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109-546: Table games involving sticks and balls evolved from efforts to bring outdoor games like ground billiards , croquet , and bowling inside for play during inclement weather. They are attested in general by the 15th century, although the 19th-century idea that bagatelle itself derived from the English " shovel-board " described in Charles Cotton 's 1674 Compleat Gamester has since been disregarded. In France , during

218-469: A billiards table , indicate that the general offensive goal of the game is to use a club-like cue , called the mace or tack , to drive one's own ball through a hoop, called the pass , port , argolis , or ring , thus earning a chance to shoot at the upright king pin or sprigg , and to use defensive position play to thwart an opponent's ability to do likewise, e.g. by kissing an opposing ball to an unfavorable location (still

327-853: A Christian in the event of victory against the Visigothic Kingdom , which was said to have guaranteed the battle. Clovis regained the southwest from the Visigoths and was baptised in 508. Clovis I was the first Germanic conqueror after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire to convert to Catholic Christianity; thus France was given the title "Eldest daughter of the Church" by the papacy, and French kings called "the Most Christian Kings of France". The Franks embraced

436-425: A European counterweight between American and Soviet spheres of influence. However, he opposed any development of a supranational Europe , favouring sovereign nations . The revolt of May 1968 had an enormous social impact; it was a watershed moment when a conservative moral ideal (religion, patriotism, respect for authority) shifted to a more liberal moral ideal (secularism, individualism, sexual revolution). Although

545-644: A ball have been found throughout history around the world. For example, in Inner Mongolia in modern-day China , the Daur people have been playing beikou , a game similar to modern field hockey, for about 1,000 years. Stein and Rubino also devote considerable historico-cultural analysis to the Ancient Egyptian lawn/court and board games with equipment similar to medieval European lawn billiards and to bat-and-ball games, and they speculate that for

654-759: A combination of social, political and economic factors, which the Ancien Régime proved unable to manage. A financial crisis and social distress led in May 1789 to the convocation of the Estates General , which was converted into a National Assembly in June. The Storming of the Bastille on 14 July led to a series of radical measures by the Assembly, among them the abolition of feudalism , state control over

763-569: A coup and civil war. During the May 1958 crisis , the weak Fourth Republic gave way to the Fifth Republic , which included a strengthened presidency. The war concluded with the Évian Accords in 1962 which led to Algerian independence , at a high price: between half a million and one million deaths and over 2 million internally-displaced Algerians. Around one million Pied-Noirs and Harkis fled from Algeria to France. A vestige of empire

872-490: A game being played that is an early variant of either ground billiards or one-on-one field hockey (assuming there was any significant difference other than game speed and vigour), sometimes within a bounded area. A similar game has survived to modern times, in the form of box hockey (which uses a flat puck in a confined space, and archways or "mouse holes" cut into wooden barriers, rather than stand-alone arches). There are hints that ground billiards may be far more ancient than

981-415: A global centre of art , science , and philosophy . It hosts the fourth-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is the world's leading tourist destination , receiving 100 million foreign visitors in 2023 . A developed country , France has a high nominal per capita income globally , and its advanced economy ranks among the largest in the world . It is a great power , being one of

1090-571: A key strategy in many cue sports and lawn games). Points were scored for touching the king pin with one's ball without knocking the pin over (which would cost the loss of a point). Games were played to a set number of points, such as five or seven, and could be between two (or sometimes more) individual competitors or doubles teams, each with one ball. Neutral object balls were not mentioned in Cotton's work or depicted in any contemporary illustrations. Cotton's indoor version made use of pockets in

1199-479: A miss but rotation of the ring to an unpredictable position, or even in knocking the ring down, which was a foul with a penalty). A prior form, illustrated in an early-17th-century English painting, shows a smaller, rectangular court, and only one ball between two players. Some continental European forms did involve a king pin. The balls, mace, and other equipment for ground-billiards games were probably most commonly made of wood. The Complete Gamester , covering only

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1308-480: A new table game featuring a slender table and cue sticks, which players used to shoot ivory balls up an inclined playfield. The game was dubbed bagatelle by the count and shortly after swept through France. The name "bagatelle" was first used to describe such a game in 1819. Its dimensions soon standardised at 1 ft 9 in x 7 ft (53 cm x 213 cm). Some French soldiers carried their favorite bagatelle tables with them to America while helping to fight

1417-492: A spherical jack or pallino , as used in modern bowls , boules , bocce , and pétanque , has been employed in lawn-bowling games since at least as early as the 13th century in England; all these games have the same basic objective, to get as close to the jack as possible with one's own ball. Conical king pins are found in depictions and actual surviving game equipment (of carved stone) from Ancient Egypt . Later equipment

1526-470: A variety of modern outdoor and indoor games and sports such as croquet , pool , snooker , and carom billiards . Its relationship to games played on larger fields, such as hockey , golf , and bat-and-ball games , is more speculative. As a broader classification, the term is sometimes applied to games dating back to classical antiquity that are attested via difficult-to-interpret ancient artworks and rare surviving gaming artifacts. Dating back to at least

1635-606: Is an unbroken chain of game evolution from very widespread prehistoric ball-and-stick games and rituals, through the civilizations of classical antiquity , to modern lawn and cue sports in Europe and Asia . Even polo – a cavalry -training sport with origins among the Iranic peoples of the central Asian steppes and directly attested since at least the Parthian Empire (247 BCE – 224 CE) of Ancient Persia –

1744-472: Is believed to be the last surviving bagatelle league in the world. Ground billiards Ground billiards is a modern term for a family of medieval European lawn games , the original names of which are mostly unknown, played with a long-handled mallet (the mace ), wooden balls, a hoop (the pass ), and an upright skittle or pin (the king ). The game, which cue-sports historians have called "the original game of billiards", developed into

1853-533: Is essentially the same core game as field hockey or team ground billiards, but played on horseback with a longer cue-mallet. A set of gaming pieces, buried with a child dating to c. 3300 BCE in Egypt , features stone balls, skittles, and an arch (no cue/mace was included in the recovered artifacts). Stein and Rubino, among other researchers, believe that games such as early ball-and-stick activities, chess, and many others were primarily brought into Europe from

1962-442: Is obscure, with various scholars tracing it to medieval France , Italy , Spain , England, Germany , or more than one of these areas. More exotic and earlier origins have also been proposed. Even in the late 17th to early 18th centuries, indoor billiards was essentially the same game, with smaller equipment and played on a bounded table, with or without pockets. Use of the king pin declined first in most areas, followed by

2071-630: Is seen as the precursor of many later, more familiar outdoor and indoor games, including croquet and its variants, and table-based billiards games including snooker , pool (or pocket billiards, including nine-ball , eight-ball , etc.), pocketless carom billiards varieties, and the hybrid pocket–carom English billiards . Ground billiards is described as "the original game of billiards" by Michael Ian Shamos in The Encyclopedia of Billiards , an assessment echoed word-for-word by Stein and Rubino. Games played with crook-footed sticks and

2180-482: Is suggestive that games like ground billiards in the medieval Christian world were for centuries primarily the purview of and preserved by the clergy and the nobility, with peasant game-playing suppressed to the extent possible by many rulers, as unproductive. The exact rules of game play, and whether these rules were consistent from region to region, are unknown. English rules recorded in Charles Cotton 's The Compleat Gamester (1674), for an indoor version played on

2289-572: Is the French overseas departments and territories . During the Cold War , de Gaulle pursued a policy of "national independence" towards the Western and Eastern blocs . He withdrew from NATO's military-integrated command (while remaining within the alliance), launched a nuclear development programme and made France the fourth nuclear power . He restored cordial Franco-German relations to create

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2398-512: The 1973 oil crisis , which now accounts for 75 per cent of its electricity production and results in less pollution. According to the 2020 Environmental Performance Index conducted by Yale and Columbia , France was the fifth most environmentally conscious country in the world. Like all European Union state members, France agreed to cut carbon emissions by at least 20% of 1990 levels by 2020. As of 2009 , French carbon dioxide emissions per capita were lower than that of China. The country

2507-632: The 1995 public transport bombings , France has been targeted by Islamist organisations, notably the Charlie Hebdo attack in 2015 which provoked the largest public rallies in French history, gathering 4.4 million people, the November 2015 Paris attacks which resulted in 130 deaths, the deadliest attack on French soil since World War II and the deadliest in the European Union since

2616-660: The Battle of Hastings in 1066, William the Conqueror added "King of England" to his titles, becoming vassal and the equal of the king of France, creating recurring tensions. The Carolingian dynasty ruled France until 987, when Hugh Capet was crowned king of the Franks . His descendants unified the country through wars and inheritance. From 1190, the Capetian rulers began to be referred as "kings of France" rather than "kings of

2725-591: The British Isles and Switzerland . The wars were ended by Henry IV 's Edict of Nantes , which granted some freedom of religion to the Huguenots. Spanish troops, assisted the Catholics from 1589 to 1594 and invaded France in 1597. Spain and France returned to all-out war between 1635 and 1659. The war cost France 300,000 casualties. Under Louis XIII , Cardinal Richelieu promoted centralisation of

2834-793: The Catholic Church in France , and a declaration of rights . The next three years were dominated by struggle for political control, exacerbated by economic depression . Military defeats following the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in April 1792 resulted in the insurrection of 10 August 1792 . The monarchy was abolished and replaced by the French First Republic in September, while Louis XVI

2943-609: The Consulate seized power in a coup led by Napoleon . Napoleon became First Consul in 1799 and later Emperor of the French Empire (1804–1814; 1815). Changing sets of European coalitions declared wars on Napoleon's empire . His armies conquered most of continental Europe with swift victories such as the battles of Jena-Auerstadt and Austerlitz . Members of the Bonaparte family were appointed monarchs in some of

3052-665: The Franco-Prussian War in 1870. This led to the establishment of the Third French Republic , and subsequent decades saw a period of economic prosperity and cultural and scientific flourishing known as the Belle Époque . France was one of the major participants of World War I , from which it emerged victorious at great human and economic cost. It was among the Allies of World War II , but it surrendered and

3161-585: The French West Indies , and many islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean , giving it one of the largest discontiguous exclusive economic zones in the world . Metropolitan France shares borders with Belgium and Luxembourg to the north, Germany to the northeast, Switzerland to the east, Italy and Monaco to the southeast, Andorra and Spain to the south, and a maritime border with

3270-1103: The Hercynian uplift in the Paleozoic Era , the Armorican Massif , the Massif Central , the Morvan , the Vosges and Ardennes ranges and the island of Corsica were formed. These massifs delineate several sedimentary basins such as the Aquitaine Basin in the southwest and the Paris Basin in the north. Various routes of natural passage, such as the Rhône Valley , allow easy communication. The Alpine, Pyrenean and Jura mountains are much younger and have less eroded forms. At 4,810.45 metres (15,782 ft) above sea level, Mont Blanc , located in

3379-622: The House of Plantagenet , rulers of the County of Anjou , established its dominion over the surrounding provinces of Maine and Touraine , then built an "empire" from England to the Pyrenees , covering half of modern France. Tensions between France and the Plantagenet empire would last a hundred years, until Philip II of France conquered, between 1202 and 1214, most continental possessions of

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3488-646: The Late Medieval period. At least as early as 360  BCE , Romans played a somewhat golf-like game called paganica that could have degenerated to simpler, smaller-scale lawn games during the Dark Ages . Third century BCE Greece has also been proposed. Earlier still, a bas relief dating to c. 600 BCE depicts an ancient Greek ball game, a possible ancestor of both ground billiards and field hockey, which may have been called kerētízein or kerhtízein ( κερητίζειν ) because it

3597-755: The Madrid train bombings in 2004 . Opération Chammal , France's military efforts to contain ISIS , killed over 1,000 ISIS troops between 2014 and 2015. The vast majority of France's territory and population is situated in Western Europe and is called Metropolitan France . It is bordered by the North Sea in the north, the English Channel in the northwest, the Atlantic Ocean in the west and

3706-469: The Mediterranean Sea in the southeast. Its land borders consist of Belgium and Luxembourg in the northeast, Germany and Switzerland in the east, Italy and Monaco in the southeast, and Andorra and Spain in the south and southwest. Except for the northeast, most of France's land borders are roughly delineated by natural boundaries and geographic features: to the south and southeast,

3815-516: The Near East and Middle East by returning Crusaders from the 12th century onward, and that the pastimes were kept alive and evolving on that continent principally by the Christian clergy . Ireland has also been proposed as a time and place of origin; the stick-and-ball game hurling (also called camogie , as a women's sport ) dates to the 1200s there. Late medieval ground billiards

3924-521: The Popular Front government (e.g., annual leave , eight-hour workdays , women in government ). In 1940, France was invaded and quickly defeated by Nazi Germany . France was divided into a German occupation zone in the north, an Italian occupation zone and an unoccupied territory, the rest of France, which consisted of the southern France and the French empire. The Vichy government , an authoritarian regime collaborating with Germany, ruled

4033-614: The Seven Years' War (1756–1763). Its European territory kept growing, however, with acquisitions such as Lorraine and Corsica . Louis XV's weak rule, including the decadence of his court, discredited the monarchy, which in part paved the way for the French Revolution . Louis XVI (r. 1774–1793) supported America with money, fleets and armies , helping them win independence from Great Britain . France gained revenge, but verged on bankruptcy—a factor that contributed to

4142-623: The United Kingdom to the northwest. Its metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea . Its eighteen integral regions (five of which are overseas) span a combined area of 643,801 km (248,573 sq mi) and have a total population of 68.4 million as of January 2024 . France is a semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris ,

4251-716: The country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Metropolitan France was settled during the Iron Age by Celtic tribes known as Gauls before Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, leading to a distinct Gallo-Roman culture . In the Early Middle Ages , the Franks formed the Kingdom of Francia , which became the heartland of the Carolingian Empire . The Treaty of Verdun of 843 partitioned

4360-645: The official language of France and Europe's aristocracy. France became rivals of the House of Habsburg during the Italian Wars , which would dictate much of their later foreign policy until the mid-18th century. French explorers claimed lands in the Americas, paving expansion of the French colonial empire . The rise of Protestantism led France to a civil war known as the French Wars of Religion . This forced Huguenots to flee to Protestant regions such as

4469-471: The trap-bath split such as Received Pronunciation , though it can be also heard in some other dialects such as Cardiff English . The oldest traces of archaic humans in what is now France date from approximately 1.8 million years ago. Neanderthals occupied the region into the Upper Paleolithic era but were slowly replaced by Homo sapiens around 35,000 BC. This period witnessed

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4578-430: The 15th century as a tabletop game, and in recognizable form to as early as the 14th, this proto-billiards game appears to have been ancestral to croquet (19th century), trucco (17th century; also known as trucks or lawn billiards), pall-mall (16th century), jeu de mail (15th century), and indoor cue sports (15th century if not earlier – what is usually meant by billiards today). The location of origin

4687-513: The 1970s France faced an economic crisis and allowed new immigrants (mostly from the Maghreb , in northwest Africa) to permanently settle in France with their families and acquire citizenship. It resulted in hundreds of thousands of Muslims living in subsidised public housing and suffering from high unemployment rates. The government had a policy of assimilation of immigrants, where they were expected to adhere to French values and norms. Since

4796-617: The 200 years of the Crusades, in such a fashion that the Arabs referred to crusaders as Franj . French Crusaders imported French into the Levant , making Old French the base of the lingua franca ("Frankish language") of the Crusader states . The Albigensian Crusade was launched in 1209 to eliminate the heretical Cathars in the southwest of modern-day France. From the 11th century,

4905-420: The 4th century, a period of revival and prosperity. In 312, Emperor Constantine I converted to Christianity . Christians, who had been persecuted, increased. But from the 5th century, the Barbarian Invasions resumed. Teutonic tribes invaded the region, the Visigoths settling in the southwest, the Burgundians along the Rhine River Valley, and the Franks in the north. In Late antiquity , ancient Gaul

5014-438: The Alps on the France–Italy border , is the highest point in Western Europe. Although 60% of municipalities are classified as having seismic risks (though moderate). The coastlines offer contrasting landscapes: mountain ranges along the French Riviera , coastal cliffs such as the Côte d'Albâtre , and wide sandy plains in the Languedoc . Corsica lies off the Mediterranean coast. France has an extensive river system consisting of

5123-457: The Atlantic Ocean. Other water courses drain towards the Meuse and Rhine along the northeastern borders. France has 11,000,000 km (4,200,000 sq mi) of marine waters within three oceans under its jurisdiction, of which 97% are overseas. France was one of the first countries to create an environment ministry, in 1971. France is ranked 19th by carbon dioxide emissions due to the country's heavy investment in nuclear power following

5232-416: The British in the American Revolutionary War . Bagatelle spread and became so popular in America as well that a political cartoon from 1863 depicts US President Abraham Lincoln playing a small tabletop version of bagatelle against presidential rival George B. McClellan . As of 2022, bagatelle is still played competitively in the Chester area of Cheshire , England. The Chester and District Bagatelle League

5341-504: The Christian Gallo-Roman culture , and ancient Gaul was renamed Francia ("Land of the Franks"). The Germanic Franks adopted Romanic languages . Clovis made Paris his capital and established the Merovingian dynasty , but his kingdom would not survive his death. The Franks treated land as a private possession and divided it among their heirs, so four kingdoms emerged from that of Clovis: Paris, Orléans , Soissons , and Rheims . The last Merovingian kings lost power to their mayors of

5450-407: The Egyptians there may have been rich religious symbology involved. They note the resemblance of the games' ball, shooting stick, and king pin to the orb , sceptre or ceremonial mace (which originally had a crook at the top like a gaming mace), and crown of imperial regalia , which later were adopted by the pagan Romans and ( in modified form ) in turn by medieval rulers of Christendom . It

5559-421: The Franks was known as the francisca ), although these weapons may have been named because of their use by the Franks, not the other way around. In English, 'France' is pronounced / f r æ n s / FRANSS in American English and / f r ɑː n s / FRAHNSS or / f r æ n s / FRANSS in British English. The pronunciation with / ɑː / is mostly confined to accents with

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5668-420: The Franks". Later kings expanded their directly possessed domaine royal to cover over half of modern France by the 15th century. Royal authority became more assertive, centred on a hierarchically conceived society distinguishing nobility , clergy, and commoners . The nobility played a prominent role in Crusades to restore Christian access to the Holy Land . French knights made up most reinforcements in

5777-402: The French government's longtime historical association with the Catholic Church , Charlemagne tried to revive the Western Roman Empire and its cultural grandeur. Charlemagne's son, Louis I kept the empire united, however in 843, it was divided between Louis' three sons, into East Francia , Middle Francia and West Francia . West Francia approximated the area occupied by modern France and

5886-431: The Neolithic, including the Carnac stones site (approximately 3,300 BC). In 600 BC, Ionian Greeks from Phocaea founded the colony of Massalia (present-day Marseille ). Celtic tribes penetrated parts of eastern and northern France, spreading through the rest of the country between the 5th and 3rd century BC. Around 390 BC, the Gallic chieftain Brennus and his troops made their way to Roman Italy , defeated

5995-542: The Pyrenees and the Alps and the Jura, respectively, and to the east, the Rhine river. Metropolitan France includes various coastal islands, of which the largest is Corsica . Metropolitan France is situated mostly between latitudes 41° and 51° N , and longitudes 6° W and 10° E , on the western edge of Europe, and thus lies within the northern temperate zone. Its continental part covers about 1000 km from north to south and from east to west. Metropolitan France covers 551,500 square kilometres (212,935 sq mi),

6104-408: The Revolution. Some of the Enlightenment occurred in French intellectual circles, and scientific breakthroughs, such as the naming of oxygen (1778) and the first hot air balloon carrying passengers (1783), were achieved by French scientists. French explorers took part in the voyages of scientific exploration through maritime expeditions. Enlightenment philosophy, in which reason is advocated as

6213-461: The Romans in the Battle of the Allia , and besieged and ransomed Rome. This left Rome weakened, and the Gauls continued to harass the region until 345 BC when they entered into a peace treaty. But the Romans and the Gauls remained adversaries for centuries. Around 125 BC, the south of Gaul was conquered by the Romans, who called this region Provincia Nostra ("Our Province"), which evolved into Provence in French. Julius Caesar conquered

6322-411: The abandonment of the port arch, though many variants featured both as well as pockets, while the king survived and even multiplied in some cases, leading to such modern cue games as five-pins . Some later stick-and-ball games, including cricket , also evolved multiple pin targets over time. Ground and table billiards were played contemporaneously, and the outdoor version remained known until at least

6431-425: The aforementioned box hockey) has been played on a 30 by 60 ft (approximately 9 by 19 m) clay court. This may have been an influence from croquet, as roque , an early-20th-century Olympic variant of croquet, used a court of the same dimensions. The term "king pin" or "kingpin", which today may refer to essential components of any system, from bosses of organized crime syndicates to

6540-461: The beginning of the 19th century; derived lawn games like croquet continue to the present day. The game's relationships to bowling , golf , hockey , and bat-and-ball games are not entirely certain. It is clear that bowling, in its ancestral form of skittles , shares a common origin with ground billiards, as the two game types share both the basic objective, to direct a rolling ball towards one or more targets, and similar equipment, aside from

6649-513: The constitutional July Monarchy ; French troops began the conquest of Algeria . Unrest led to the French Revolution of 1848 and the end of the July Monarchy. The abolition of slavery and introduction of male universal suffrage was re-enacted in 1848. In 1852, president of the French Republic, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte , Napoleon I's nephew, was proclaimed emperor of the Second Empire , as Napoleon III. He multiplied French interventions abroad, especially in Crimea , Mexico and Italy . Napoleon III

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6758-409: The court of King Louis XI of France (1461–1483). France – in Europe  (green & dark grey) – in the European Union  (green) France , officially the French Republic , is a country located primarily in Western Europe . Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America , Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the North Atlantic,

6867-411: The early 19th century under Napoleon Bonaparte , subjugating part of continental Europe and establishing the First French Empire . The collapse of the empire initiated a period of relative decline, in which France endured the Bourbon Restoration until the founding of the French Second Republic which was succeeded by the Second French Empire upon Napoleon III 's takeover. His empire collapsed during

6976-556: The emergence of cave painting in the Dordogne and Pyrenees , including at Lascaux , dated to c.  18,000 BC. At the end of the Last Glacial Period (10,000 BC), the climate became milder; from approximately 7,000 BC, this part of Western Europe entered the Neolithic era, and its inhabitants became sedentary . After demographic and agricultural development between the 4th and 3rd millennia BC, metallurgy appeared , initially working gold, copper and bronze , then later iron . France has numerous megalithic sites from

7085-414: The empire, leaving England and Aquitaine to the Plantagenets. Charles IV the Fair died without an heir in 1328. The crown passed to Philip of Valois , rather than Edward of Plantagenet, who became Edward III of England . During the reign of Philip, the monarchy reached the height of its medieval power. However Philip's seat on the throne was contested by Edward in 1337, and England and France entered

7194-422: The empire, with West Francia evolving into the Kingdom of France . In the High Middle Ages , France was a powerful but decentralized feudal kingdom, but from the mid-14th to the mid-15th centuries, France was plunged into a dynastic conflict with England known as the Hundred Years' War . In the 16th century, the French Renaissance saw culture flourish and a French colonial empire rise. Internally, France

7303-430: The ensuing uprising of European monarchies against his rule, Napoleon was defeated. About a million Frenchmen died during the Napoleonic Wars . After his brief return from exile, Napoleon was finally defeated in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo , and the Bourbon monarchy was restored with new constitutional limitations. The discredited Bourbon dynasty was overthrown by the July Revolution of 1830, which established

7412-424: The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and an official nuclear-weapon state . France is a founding and leading member of the European Union and the eurozone , as well as a member of the Group of Seven , North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and Francophonie . Originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire ,

7521-475: The forefront of the development of a supranational European Union , notably by signing the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, establishing the eurozone in 1999 and signing the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007. France has fully reintegrated into NATO and since participated in most NATO-sponsored wars. Since the 19th century, France has received many immigrants , often male foreign workers from European Catholic countries who generally returned home when not employed. During

7630-464: The four major rivers Seine , the Loire , the Garonne , the Rhône and their tributaries, whose combined catchment includes over 62% of the metropolitan territory. The Rhône divides the Massif Central from the Alps and flows into the Mediterranean Sea at the Camargue . The Garonne meets the Dordogne just after Bordeaux, forming the Gironde estuary , the largest estuary in Western Europe which after approximately 100 kilometres (62 mi) empties into

7739-407: The ground. Scoring shots included passing one's ball through the port, and striking an opponent's ball with one's own (a cannon or carom shot, in billiards terms, or in croquet called a roquet ). Part of the strategy of this form of the game was using such shots to get close enough to the port for a shot at it to be easier (failing to go dead-center would likely result in not just

7848-704: The indoor variant favored by the wealthy, recommended hardwood such as lignum vitae for maces, and expensive ivory for balls and other equipment, but ivory's fragility would have made it impractical for the larger-scale and more forceful outdoor version of the game. Enquire Within suggested lignum vitae or boxwood for the balls. Early king pins were sometimes made of bone. Clay was also popular for balls in such games (including lawn-bowling varieties). Some illustrations suggest port hoops made of decorative wrought iron, while others are clearly of wood, stone, or another carved substance, and later examples are thin and wiry, similar to modern croquet hoops (wickets). The nature of

7957-479: The largest among European Union members. France's total land area, with its overseas departments and territories (excluding Adélie Land ), is 643,801 km (248,573 sq mi), 0.45% of the total land area on Earth. France possesses a wide variety of landscapes, from coastal plains in the north and west to mountain ranges of the Alps in the southeast, the Massif Central in the south-central and Pyrenees in

8066-427: The long 1643–1715 reign of Louis XIV , billiard tables were narrowed, with wooden pins or skittles at one end of the table, and players would shoot balls with a stick or cue from the other end, in a game inspired as much by bowling as billiards. Pins took too long to reset when knocked down, so they were eventually fixed to the table, and holes in the bed of the table became the targets. Players could ricochet balls off

8175-424: The mace appears to move from crude to elegant over time, with earlier illustrations showing simple hammer- or crook-like implements, with players stooping, while later woodcuts and tapestries show a long, thin device more like a golf putter , and in basic form very similar to later, and more delicate and ornate maces used for table billiards before leather-tipped straight cues became the norm in those games. Similarly,

8284-431: The mace. Some contemporary sources depict the same game being played both with the hand and with a mace, and show a distinctive teardrop-shaped king pin design, with a rounded, wide bottom and a slender top. This pin shape suggests that it may have been the origin of the modern bottom-heavy design of bowling pins and similar skittles of various sizes used in a wide variety of games. A conical king or jack , or sometimes

8393-426: The main support bolt in the axle assemblies (trucks) of skateboards , appears to derive from its usage as a key component of ground billiards, early skittle bowling, and related games. The traditional green of billiards, pool, and snooker cloth represents a green lawn, and the earliest indoor table-top billiards games were played on a patch of turf brought indoors and put in a raised box, an idea first recorded in

8502-591: The most-used language in diplomacy, science, and literature until the 20th century. France took control of territories in the Americas, Africa and Asia. In 1685, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes , forcing thousands of Huguenots into exile and published the Code Noir providing the legal framework for slavery and expelling Jews from French colonies. Under the wars of Louis XV (r. 1715–1774), France lost New France and most Indian possessions after its defeat in

8611-601: The name France comes from the Latin Francia , or "realm of the Franks ". The name of the Franks is related to the English word frank ("free"): the latter stems from the Old French franc ("free, noble, sincere"), and ultimately from the Medieval Latin word francus ("free, exempt from service; freeman, Frank"), a generalisation of the tribal name that emerged as a Late Latin borrowing of

8720-412: The nature of the playing court appears to have evolved, beginning as any informal patch of ground, and becoming carefully delimited courts of turf or clay bounded by low (often wicker) barriers. Trucco, as an informal game played mostly at pubs and country houses , could be played anywhere the ground was relatively flat (the conventional Victorian rules simply called for at least 4 yards (3.7 m) from

8829-458: The newly established kingdoms. These victories led to the worldwide expansion of French revolutionary ideals and reforms, such as the metric system , Napoleonic Code and Declaration of the Rights of Man. In 1812 Napoleon attacked Russia , reaching Moscow. Thereafter his army disintegrated through supply problems, disease, Russian attacks, and finally winter. After this catastrophic campaign and

8938-507: The off-and-on Hundred Years' War . Boundaries changed, but landholdings inside France by English Kings remained extensive for decades. With charismatic leaders, such as Joan of Arc , French counterattacks won back most English continental territories. France was struck by the Black Death , from which half of the 17 million population died. The French Renaissance saw cultural development and standardisation of French, which became

9047-400: The outer edge of the playing area to the ring on every side). Most woodcuts and other illustrations of ground-billiards games show two players. A few show more (typically waiting and observing on the sidelines), but it is unclear if these represent teams, doubles, individual players in a many-player game, or people waiting their turn. A mid-20th-century version of ground billiards (aside from

9156-631: The palace (head of household). One mayor of the palace, Charles Martel , defeated an Umayyad invasion of Gaul at the Battle of Tours (732). His son, Pepin the Short , seized the crown of Francia from the weakened Merovingians and founded the Carolingian dynasty . Pepin's son, Charlemagne , reunited the Frankish kingdoms and built an empire across Western and Central Europe . Proclaimed Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III and thus establishing

9265-507: The pins to achieve the harder scorable holes. Quite a number of variations on this theme were developed. In 1777, a party was thrown in honour of Louis XVI and the queen at the Château de Bagatelle , recently erected at great expense by the king's brother, the Count of Artois . Bagatelle from Italian bagattella , signifies 'a trifle', 'a decorative thing'. The highlight of the party was

9374-631: The primary source of legitimacy , undermined the power of and support for the monarchy and was a factor in the Revolution. The French Revolution was a period of political and societal change that began with the Estates General of 1789 , and ended with the coup of 18 Brumaire in 1799 and the formation of the French Consulate . Many of its ideas are fundamental principles of liberal democracy , while its values and institutions remain central to modern political discourse. Its causes were

9483-528: The reconstructed Frankish endonym * Frank . It has been suggested that the meaning "free" was adopted because, after the conquest of Gaul , only Franks were free of taxation, or more generally because they had the status of freemen in contrast to servants or slaves. The etymology of *Frank is uncertain. It is traditionally derived from the Proto-Germanic word * frankōn , which translates as "javelin" or "lance" (the throwing axe of

9592-412: The related game croquet separately). Trucco, in this well-documented form, was played in a round area at least 8 yards (7.3 m) in diameter by two players (or more, in two teams). The game used large, heavy balls and iron-headed maces like giant spoons which were used to toss rather than roll one's ball toward the port, by this stage a freely rotating metal ring mounted on a stake and almost flush with

9701-586: The remainder of Gaul and overcame a revolt by Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix in 52 BC. Gaul was divided by Augustus into provinces and many cities were founded during the Gallo-Roman period , including Lugdunum (present-day Lyon ), the capital of the Gauls. In 250–290 AD, Roman Gaul suffered a crisis with its fortified borders attacked by barbarians . The situation improved in the first half of

9810-454: The revolt was a political failure (the Gaullist party emerged stronger than before) it announced a split between the French and de Gaulle, who resigned. In the post-Gaullist era, France remained one of the most developed economies in the world but faced crises that resulted in high unemployment rates and increasing public debt. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, France has been at

9919-549: The second-largest behind the British Empire . Including metropolitan France, the total area reached almost 13 million square kilometres in the 1920s and 1930s, 9% of the world's land. Known as the Belle Époque , the turn of the century was characterised by optimism, regional peace, economic prosperity and technological, scientific and cultural innovations. In 1905, state secularism was officially established . France

10028-495: The sides of the table as hazards , with additional scoring opportunities, and some outdoor ground-billiards courts may have used golf -style holes for the same purpose. An outdoor form of the game that survived until the early 20th century was trucco . Its rules were covered in popular works like the Victorian advice book Enquire Within upon Everything , which also called it simply "lawn billiards" (and which covered

10137-472: The southwest. Due to its numerous overseas departments and territories scattered across the planet, France possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the world, covering 11,035,000 km (4,261,000 sq mi). Its EEZ covers approximately 8% of the total surface of all the EEZs of the world. Metropolitan France has a wide variety of topographical sets and natural landscapes. During

10246-664: The state and reinforced royal power. He destroyed castles of defiant lords and denounced the use of private armies. By the end of the 1620s, Richelieu established "the royal monopoly of force". France fought in the Thirty Years' War , supporting the Protestant side against the Habsburgs. From the 16th to the 19th century, France was responsible for about 10% of the transatlantic slave trade . During Louis XIV 's minority, trouble known as The Fronde occurred. This rebellion

10355-530: The unoccupied territory. Free France , the government-in-exile led by  Charles de Gaulle , was set up in London. From 1942 to 1944, about 160,000 French citizens, including around 75,000 Jews , were deported to death and concentration camps . On 6 June 1944, the Allies invaded Normandy , and in August they invaded Provence . The Allies and French Resistance emerged victorious, and French sovereignty

10464-431: The winter, like bandy . Players used maces ( kolven ) very similar to those shown in early ground billiards illustrations. At least one variant of it used holes in the ground, reminiscent of both golf holes and billiards pockets, instead of above-ground targets. The modern version, kolf or kolven , uses a tall, flat-bottomed king pin ( paal , 'pole, stake'). Engravings dating back to c. 1300 show

10573-464: Was invaded by Germany and defended by Great Britain at the start of World War I in August 1914. A rich industrial area in the north was occupied. France and the Allies emerged victorious against the Central Powers at tremendous human cost. It left 1.4 million French soldiers dead, 4% of its population. Interwar was marked by intense international tensions and social reforms introduced by

10682-521: Was a founding member of NATO and attempted to regain control of French Indochina , but was defeated by the Viet Minh in 1954. France faced another anti-colonialist conflict in Algeria , then part of France and home to over one million European settlers ( Pied-Noir ). The French systematically used torture and repression, including extrajudicial killings to keep control. This conflict nearly led to

10791-681: Was divided into Germanic kingdoms and a remaining Gallo-Roman territory. Celtic Britons , fleeing the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain , settled in west Armorica ; the Armorican peninsula was renamed Brittany and Celtic culture was revived. The first leader to unite all Franks was Clovis I , who began his reign as king of the Salian Franks in 481, routing the last forces of the Roman governors in 486. Clovis said he would be baptised

10900-528: Was dominated by the conflict with the House of Habsburg and the French Wars of Religion between Catholics and Huguenots . France was successful in the Thirty Years' War and further increased its influence during the reign of Louis XIV . The French Revolution of 1789 overthrew the Ancien Régime and produced the Declaration of the Rights of Man , which expresses the nation's ideals to this day. France reached its political and military zenith in

11009-531: Was driven by feudal lords and sovereign courts as a reaction to the royal absolute power . The monarchy reached its peak during the 17th century and reign of Louis XIV. By turning lords into courtiers at the Palace of Versailles , his command of the military went unchallenged. The "Sun King" made France the leading European power. France became the most populous European country and had tremendous influence over European politics, economy, and culture. French became

11118-749: Was executed in January 1793. After another revolt in June 1793 , the constitution was suspended and power passed from the National Convention to the Committee of Public Safety . About 16,000 people were executed in a Reign of Terror , which ended in July 1794 . Weakened by external threats and internal opposition, the Republic was replaced in 1795 by the Directory . Four years later in 1799,

11227-414: Was its precursor. During the 9th and 10th centuries, threatened by Viking invasions , France became a decentralised state: the nobility's titles and lands became hereditary, and authority of the king became more religious than secular, and so was less effective and challenged by noblemen. Thus was established feudalism in France. Some king's vassals grew so powerful they posed a threat to the king. After

11336-499: Was occupied in 1940. Following its liberation in 1944 , the short-lived Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the defeat in the Algerian War . The current Fifth Republic was formed in 1958 by Charles de Gaulle . Algeria and most French colonies became independent in the 1960s, with the majority retaining close economic and military ties with France . France retains its centuries-long status as

11445-758: Was played with an implement shaped like a horn ( kéras , κέρας ). It appears to be basically the same as the Medieval European activity of c. 1300 CE. An ancient Greek game said (in Leila Dorion's and Julia Shepherd's 1928 History of Bowling and Billiards ) to be "analogous to billiards" was reported in Greek writings around 400 BCE, contemporary with the game's play. Billiards scholars Victor Stein and Paul Rubino conclude in The Billiard Encyclopedia that there

11554-656: Was restored with the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF). This interim government, established by de Gaulle, continued to wage war against Germany and to purge collaborators from office . It made important reforms e.g. suffrage extended to women and the creation of a social security system. A new constitution resulted in the Fourth Republic (1946–1958), which saw strong economic growth ( les Trente Glorieuses ). France

11663-723: Was set to impose a carbon tax in 2009; however, the plan was abandoned due to fears of burdening French businesses. Forests account for 31 per cent of France's land area—the fourth-highest proportion in Europe—representing an increase of 7 per cent since 1990. French forests are some of the most diverse in Europe, comprising more than 140 species of trees. France had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 4.52/10, ranking it 123rd globally. There are nine national parks and 46 natural parks in France. A regional nature park (French: parc naturel régional or PNR)

11772-423: Was typically made of wood, sometimes also with clay, bone, or ivory pieces. The Dutch game het kolven , a precursor of golf dating to at least the early 13th century, seems to be intermediate between ground billiards on the one hand, and both golf and ice hockey on the other (and its name is etymologically cognate with golf ). It was played in a wicker -bounded court during warm weather, and on ice in

11881-467: Was unseated following defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and his regime replaced by the Third Republic . By 1875, the French conquest of Algeria was complete, with approximately 825,000 Algerians killed from famine, disease, and violence. France had colonial possessions since the beginning of the 17th century, but in the 19th and 20th centuries its empire extended greatly and became

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