission, court and assembly became the EU's.
tag archive
#france.
Every story tagged #france.
Europe launches its rockets from South America for the speed
France picked Kourou in French Guiana in 1964 from 14 sites. Near the equator, rockets gain 460 metres a second from Earth's spin, and the sea is downrange.
The Michelin Man began as a pile of tyres and a champagne toast
Bibendum, the Michelin Man, was first drawn in 1898 after a stack of tyres caught a Michelin brother's eye. He began as a cigar-chomping drinker.
Mont-Saint-Michel could have stopped being an island by 2040
A causeway built in 1878 let silt choke the bay around Mont-Saint-Michel. France tore it out and dammed a river to flush the mud back to sea.
Two astronomers spent seven years measuring out the metre
In 1792 two French astronomers set out to measure the meridian to fix the metre. It came out 0.2mm short, and Méchain hid readings that did not agree.
De Gaulle was the hard-liners' hope. He let Algeria go
France called Algeria an integral part of the nation and fought from 1954 to keep it. The FLN won in 1962 by diplomacy, once de Gaulle negotiated peace.
France's PACS gives some marriage benefits and ends by letter
A PACS is France's civil partnership, open to couples of any kind. In 2016 France recorded 184,000 PACS and 225,000 marriages.
Spain's 1697 cession to France began Hispaniola's split
Spain ceded western Hispaniola to France in 1697, and it became Haiti. The Dominican Republic later broke away from Haiti, not Spain, in 1844.
A Ubisoft employee's side project became Game of the Year
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 began as one Ubisoft developer's after-hours demo. A team found on Reddit and SoundCloud turned it into a Game of the Year.
Eiffel Tower staff walk out after order to hide women
Eiffel Tower staff struck for a day after managers hid female colleagues during a Hindu group's visit, and city officials have opened an inquiry.
How Louis Braille turned army night writing into a six-dot code
At 15, Braille reworked a soldier's code of raised dots into a six-dot cell blind people could read and write. He died before it spread widely.
A chaplain's student hostel gave the Sorbonne its name
Robert de Sorbonne, a royal chaplain, opened a hostel for Paris students in 1257. Officially, the Sorbonne stopped being a university in 1970.
France's 35-hour law traded fewer hours for flexible shifts
France's working week fell to 35 hours under the loi Aubry. Its real effect was to make firms renegotiate contracts around flexible, annualised hours.