140-819: The Channel Tunnel Safety Authority is an international regulatory body responsible for safety in the Channel Tunnel . The CTSA was established by the Treaty of Canterbury . It advises the Intergovernmental Commission on safety matters, and ensures that safety rules in the Channel Tunnel are in line with prevailing safety laws. The CTSA has five members from France , and five from the UK ; leadership alternates annually. The Channel Tunnel Safety Authority (CTSA) has its origins in article 11 of
280-531: A land frontier between the two countries in the middle of the Channel tunnel—the first of its kind. Design and construction were done by the ten construction companies in the CTG/F-M group. The French terminal and boring from Sangatte were done by the five French construction companies in the joint venture group GIE Transmanche Construction . The English Terminal and boring from Shakespeare Cliff were done by
420-409: A 4.8 m (15 ft 9 in) diameter service tunnel in between. The three bores are connected by cross-passages and piston relief ducts. The service tunnel was used as a pilot tunnel, boring ahead of the main tunnels to determine the conditions. English access was provided at Shakespeare Cliff and French access from a shaft at Sangatte. The French side used five tunnel boring machines (TBMs), and
560-530: A 55 m (180 ft) diameter 75 m (246 ft) deep grout-curtained shaft at Sangatte was used for access. On the English side, a marshalling area was 140 m (459 ft) below the top of Shakespeare Cliff, the New Austrian Tunnelling method (NATM) was first applied in the chalk marl here. On the English side, the land tunnels were driven from Shakespeare Cliff—the same place as
700-744: A French official to teachers in the department of Finistère , in western Brittany, included the following: "And remember, Gents: you were given your position in order to kill the Breton language". The prefect of Basses-Pyrénées in the French Basque Country wrote in 1846: "Our schools in the Basque Country are particularly meant to replace the Basque language with French..." Students were taught that their ancestral languages were inferior and they should be ashamed of them; this process
840-488: A Frenchman, performed the first geological and hydrographical surveys on the Channel between Calais and Dover. He explored several schemes and, in 1856, presented a proposal to Napoleon III for a mined railway tunnel from Cap Gris-Nez to East Wear Point with a port/airshaft on the Varne sandbank at a cost of 170 million francs , or less than £7 million. In 1865, a deputation led by George Ward Hunt proposed
980-437: A bored tunnel, and thus a wide area was investigated. At that time, marine geophysics surveying for engineering projects was in its infancy, with poor positioning and resolution from seismic profiling. The 1964–1965 surveys concentrated on a northerly route that left the English coast at Dover harbour; using 70 boreholes, an area of deeply weathered rock with high permeability was located just south of Dover harbour. Given
1120-431: A comprehensive academic study entitled "The World's 10 most influential languages". In the article, Weber ranked French as, after English, the second-most influential language of the world, ahead of Spanish. His criteria were the numbers of native speakers, the number of secondary speakers (especially high for French among fellow world languages), the number of countries using the language and their respective populations,
1260-665: A few days later. Site investigation undertaken in the 20 years before construction confirmed earlier speculations that a tunnel could be bored through a chalk marl stratum. The chalk marl is conducive to tunnelling, with impermeability, ease of excavation and strength. The chalk marl runs along the entire length of the English side of the tunnel, but on the French side a length of 5 km (3.1 miles) has variable and difficult geology. The tunnel consists of three bores: two 7.6 m (24 ft 11 in) diameter rail tunnels, 30 m (98 ft) apart, 50 km (31 miles) in length with
1400-460: A fixed link, with one of the largest ferry operators ( Sealink ) being state-owned. Flexilink continued rousing opposition throughout 1986 and 1987. Public opinion strongly favoured a drive-through tunnel, but concerns about ventilation, accident management and driver mesmerisation resulted in the only shortlisted rail submission, CTG/F-M, being awarded the project in January 1986. Reasons given for
1540-555: A foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050. French is the fastest growing language on the continent (in terms of either official or foreign languages). French is increasingly being spoken as a native language in Francophone Africa, especially in regions like Ivory Coast , Cameroon , Gabon, Madagascar , and
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#17327652667011680-552: A high-speed link to London. Successful tunnelling required a sound understanding of topography and geology and the selection of the best rock strata through which to dig. The geology of this site generally consists of northeasterly dipping Cretaceous strata, part of the northern limb of the Wealden-Boulonnais dome. It has: On the English side, the stratum dip is less than 5°; on the French side, this increases to 20°. Jointing and faulting are present on both sides. On
1820-652: A period of prosperity and prominence among European nations. Richelieu established the Académie française to protect the French language. By the early 1800s, Parisian French had become the primary language of the aristocracy in France. Near the beginning of the 19th century, the French government began to pursue policies with the end goal of eradicating the many minorities and regional languages ( patois ) spoken in France. This began in 1794 with Henri Grégoire 's "Report on
1960-494: A relic of the old nominal case system of Latin longer than most other Romance languages (with the notable exception of Romanian which still currently maintains a case distinction), differentiating between an oblique case and a nominative case. The phonology was characterized by heavy syllabic stress, which led to the emergence of various complicated diphthongs such as -eau which would later be leveled to monophthongs. The earliest evidence of what became Old French can be seen in
2100-536: A scrap metal merchant. Another machine (T4 "Virginie") still survives on the French side, adjacent to Junction 41 on the A16 , in the middle of the D243E3/D243E4 roundabout. On it are the words "hommage aux bâtisseurs du tunnel", meaning "tribute to the builders of the tunnel". French language French ( français [fʁɑ̃sɛ] or langue française [lɑ̃ɡ fʁɑ̃sɛːz] )
2240-587: A second language. French is the second most taught foreign language in the EU. All institutions of the EU use French as a working language along with English and German ; in some institutions, French is the sole working language (e.g. at the Court of Justice of the European Union ). French is also the 16th most natively spoken language in the world, the sixth most spoken language by total number of speakers , and
2380-526: A second language. However it has also become a native language in a number of urban areas, especially in regions like Ivory Coast , Cameroon , Gabon, Madagascar , and the Democratic Republic of the Congo . In some North African countries, though not having official status, it is also a first language among some upper classes of the population alongside indigenous languages, but only
2520-941: A second one among the general population. In 2015, approximately 40% of the Francophone population (including L2 and partial speakers) lived in Europe, 36% in sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Ocean, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas, and 1% in Asia and Oceania. French is the second most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union . Of Europeans who speak other languages natively, approximately one-fifth are able to speak French as
2660-563: A similar machine to drill 1,669 m (5,476 ft) from Sangatte on the French side. However, the cross-Channel tunnel project was abandoned in 1883, despite this success, after fears raised by the British military that an underwater tunnel might be used as an invasion route. Nevertheless, in 1883, this TBM was used to bore a railway ventilation tunnel—7 ft (2.1 m) in diameter and 6,750 ft (2,060 m) long—between Birkenhead and Liverpool , England, through sandstone under
2800-419: A syndicated bank loan and letter of credit arranged £5 billion. Privately financed, the total investment costs at 1985 prices were £2.6 billion. At the 1994 completion actual costs were, in 1985 prices, £4.65 billion: an 80% cost overrun . The cost overrun was partly due to enhanced safety, security, and environmental demands. Financing costs were 140% higher than forecast. Working from both
2940-547: A variant of Canadian French , is spoken in parts of New England . Missouri French was historically spoken in Missouri and Illinois (formerly known as Upper Louisiana ), but is nearly extinct today. French also survived in isolated pockets along the Gulf Coast of what was previously French Lower Louisiana , such as Mon Louis Island , Alabama and DeLisle, Mississippi (the latter only being discovered by linguists in
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#17327652667013080-466: A working group to evaluate a privately funded project. In June 1982 the Franco-British study group favoured a twin tunnel to accommodate conventional trains and a vehicle shuttle service. In April 1985 promoters were invited to submit scheme proposals. Four submissions were shortlisted: The cross-Channel ferry industry protested using the name "Flexilink". In 1975 there was no campaign protesting
3220-437: Is 95%, and in the French collectivity of Wallis and Futuna , it is 84%. In French Polynesia and to a lesser extent Wallis and Futuna, where oral and written knowledge of the French language has become almost universal (95% and 84% respectively), French increasingly tends to displace the native Polynesian languages as the language most spoken at home. In French Polynesia, the percentage of the population who reported that French
3360-779: Is a Romance language of the Indo-European family . Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire . French evolved from Gallo-Romance , the Latin spoken in Gaul , and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl —languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French ( Francien ) largely supplanted. French
3500-472: Is a widespread second language among the Lebanese people , and is taught in many schools along with Arabic and English. French is used on Lebanese pound banknotes, on road signs, on Lebanese license plates , and on official buildings (alongside Arabic). Today, French and English are secondary languages of Lebanon , with about 40% of the population being Francophone and 40% Anglophone. The use of English
3640-489: Is also a working language in nonprofit organisations such as the Red Cross (alongside English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic and Russian), Amnesty International (alongside 32 other languages of which English is the most used, followed by Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Italian), Médecins sans Frontières (used alongside English, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic), and Médecins du Monde (used alongside English). Given
3780-430: Is among the top five most studied languages worldwide, with about 120 million learners as of 2017. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 16th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. French has a long history as an international language of literature and scientific standards and is a primary or second language of many international organisations including
3920-462: Is an official language in 27 countries , as well as one of the most geographically widespread languages in the world, with about 50 countries and territories having it as a de jure or de facto official, administrative, or cultural language. Most of these countries are members of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), the community of 54 member states which share
4060-518: Is an infilled valley system extending 80 m (262 ft) below the seabed, 500 m (1,640 ft) south of the tunnel route in mid-channel. A 1986 survey showed that a tributary crossed the path of the tunnel, and so the tunnel route was made as far north and deep as possible. The English terminal had to be located in the Castle Hill landslip, which consists of displaced and tipping blocks of lower chalk, glauconitic marl and gault debris. Thus
4200-652: Is enacted only in New Brunswick, where about one third of the population is Francophone. French is also an official language of all of the territories ( Northwest Territories , Nunavut , and Yukon ). Out of the three, Yukon has the most French speakers, making up just under 4% of the population. Furthermore, while French is not an official language in Ontario , the French Language Services Act ensures that provincial services are available in
4340-503: Is growing in the business and media environment. Out of about 900,000 students, about 500,000 are enrolled in Francophone schools, public or private, in which the teaching of mathematics and scientific subjects is provided in French. Actual usage of French varies depending on the region and social status. One-third of high school students educated in French go on to pursue higher education in English-speaking institutions. English
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4480-404: Is known as Old French. The period of Old French spanned between the 8th and 14th centuries. Old French shared many characteristics with Latin. For example, Old French made use of different possible word orders just as Latin did because it had a case system that retained the difference between nominative subjects and oblique non-subjects . The period is marked by a heavy superstrate influence from
4620-427: Is major water inflow due to the high hydrostatic pressure from the sea above, under weak ground conditions. The tunnel also had the challenge of timescale: being privately funded, an early financial return was paramount. The objective was to construct two 7.6 m-diameter (25 ft) rail tunnels, 30 m (98 ft) apart, 50 km (31 miles) in length; a 4.8-metre-diameter (16 ft) service tunnel between
4760-469: Is often considered to be a useful skill by business owners in the United Kingdom; a 2014 study found that 50% of British managers considered French to be a valuable asset for their business, thus ranking French as the most sought-after foreign language there, ahead of German (49%) and Spanish (44%). MIT economist Albert Saiz calculated a 2.3% premium for those who have French as a foreign language in
4900-828: Is one of the official languages of such major international and regional courts, tribunals, and dispute-settlement bodies as the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights , the Caribbean Court of Justice , the Court of Justice for the Economic Community of West African States , the Inter-American Court of Human Rights , the International Court of Justice , the International Criminal Tribunal for
5040-472: Is supervised by the Intergovernmental Commission (IGC) that representing both the British and French governments. Unique among governmental safety agencies, owing to its responsibility for safety in the design, construction and operation of a single project. In 1988, the CTSA's chairman informed Eurotunnel that a more systematic approach to risk analysis was necessary. Despite the lack of completion of studies into
5180-576: Is taught in universities around the world, and is one of the world's most influential languages because of its wide use in the worlds of journalism, jurisprudence , education, and diplomacy. In diplomacy, French is one of the six official languages of the United Nations (and one of the UN Secretariat 's only two working languages ), one of twenty official and three procedural languages of the European Union , an official language of NATO ,
5320-553: Is the language of business and communication, with French being an element of social distinction, chosen for its emotional value. French is an official language of the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu , where 31% of the population was estimated to speak it in 2023. In the French special collectivity of New Caledonia , 97% of the population can speak, read and write French while in French Polynesia this figure
5460-483: Is the native language of about 23% of the Swiss population, and is spoken by 50% of the population. Along with Luxembourgish and German, French is one of the three official languages of Luxembourg , where it is generally the preferred language of business as well as of the different public administrations. It is also the official language of Monaco . At a regional level, French is acknowledged as an official language in
5600-492: Is the second-most spoken language (after English) in the states of Maine and New Hampshire . In Louisiana , it is tied with Spanish for second-most spoken if Louisiana French and all creoles such as Haitian are included. French is the third most spoken language (after English and Spanish) in the states of Connecticut , Rhode Island , and New Hampshire . Louisiana is home to many distinct French dialects, collectively known as Louisiana French . New England French , essentially
5740-424: Is the sole official language in the province of Quebec , where some 80% of the population speak it as a native language and 95% are capable of conducting a conversation in it. Quebec is also home to the city of Montreal , which is the world's fourth-largest French-speaking city, by number of first language speakers. New Brunswick and Manitoba are the only officially bilingual provinces, though full bilingualism
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5880-702: Is the third-longest rail tunnel in the world, behind the Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland and the Seikan Tunnel in Japan, but with the longest under-sea section. The average depth is 45 m (148 ft) below the seabed. On the UK side, of the expected 5 × 10 ^ m (6.5 × 10 ^ cu yd ) of spoil approximately 1 × 10 ^ m (1.3 × 10 ^ cu yd)
6020-715: The American Society of Civil Engineers elected the tunnel as one of the seven modern Wonders of the World . In 1995, the American magazine Popular Mechanics published the results. The opening was phased for various services offered as the Channel Tunnel Safety Authority, the IGC, gave permission for various services to begin at several dates over the period 1994/1995 but start-up dates were
6160-764: The Aosta Valley region of Italy where it is the first language of approximately 50% of the population, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands . It is also spoken in Andorra and is the main language after Catalan in El Pas de la Casa . The language is taught as the primary second language in the German state of Saarland , with French being taught from pre-school and over 43% of citizens being able to speak French. The majority of
6300-462: The Aosta Valley region of Italy; and various communities elsewhere. French is estimated to have about 310 million speakers, of which about 80 million are native speakers. According to the OIF, approximately 321 million people worldwide are "able to speak the language" as of 2022, without specifying the criteria for this estimation or whom it encompasses. In Francophone Africa, it is spoken mainly as
6440-705: The Chunnel , is a 50.46 km (31.35-mile) undersea railway tunnel, opened in 1994, that connects Folkestone ( Kent , England) with Coquelles ( Pas-de-Calais , France) beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover . It is the only fixed link between the island of Great Britain and the European mainland. At its lowest point, it is 75 m (246 ft) below the sea bed and 115 m (377 ft) below sea level. At 37.9 km (23.5 miles), it has
6580-539: The Democratic Republic of Congo . There is not a single African French , but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages . Sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth. It is also where the language has evolved the most in recent years. Some vernacular forms of French in Africa can be difficult to understand for French speakers from other countries, but written forms of
6720-485: The European Union , French was the dominant language within all institutions until the 1990s. After several enlargements of the EU (1995, 2004), French significantly lost ground in favour of English, which is more widely spoken and taught in most EU countries. French currently remains one of the three working languages, or "procedural languages", of the EU, along with English and German. It is the second-most widely used language within EU institutions after English, but remains
6860-559: The Francien dialect is one that not only continued but also thrived during the Middle French period (14th–17th centuries). Modern French grew out of this Francien dialect. Grammatically, during the period of Middle French, noun declensions were lost and there began to be standardized rules. Robert Estienne published the first Latin-French dictionary, which included information about phonetics, etymology, and grammar. Politically,
7000-877: The International Olympic Committee , the Council of Europe , the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development , Organization of American States (alongside Spanish, Portuguese and English), the Eurovision Song Contest , one of eighteen official languages of the European Space Agency , World Trade Organization and the least used of the three official languages in the North American Free Trade Agreement countries. It
7140-625: The LGV Nord in France and High Speed 1 in England. In 2017, rail services carried 10.3 million passengers and 1.22 million tonnes of freight, and the Shuttle carried 10.4 million passengers, 2.6 million cars, 51,000 coaches, and 1.6 million lorries (equivalent to 21.3 million tonnes of freight), compared with 11.7 million passengers, 2.6 million lorries and 2.2 million cars by sea through
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#17327652667017280-647: The Mersey River . These early works were encountered more than a century later during the project TransManche Link (TML). A 1907 film, Tunnelling the English Channel by pioneer filmmaker Georges Méliès , depicts King Edward VII and President Armand Fallières dreaming of building a tunnel under the English Channel . In 1919, during the Paris Peace Conference , British prime minister David Lloyd George repeatedly brought up
7420-420: The Oaths of Strasbourg and the Sequence of Saint Eulalia , while Old French literature began to be produced in the eleventh century, with major early works often focusing on the lives of saints (such as the Vie de Saint Alexis ), or wars and royal courts, notably including the Chanson de Roland , epic cycles focused on King Arthur and his court , as well as a cycle focused on William of Orange . It
7560-527: The Port of Dover . Plans to build a cross-Channel tunnel were proposed as early as 1802, but British political and media criticism motivated by fears of compromising national security had disrupted attempts to build one. An early unsuccessful attempt was made in the late 19th century, on the English side, "in the hope of forcing the hand of the English Government". The eventual successful project, organised by Eurotunnel , began construction in 1988 and opened in 1994. Estimated to cost £5.5 billion in 1985, it
7700-520: The United Nations , the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization , the World Trade Organization , the International Olympic Committee , the General Conference on Weights and Measures , and the International Committee of the Red Cross . French is a Romance language (meaning that it is descended primarily from Vulgar Latin ) that evolved out of the Gallo-Romance dialects spoken in northern France. The language's early forms include Old French and Middle French . Due to Roman rule, Latin
7840-455: The 1990s) but these varieties are severely endangered or presumed extinct. French is one of two official languages in Haiti alongside Haitian Creole . It is the principal language of education, administration, business, and public signage and is spoken by all educated Haitians. It is also used for ceremonial events such as weddings, graduations, and church masses. The vast majority of the population speaks Haitian Creole as their first language;
7980-474: The 20th century, when it was replaced by English as the United States became the dominant global power following the Second World War . Stanley Meisler of the Los Angeles Times said that the fact that the Treaty of Versailles was written in English as well as French was the "first diplomatic blow" against the language. During the Grand Siècle (17th century), France, under the rule of powerful leaders such as Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIV , enjoyed
8120-420: The Anglo-French Treaty of Canterbury enacted in 1986, while further details were specified with an associated concession agreement. The organisation was created with the specific responsibility for safety in the design, construction, and operation of the Channel Tunnel . The CTSA formulated the safety regime not only of the tunnel itself but also the requirements for all rolling stock that travel through it. It
8260-510: The Canadian capital, is also effectively bilingual, as it has a large population of federal government workers, who are required to offer services in both French and English, and is just across the river from the Quebecois city of Gatineau . According to the United States Census Bureau (2011), French is the fourth most spoken language in the United States after English, Spanish, and Chinese, when all forms of French are considered together and all dialects of Chinese are similarly combined. French
8400-614: The Caribbean that are collectively referred to as the French West Indies , namely Guadeloupe , Saint Barthélemy , Saint Martin , and Martinique . French is the official language of both French Guiana on the South American continent, and of Saint Pierre and Miquelon , an archipelago off the coast of Newfoundland in North America. French was the official language of the colony of French Indochina , comprising modern-day Vietnam , Laos , and Cambodia . It continues to be an administrative language in Laos and Cambodia, although its influence has waned in recent decades. In colonial Vietnam,
8540-415: The Concession for the construction and operation of the Fixed Link by privately owned companies and outlined arbitration methods to be used in the event of disputes. It established the Intergovernmental Commission (IGC), responsible for monitoring all matters associated with the Tunnel's construction and operation on behalf of the British and French governments, and a Safety Authority to advise the IGC. It drew
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#17327652667018680-408: The Empire, this local elite had been slowly abandoning Gaulish entirely, but the rural and lower class populations remained Gaulish speakers who could sometimes also speak Latin or Greek. The final language shift from Gaulish to Vulgar Latin among rural and lower class populations occurred later, when both they and the incoming Frankish ruler/military class adopted the Gallo-Roman Vulgar Latin speech of
8820-402: The English and French sides of the Channel, eleven tunnel boring machines (TBMs) cut through chalk marl to construct two rail tunnels and a service tunnel. The vehicle shuttle terminals are at Cheriton (part of Folkestone ) and Coquelles, and are connected to the English M20 and French A16 motorways respectively. Tunnelling commenced in 1988, and the tunnel began operating in 1994. At
8960-409: The English side six. The service tunnel uses Service Tunnel Transport System (STTS) and Light Service Tunnel Vehicles (LADOGS). Fire safety was a critical design issue. Between the portals at Beussingue and Castle Hill the tunnel is 50.5 km (31 miles) long, with 3.3 km (2 miles) under land on the French side and 9.3 km (6 miles) on the UK side, and 37.9 km (24 miles) under sea. It
9100-451: The English side, only minor faults of displacement less than 2 m (6 ft 7 in) exist; on the French side, displacements of up to 15 m (49 ft) are present owing to the Quenocs anticlinal fold . The faults are of limited width, filled with calcite, pyrite and remolded clay. The increased dip and faulting restricted the selection of routes on the French side. To avoid confusion, microfossil assemblages were used to classify
9240-411: The English side, the simpler geology allowed faster open-faced TBMs. Six machines were used; all commenced digging from Shakespeare Cliff, three marine-bound and three for the land tunnels. Towards the completion of the undersea drives, the UK TBMs were driven steeply downwards and buried clear of the tunnel. These buried TBMs were then used to provide an electrical earth . The French TBMs then completed
9380-403: The French side, neoprene and grout sealed bolted linings made of cast iron or high-strength reinforced concrete were used; on the English side, the main requirement was for speed, so bolting of cast-iron lining segments was only done in areas of poor geology. In the UK rail tunnels, eight lining segments plus a key segment were used; in the French side, five segments plus a key. On the French side,
9520-416: The Germanic Frankish language , which non-exhaustively included the use in upper-class speech and higher registers of V2 word order , a large percentage of the vocabulary (now at around 15% of modern French vocabulary ) including the impersonal singular pronoun on (a calque of Germanic man ), and the name of the language itself. Up until its later stages, Old French , alongside Old Occitan , maintained
9660-475: The Queen travelled on Le Shuttle to a similar ceremony in Folkestone . A full public service did not start for several months. The first freight train, however, ran on 1 June 1994 and carried Rover and Mini cars being exported to Italy. The Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), now called High Speed 1 , runs 69 miles (111 km) from St Pancras railway station in London to the tunnel portal at Folkestone in Kent. It cost £5.8 billion. On 16 September 2003
9800-401: The Siemens sets ordered would breach Channel Tunnel safety rules, Following the approval of safety rule changes which would permit Eurostar to operate the Velaro sets within the tunnel, the French government dismissed their delegate to the CTSA and brought in a replacement. Channel Tunnel The Channel Tunnel ( French : Tunnel sous la Manche ), sometimes referred to informally as
9940-432: The Thames estuary, which used Scottish granite aggregate delivered by ship from the Foster Yeoman coastal super quarry at Glensanda in Loch Linnhe on the west coast of Scotland. On the French side, owing to the greater permeability to water, earth pressure balance TBMs with open and closed modes were used. The TBMs were used in the closed mode for the first 5 km (3 miles), but then operated as open, boring through
10080-456: The area was stabilised by buttressing and inserting drainage adits . The service tunnel acted as a pilot preceding the main ones, so that the geology, areas of crushed rock, and zones of high water inflow could be predicted. Exploratory probing was done in the service tunnel, in the form of extensive forward probing, vertical downward probes and sideways probing. Marine soundings and samplings were made by Thomé de Gamond in 1833–67, establishing
10220-428: The chalk marl stratum. This minimised the impact to the ground, allowed high water pressures to be withstood and also alleviated the need to grout ahead of the tunnel. The French effort required five TBMs: two main marine machines, one mainland machine (the short land drives of 3 km (2 miles) allowed one TBM to complete the first drive then reverse direction and complete the other), and two service tunnel machines. On
10360-470: The chalk marl. On the French side, particularly near the coast, the chalk was harder, more brittle and more fractured than on the English side. This led to the adoption of different tunnelling techniques on the two sides. The Quaternary undersea valley Fosse Dangeard, and Castle Hill landslip at the English portal, caused concerns. Identified by the 1964–1965 geophysical survey, the Fosse Dangeard
10500-434: The concerns of both nations' military leaders by designing two sumps – one near the coast of each country – that could be flooded at will to block the tunnel, but this did not appease the military, or dispel concerns about hordes of tourists who would disrupt English life. A British film from Gaumont Studios , The Tunnel (also known as TransAtlantic Tunnel ), was released in 1935 as a science-fiction project concerning
10640-532: The conditions they were performed under, are typically kept secret on grounds of commercial confidentiality; while this usually precludes peer reviews , government authorities can demand the release of such information if they so desire. In 2010, Eurostar selected Siemens as the preferred bidder to supply 10 Siemens Velaro e320 sixteen-car trainsets that would be built to satisfy Channel Tunnel regulations. The French train manufacturer Alstom launched legal action to prevent Eurostar from proceeding, claiming that
10780-710: The creation of a transatlantic tunnel. It referred briefly to its protagonist, a Mr. McAllan, as having completed a British Channel tunnel successfully in 1940, five years into the future of the film's release. Military fears continued during World War II . After the surrender of France , as Britain prepared for an expected German invasion , a Royal Navy officer in the Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development calculated that Hitler could use slave labour to build two Channel tunnels in 18 months. The estimate caused rumours that Germany had already begun digging. By 1955, defence arguments had become less relevant due to
10920-467: The dangers posed by such a fire. As a result of the many preventive measures in the CT design, the likelihood of a fire breaking out to begin with was determined to be relatively small. Following the 1996 Channel Tunnel fire , the CTSA investigated the incident and made multiple recommendations for improvements. It was found that the alarm had not been urgently responded to as staff sought confirmation; thus it
11060-519: The demographic prospects of the French-speaking nations of Africa, researcher Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry wrote in 2014 that French "could be the language of the future". However, some African countries such as Algeria intermittently attempted to eradicate the use of French, and as of 2024 it was removed as an official language in Mali and Burkina Faso . Significant as a judicial language, French
11200-631: The dismay of their French partners, the then-governing Labour Party in Britain cancelled the project due to uncertainty about the UK's membership of the European Economic Community , doubling cost estimates amid the general economic crisis at the time. By this time the British tunnel boring machine was ready and the Ministry of Transport had performed a 300 m (980 ft) experimental drive. (This short tunnel, named Adit A1,
11340-671: The dominance of air power, and both the British and French governments supported technical and geological surveys. In 1958 the 1881 workings were cleared in preparation for a £100,000 geological survey by the Channel Tunnel Study Group. 30% of the funding came from Channel Tunnel Co Ltd, the largest shareholder of which was the British Transport Commission , as successor to the South Eastern Railway . A detailed geological survey
11480-448: The economic power of the countries using the language, the number of major areas in which the language is used, and the linguistic prestige associated with the mastery of the language (Weber highlighted that French in particular enjoys considerable linguistic prestige). In a 2008 reassessment of his article, Weber concluded that his findings were still correct since "the situation among the top ten remains unchanged." Knowledge of French
11620-594: The elites primarily spoke French, while many servants who worked in French households spoke a French pidgin known as " Tây Bồi " (now extinct). After French rule ended, South Vietnam continued to use French in administration, education, and trade. However, since the Fall of Saigon and the opening of a unified Vietnam's economy, French has gradually been effectively displaced as the first foreign language of choice by English in Vietnam. Nevertheless, it continues to be taught as
11760-516: The first government authority to adopt Modern French as official was the Aosta Valley in 1536, while the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (1539) named French the language of law in the Kingdom of France . During the 17th century, French replaced Latin as the most important language of diplomacy and international relations ( lingua franca ). It retained this role until approximately the middle of
11900-499: The five British construction companies in the Translink Joint Venture . The two partnerships were linked by a bi-national project organisation, TransManche Link (TML). The Maître d'Oeuvre was a supervisory engineering body employed by Eurotunnel under the terms of the concession that monitored the project and reported to the governments and banks. In France, with its long tradition of infrastructure investment,
12040-915: The former Yugoslavia , International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda , the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea the International Criminal Court and the World Trade Organization Appellate Body . It is the sole internal working language of the Court of Justice of the European Union , and makes with English the European Court of Human Rights 's two working languages. In 1997, George Weber published, in Language Today ,
12180-829: The gender of the corresponding word in Gaulish. The estimated number of French words that can be attributed to Gaulish is placed at 154 by the Petit Robert , which is often viewed as representing standardized French, while if non-standard dialects are included, the number increases to 240. Known Gaulish loans are skewed toward certain semantic fields, such as plant life ( chêne , bille , etc.), animals ( mouton , cheval , etc.), nature ( boue , etc.), domestic activities (ex. berceau ), farming and rural units of measure ( arpent , lieue , borne , boisseau ), weapons, and products traded regionally rather than further afield. This semantic distribution has been attributed to peasants being
12320-598: The ground conditions. There was plenty of experience with excavating through chalk in the mining industry, while the undersea crossover caverns were a complex engineering problem. The French one was based on the Mount Baker Ridge freeway tunnel in Seattle ; the UK cavern was dug from the service tunnel ahead of the main ones, to avoid delay. Precast segmental linings in the main tunnel boring machine (TBM) drives were used, but two different solutions were used. On
12460-501: The idea of a Channel tunnel as a way of reassuring France about British willingness to defend against another German attack. The French did not take the idea seriously, and nothing came of the proposal. In the 1920s, Winston Churchill advocated for the Channel Tunnel, using that exact name in his essay "Should Strategists Veto The Tunnel?" It was published on 27 July 1924 in the Weekly Dispatch , and argued vehemently against
12600-735: The idea of a tunnel to the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day, William Ewart Gladstone . In 1866, Henry Marc Brunel made a survey of the floor of the Strait of Dover. By his results, he proved that the floor was composed of chalk, like the adjoining cliffs, and thus a tunnel was feasible. For this survey, he invented the gravity corer , which is still used in geology. Around 1866, William Low and Sir John Hawkshaw promoted tunnel ideas, but apart from preliminary geological studies, none were implemented. An official Anglo-French protocol
12740-488: The idea that the tunnel could be used by a Continental enemy in an invasion of Britain. Churchill expressed his enthusiasm for the project again in an article for the Daily Mail on 12 February 1936, "Why Not A Channel Tunnel?" There was another proposal in 1929, but nothing came of this discussion and the idea was abandoned. Proponents estimated the construction cost at US$ 150 million. The engineers had addressed
12880-454: The language are very closely related to those of the rest of the French-speaking world. French is the second most commonly spoken language in Canada and one of two federal official languages alongside English. As of the 2021 Canadian census , it was the native language of 7.7 million people (21% of the population) and the second language of 2.9 million (8% of the population). French
13020-479: The language, although it has now given way to Tamil and English. A former French mandate , Lebanon designates Arabic as the sole official language, while a special law regulates cases when French can be publicly used. Article 11 of Lebanon's Constitution states that "Arabic is the official national language. A law determines the cases in which the French language is to be used". The French language in Lebanon
13160-612: The language. The Act applies to areas of the province where there are significant Francophone communities, namely Eastern Ontario and Northern Ontario . Elsewhere, sizable French-speaking minorities are found in southern Manitoba, Nova Scotia , Prince Edward Island and the Port au Port Peninsula in Newfoundland and Labrador, where the unique Newfoundland French dialect was historically spoken. Smaller pockets of French speakers exist in all other provinces. The Ontarian city of Ottawa ,
13300-479: The last to hold onto Gaulish. The beginning of French in Gaul was greatly influenced by Germanic invasions into the country. These invasions had the greatest impact on the northern part of the country and on the language there. A language divide began to grow across the country. The population in the north spoke langue d'oïl while the population in the south spoke langue d'oc . Langue d'oïl grew into what
13440-447: The longest underwater section of any tunnel in the world and is the third-longest railway tunnel in the world . The speed limit for trains through the tunnel is 160 km/h (99 mph). The tunnel is owned and operated by Getlink , formerly Groupe Eurotunnel. The tunnel carries high-speed Eurostar passenger trains, LeShuttle services for road vehicles and freight trains . It connects end-to-end with high-speed railway lines:
13580-450: The marine tunnels—not from Folkestone. The platform at the base of the cliff was not large enough for all of the drives and, despite environmental objections, tunnel spoil was placed behind a reinforced concrete seawall, on condition of placing the chalk in an enclosed lagoon, to avoid wide dispersal of chalk fines. Owing to limited space, the precast lining factory was on the Isle of Grain in
13720-420: The necessity and means to annihilate the patois and to universalize the use of the French language". When public education was made compulsory , only French was taught and the use of any other ( patois ) language was punished. The goals of the public school system were made especially clear to the French-speaking teachers sent to teach students in regions such as Occitania and Brittany . Instructions given by
13860-652: The official use or teaching of French. It is spoken as a first language (in descending order of the number of speakers) in France; Canada (especially in the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, and New Brunswick); Belgium ( Wallonia and the Brussels-Capital Region ); western Switzerland (specifically the cantons forming the Romandy region); parts of Luxembourg; parts of the United States (the states of Louisiana, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont); Monaco;
14000-534: The other main foreign language in the Vietnamese educational system and is regarded as a cultural language. All three countries are full members of La Francophonie (OIF). French was the official language of French India , consisting of the geographically separate enclaves referred to as Puducherry . It continued to be an official language of the territory even after its cession to India in 1956 until 1965. A small number of older locals still retain knowledge of
14140-457: The peak of construction 15,000 people were employed with daily expenditure over £3 million. Ten workers, eight of them British, were killed during construction between 1987 and 1993, most in the first few months of boring. A 50 mm (2.0 in) diameter pilot hole allowed the service tunnel to break through without ceremony on 30 October 1990. On 1 December 1990, Englishman Graham Fagg and Frenchman Phillippe Cozette broke through
14280-471: The preferred language of certain institutions or administrations such as the Court of Justice of the European Union , where it is the sole internal working language, or the Directorate-General for Agriculture . Since 2016, Brexit has rekindled discussions on whether or not French should again hold greater role within the institutions of the European Union. A leading world language , French
14420-543: The previous survey results and access constraints, a more southerly route was investigated in the 1972–1973 survey, and the route was confirmed to be feasible. Information for the tunnelling project also came from work before the 1975 cancellation. On the French side at Sangatte, a deep shaft with adits was made. On the English side at Shakespeare Cliff, the government allowed 250 m (820 ft) of 4.5 m (15 ft) diameter tunnel to be driven. The actual tunnel alignment, method of excavation and support were essentially
14560-527: The prime minister, Tony Blair , opened the first section of High Speed 1, from Folkestone to north Kent. On 6 November 2007, the Queen officially opened High Speed 1 and St Pancras International station, replacing the original slower link to Waterloo International railway station . High Speed 1 trains travel at up to 300 km/h (186 mph), the journey from London to Paris taking 2 hours 15 minutes, to Brussels 1 hour 51 minutes. In 1994,
14700-486: The project came partly from provincial members of Parliament on the basis of promises of regional Eurostar through train services that never materialised; the promises were repeated in 1996 when the contract for construction of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link was awarded. The tunnel is a build-own-operate-transfer ( BOOT ) project with a concession. TML would design and build the tunnel, but financing
14840-915: The project had widespread approval. The French National Assembly approved it unanimously in April 1987, and after a public inquiry, the Senate approved it unanimously in June. In Britain, select committees examined the proposal, making history by holding hearings away from Westminster, in Kent. In February 1987, the third reading of the Channel Tunnel Bill took place in the House of Commons , and passed by 94 votes to 22. The Channel Tunnel Act gained Royal assent and passed into law in July. Parliamentary support for
14980-428: The relevant safety rules. An audit of the safety case and associated arrangements was also performed to ensure the required level of safety had been met. Even before the project's onset, experts had identified fire as the greatest hazard posed to the tunnel's operation. Accordingly, various measures were incorporated into the safety regime, from operating procedures to the design of the tunnel itself, to help mitigate
15120-471: The rest largely speak French as a first language. As a French Creole language , Haitian Creole draws the large majority of its vocabulary from French, with influences from West African languages, as well as several European languages. It is closely related to Louisiana Creole and the creole from the Lesser Antilles . French is the sole official language of all the overseas territories of France in
15260-479: The same as the 1975 attempt. In the 1986–1987 survey, previous findings were reinforced, and the characteristics of the gault clay and the tunnelling medium (chalk marl that made up 85% of the route) were investigated. Geophysical techniques from the oil industry were employed. Tunnelling was a major engineering challenge; the only precedent was the undersea Seikan Tunnel in Japan, which opened in 1988. A serious health and safety risk with building tunnels under water
15400-466: The seabed depth at a maximum of 55 m (180 ft) and the continuity of geological strata (layers). Surveying continued for many years, with 166 marine and 70 land-deep boreholes being drilled and more than 4,000 line kilometres of the marine geophysical survey completed. Surveys were undertaken in 1958–1959, 1964–1965, 1972–1974 and 1986–1988. The surveying in 1958–1959 catered for immersed tube and bridge designs, as well as
15540-440: The selection included that it caused least disruption to shipping in the Channel and least environmental disruption, was the best protected against terrorism, and was the most likely to attract sufficient private finance. The British Channel Tunnel Group consisted of two banks and five construction companies, while their French counterparts, France–Manche , consisted of three banks and five construction companies. The banks' role
15680-428: The service tunnel with the media watching. Eurotunnel completed the tunnel on time. (A BBC TV television commentator called Graham Fagg "the first man to cross the Channel by land for 8000 years ".) The two tunnelling efforts met each other with an offset of only 36.2 cm (14.3 in). A Paddington Bear soft toy was chosen by British tunnellers as the first item to pass through to their French counterparts when
15820-466: The total number of French speakers will reach approximately 500 million in 2025 and 650 million by 2050, largely due to rapid population growth in sub-Saharan Africa . OIF estimates 700 million French speakers by 2050, 80% of whom will be in Africa. In a study published in March 2014 by Forbes , the investment bank Natixis said that French could become the world's most spoken language by 2050. In
15960-573: The tunnel and were dismantled. A 900 mm (35 in) gauge railway was used on the English side during construction. In contrast to the English machines, which were given technical names, the French tunnelling machines were all named after women: Brigitte, Europa, Catherine, Virginie, Pascaline, Séverine. After the tunnelling, one machine was on display at the side of the M20 motorway in Folkestone until Eurotunnel sold it on eBay for £39,999 to
16100-484: The tunnel's vulnerability to severe earthquakes , by 1993, the authority was prepared to permit the tunnel to be declared complete. Upon the Channel Tunnel's completion in 1994, the CTSA performed a comprehensive evaluation, during which it determined that the installed equipment had satisfied the required safety and performance expectations. Furthermore, it confirmed that Eurotunnel 's personnel had been trained and certified to perform all procedures, along with knowledge of
16240-455: The tunnel, have prompted deterrence and countermeasures. In 1802, Albert Mathieu-Favier, a French mining engineer, proposed a tunnel under the English Channel, with illumination from oil lamps, horse-drawn coaches, and an artificial island positioned mid-Channel for changing horses. His design envisaged a bored two-level tunnel with the top tunnel used for transport and the bottom one for groundwater flows. In 1839, Aimé Thomé de Gamond ,
16380-461: The two main ones; pairs of 3.3 m (10 ft 10 in)-diameter cross-passages linking the rail tunnels to the service tunnel at 375 m (1,230 ft) spacing; piston relief ducts 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in diameter connecting the rail tunnels 250 m (820 ft) apart; two undersea crossover caverns to connect the rail tunnels, with the service tunnel always preceding the main ones by at least 1 km (0.6 mi) to ascertain
16520-619: The two official languages—along with Dutch —of the Brussels-Capital Region , where it is spoken by the majority of the population (approx. 80%), often as their primary language. French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland, along with German, Italian, and Romansh , and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland, called Romandy , of which Geneva is the largest city. The language divisions in Switzerland do not coincide with political subdivisions, and some cantons have bilingual status: for example, cities such as Biel/Bienne and cantons such as Valais , Fribourg and Bern . French
16660-466: The two sides met. The tunnel was officially opened, one year later than originally planned, by the French president François Mitterrand and Queen Elizabeth II , at a ceremony in Calais on 6 May 1994. The Queen travelled through the tunnel to Calais on a Eurostar train, which stopped nose to nose with the train that carried President Mitterrand from Paris. After the ceremony, President Mitterrand and
16800-508: The urban intellectual elite. The Gaulish language likely survived into the sixth century in France despite considerable Romanization . Coexisting with Latin, Gaulish helped shape the Vulgar Latin dialects that developed into French contributing loanwords and calques (including oui , the word for "yes"), sound changes shaped by Gaulish influence, and influences in conjugation and word order. Recent computational studies suggest that early gender shifts may have been motivated by
16940-485: The use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, and legal contracts; advertisements must bear a translation of foreign words. In Belgium, French is an official language at the federal level along with Dutch and German. At the regional level, French is the sole official language of Wallonia (excluding a part of the East Cantons , which are German-speaking ) and one of
17080-536: The workplace. In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese . In English-speaking Canada, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, French is the first foreign language taught and in number of pupils is far ahead of other languages. In the United States, French is the second-most commonly taught foreign language in schools and universities, although well behind Spanish. In some areas of
17220-402: The world's French-speaking population lives in Africa. According to a 2023 estimate from the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie , an estimated 167 million African people spread across 35 countries and territories can speak French as either a first or a second language . This number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as
17360-417: Was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the ( Germanic ) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to the French colonial empire , there are numerous French-based creole languages , most notably Haitian Creole . A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French
17500-423: Was at the time the most expensive construction project ever proposed. The cost finally amounted to £9 billion (equivalent to £22.6 billion in 2023). Since its opening, the tunnel has experienced occasional mechanical problems. Both fires and cold weather have temporarily disrupted its operation. Since at least 1997, aggregations of migrants around Calais seeking entry to the United Kingdom, such as through
17640-417: Was carried out in 1964 and 1965. Although the two countries agreed to build a tunnel in 1964, the phase 1 initial studies and signing of a second agreement to cover phase 2 took until 1973. The plan described a government-funded project to create two tunnels to accommodate car shuttle wagons on either side of a service tunnel. Construction started on both sides of the Channel in 1974. On 20 January 1975, to
17780-819: Was during the period of the Crusades in which French became so dominant in the Mediterranean Sea that became a lingua franca ("Frankish language"), and because of increased contact with the Arabs during the Crusades who referred to them as Franj , numerous Arabic loanwords entered French, such as amiral (admiral), alcool (alcohol), coton (cotton) and sirop (syrop), as well as scientific terms such as algébre (algebra), alchimie (alchemy) and zéro (zero). Within Old French many dialects emerged but
17920-544: Was established in 1876 for a cross-Channel railway tunnel. In 1881, British railway entrepreneur Sir Edward Watkin and Alexandre Lavalley , a French Suez Canal contractor , were in the Anglo-French Submarine Railway Company that conducted exploratory work on both sides of the Channel. From June 1882 to March 1883, the British tunnel boring machine tunnelled, through chalk, a total of 1,840 m (6,037 ft), while Lavalley used
18060-422: Was eventually reused as the starting and access point for tunnelling operations from the British side, and remains an access point to the service tunnel.) The cancellation costs were estimated at £17 million. On the French side, a tunnel-boring machine had been installed underground in a stub tunnel. It lay there for 14 years until 1988, when it was sold, dismantled, refurbished and shipped to Turkey, where it
18200-463: Was gradually adopted by the inhabitants of Gaul. As the language was learned by the common people, it developed a distinct local character, with grammatical differences from Latin as spoken elsewhere, some of which is attested in graffiti. This local variety evolved into the Gallo-Romance tongues, which include French and its closest relatives, such as Arpitan . The evolution of Latin in Gaul
18340-472: Was improved with joint exercises and exchanges of personnel between the British and French fire brigades, so that each had experience with the other's operational procedures. Communications were also improved and updated safety documentation issued. Over the years, the CTSA has conducted numerous experimental trials and studies, both of its own design or having been commissioned to do so by Eurotunnel. The details of many of these tests, including their results and
18480-652: Was known in the Occitan-speaking region as Vergonha . Spoken by 19.71% of the European Union's population, French is the third most widely spoken language in the EU, after English and German and the second-most-widely taught language after English. Under the Constitution of France , French has been the official language of the Republic since 1992, although the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts made it mandatory for legal documents in 1539. France mandates
18620-420: Was recommended that all alarms are to be treated seriously. As control room staff were perceived to have been overwhelmed, additional staff were placed on duty. Eurotunnel's policy of attempting to drive trains through the tunnel in the event of an on-board fire was replaced by plans to bring trains to a controlled stop and evacuate occupants into the service tunnel. Liaison between Eurotunnel and emergency services
18760-594: Was shaped by its coexistence for over half a millennium beside the native Celtic Gaulish language , which did not go extinct until the late sixth century, long after the fall of the Western Roman Empire . The population remained 90% indigenous in origin; the Romanizing class were the local native elite (not Roman settlers), whose children learned Latin in Roman schools. At the time of the collapse of
18900-468: Was signed between Eurotunnel, British Rail and SNCF guaranteeing future revenue in exchange for the railways obtaining half of the tunnel's capacity. Private funding for such a complex infrastructure project was of unprecedented scale. Initial equity of £45 million was raised by CTG/F-M, increased by £206 million private institutional placement, £770 million was raised in a public share offer that included press and television advertisements,
19040-570: Was the language they use the most at home rose from 67% at the 2007 census to 74% at the 2017 census. In Wallis and Futuna, the percentage of the population who reported that French was the language they use the most at home rose from 10% at the 2008 census to 13% at the 2018 census. According to a demographic projection led by the Université Laval and the Réseau Démographie de l'Agence universitaire de la Francophonie ,
19180-548: Was through a separate legal entity, Eurotunnel. Eurotunnel absorbed CTG/F-M and signed a construction contract with TML, but the British and French governments controlled final engineering and safety decisions, now managed by the Channel Tunnel Safety Authority . The British and French governments gave Eurotunnel a 55-year operating concession (from 1987; extended by 10 years to 65 years in 1993) to repay loans and pay dividends. A Railway Usage Agreement
19320-520: Was to advise on financing and secure loan commitments. On 2 July 1985, the groups formed Channel Tunnel Group/France–Manche (CTG/F–M). Their submission to the British and French governments was drawn from the 1975 project, including 11 volumes and a substantial environmental impact statement. The Anglo-French Treaty on the Channel Tunnel was signed by both governments in Canterbury Cathedral . The Treaty of Canterbury (1986) prepared
19460-516: Was used for fill at the terminal site, and the remainder was deposited at Lower Shakespeare Cliff behind a seawall, reclaiming 74 acres (30 hectares) of land. This land was then made into the Samphire Hoe Country Park. Environmental assessment did not identify any major risks for the project, and further studies into safety, noise, and air pollution were overall positive. However, environmental objections were raised concerning
19600-762: Was used to drive the Moda tunnel for the Istanbul Sewerage Scheme. In 1979, the "Mouse-hole Project" was suggested when the Conservatives came to power in Britain. The concept was a single-track rail tunnel with a service tunnel but without shuttle terminals. The British government took no interest in funding the project, but British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher did not object to a privately funded project, although she said she assumed it would be for cars rather than trains. In 1981, Thatcher and French president François Mitterrand agreed to establish
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