French Indochina Former name (until 1950) for the eastern part of mainland Southeast Asia. The region now comprises the countries of Cam¬ bodia, Laos, and Vietnam. After establishing its rule by 1893, France gov¬ erned it through the Indochinese Union. During World War II it was occupied by Japan, but the French continued to administer it until the Japanese ousted them in 1945. After the Japanese surrender, the Viet Minh under Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Laos and Cambodia were reoccupied by the French, who founded the Indoch¬ inese Federation. The First Indochina war soon erupted, and the French ratified treaties (1949-50) that recognized Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia as independent states within the French Union. The area achieved full independence from France after the Geneva Conference of 1954.
French language Romance language spoken as a first language by about 72 million people in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada (mainly Quebec), and many other countries and regions formerly governed by France. French is an official language of more than 25 countries. Its ear¬ liest written materials date from the 9th century. Numerous regional dia¬ lects were eventually pushed aside by Francien, the dialect of Paris, adopted as the standard language in the mid-16th century. This largely replaced the dialects of northern and central France, known as the langue d’oi'l (from oil, the northern word for “yes”), and greatly reduced the use of the Occitan language of southern France, known as langue d’oc (from oc, Occitan for “yes”). Regional dialects survive mostly in uneducated rural speech. French grammar has been greatly simplified from Latin. Nouns do not have cases, and masculine and feminine gender are marked not in the noun but in its article or adjective. The verb is conjugated for
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
French Polynesia ► Freon I 711
three persons and for singular and plural; though spelled differently, sev¬ eral of these forms are pronounced identically.
French Polynesia formerly French Oceania \,o-she-'a-ne-3\ French overseas territory (pop., 2005 est.: 255,000), south-central Pacific Ocean. French Polynesia has an area of some 1,550 sq mi (4,000 sq km), comprising 130 islands in five archipelagoes: the Society Islands, the Tua- motu Archipelago, the Gambier Islands, the Marquesas Islands, and the Aus¬ tral Islands. Tahiti, in the Society group, is the largest island and the site of the capital, Papeete. More than two-thirds of the population of French Polynesia lives on Tahiti. The islands became French protectorates in the 1840s, and in the 1880s the French colony of Oceania was established. It became an overseas territory of France after World War II and was granted partial autonomy in 1977.
French republican calendar Dating system adopted in 1793 dur¬ ing the French Revolution. It sought to replace the Gregorian calendar with a scientific and rational system that avoided Christian associations. The 12 months each contained three decades (instead of weeks) of 10 days each, and the year ended with five (six in leap years) supplementary days. The year began with the autumnal equinox and the day on which the National Convention had proclaimed France a republic, 1 Vendemiaire, Year I (Sept. 22, 1792). The other autumn months were named Brumaire and Frimaire; they were followed by the winter months Nivose, Pluviose, and Ventose, the spring months Germinal, Floreal, and Prairial, and the summer months Messidor, Thermidor, and Fructidor. (All the names were derived from words for natural phenomena.) On Jan. 1, 1806, the Grego¬ rian calendar was reestablished by the Napoleonic regime.
French Revolution Movement that shook France between 1787 and 1799, reaching its first climax in 1789, and ended the ancien regime. Causes included the loss of peasant support for the feudal system, broad accep¬ tance of the reformist writings of the philosophes, an expanding bourgeoi¬ sie that was excluded from political power, a fiscal crisis worsened by participation in the American Revolution, and crop failures in 1788. The efforts of the regime in 1787 to increase taxes levied on the privileged classes initiated a crisis. In response, Louis XVI convened the Estates- General, made up of clergy, nobility, and the Third Estate (commoners), in 1789. Trying to pass reforms, it swore the Tennis Court Oath not to dis¬ perse until France had a new constitution. The king grudgingly concurred in the formation of the National Assembly, but rumours of an “aristocratic conspiracy” led to the Great Fear of July 1789, and Parisians seized the Bastille on July 14. The assembly drafted a new constitution that intro¬ duced the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, proclaiming liberty, equality, and fraternity. The Constitution of 1791 also established a short-lived constitutional monarchy. The assembly nationalized church lands to pay off the public debt and reorganized the church (see Civil Con¬ stitution of the Clergy). The king tried to flee the country but was appre¬ hended at Varennes. France, newly nationalistic, declared war on Austria and Prussia in 1792, beginning the French Revolutionary Wars. Revolu¬ tionaries imprisoned the royal family and massacred nobles and clergy at the Tuileries in 1792. A new assembly, the National Convention —divided between Girondins and the extremist Montagnards —abolished the mon¬ archy and established the First Republic in September 1792. Louis XVI was judged by the National Convention and executed for treason on Jan. 21, 1793. The Montagnards seized power and adopted radical economic and social policies that provoked violent reactions, including the Wars of the Vendee and citizen revolts. Opposition was broken by the Reign of Ter¬ ror. Military victories in 1794 brought a change in the public mood, and Maximilien Robespierre was overthrown in the Convention on 9 Thermidor, year II (in 1794 in the French republican calendar), and executed the next day (see Thermidorian Reaction). Royalists tried to seize power in Paris but were crushed by Napoleon on 13 Vendemaire, year IV (in 1795). A new constitution placed executive power in a Directory of five members. The war and schisms in the Directory led to disputes that were settled by coups d’etat, chiefly those of 18 Fructidor, Year V (in 1797), and 18-19 Bru¬ maire, Year VIII (in 1799), in which Napoleon abolished the Directory and declared himself leader of France. See also Committee of Public Safety; Constitution of 1795; Constitution of the Year VIII; Charlotte Corday; Cordeliers Club; Georges J. Danton; Feuillants Club; Jacobin Club; J.-P. Marat; Marie-Antoinette; Louis de Saint-Just; E.-J. Sieyes.
French Revolutionary Wars (1792-99) Series of wars undertaken to defend and then to spread the ideas of the French Revolution. After the National Assembly established its ascendancy over Louis XVI, in 1791 Austria and Prussia called on European rulers to assist Louis in reestab¬
lishing power. France declared war in 1792 and soon had occupied all of Belgium. The First Coalition (Prussia, Spain, the United Provinces, and Britain) was formed against France in 1793, and in response the French declared a levy on all Frenchmen, creating a massive army. By 1795 France had defeated the allies on every front; Prussia signed a peace treaty, and the Netherlands became the French-influenced Batavian Republic. Napoleon took over as commander of the Italian campaign in 1796 and by the Treaty of Campo Formio (1797) forced Austria to cede the Austrian Netherlands and recognize the French-organized Cisalpine and Ligurian republics in northern Italy. He then sailed an army to Egypt to conquer the Ottoman empire, but was defeated by Britain in the Battle of the Nile (1798). Meanwhile, other French forces had occupied new territories and established republican regimes in Rome, Switzerland (the Helvetic Republic), and Italy (the Parthenopean Republic). The Second Coalition, comprising Britain, Russia, the Ottoman empire, Naples, Portugal, and Austria, was short-lived. By the time Napoleon became first consul of France in 1799, the danger of foreign intervention was over. Conflict between France and other European powers continued in the Napoleonic Wars.