Topic: France (Page 5)
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🔗 100 Years – The Movie You Will Never See
100 Years is an upcoming science fiction film written by John Malkovich and directed by Robert Rodriguez. Advertised in 2015 with the tagline "The Movie You Will Never See", it is due to be released on November 18, 2115. The 100 year span matches the time it takes for a bottle of Louis XIII Cognac to be properly aged before its release to consumers. The film stars an international ensemble, with American actor John Malkovich, Taiwanese actress Shuya Chang, and Chilean actor Marko Zaror.
100 Years will apparently be a short film, Rodriguez having stated in a 2019 interview with French YouTuber InThePanda: "I was making several short films for them, and I finished that one first, we shot that one first, I thought that was gonna be a commercial or something. And then I showed them the movie and they said 'Yeah, that's great, that's great. That's the one we lock away.' And I said 'What? That's the one you lock away? What about the other one with the future--' 'No, that's the commercial.' [...] The one that I was most attached to was the one they locked away."
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- "100 Years – The Movie You Will Never See" | 2019-11-27 | 14 Upvotes 4 Comments
🔗 The Dreyfus affair
The Dreyfus Affair (French: l'affaire Dreyfus, pronounced [lafɛːʁ dʁɛfys]) was a political scandal that divided the Third French Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. "The Affair", as it is known in French, has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francophone world, and it remains one of the most notable examples of a complex miscarriage of justice and antisemitism. The role played by the press and public opinion proved influential in the conflict.
The scandal began in December 1894 when Captain Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason. Dreyfus was a 35-year-old Alsatian French artillery officer of Jewish descent. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly communicating French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris, and was imprisoned on Devil's Island in French Guiana, where he spent nearly five years.
In 1896, evidence came to light—primarily through an investigation instigated by Georges Picquart, head of counter-espionage—which identified the real culprit as a French Army major named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. When high-ranking military officials suppressed the new evidence, a military court unanimously acquitted Esterhazy after a trial lasting only two days. The Army laid additional charges against Dreyfus, based on forged documents. Subsequently, Émile Zola's open letter J'Accuse…!, stoked a growing movement of support for Dreyfus, putting pressure on the government to reopen the case.
In 1899, Dreyfus was returned to France for another trial. The intense political and judicial scandal that ensued divided French society between those who supported Dreyfus (now called "Dreyfusards"), such as Sarah Bernhardt, Anatole France, Henri Poincaré and Georges Clemenceau, and those who condemned him (the anti-Dreyfusards), such as Édouard Drumont, the director and publisher of the antisemitic newspaper La Libre Parole. The new trial resulted in another conviction and a 10-year sentence, but Dreyfus was pardoned and released. In 1906, Dreyfus was exonerated and reinstated as a major in the French Army. He served during the whole of World War I, ending his service with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He died in 1935.
The affair from 1894 to 1906 divided France into pro-republican, anticlerical, Dreyfusards and pro-Army, mostly Catholic "anti-Dreyfusards". It embittered French politics and encouraged radicalisation.
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- "The Dreyfus affair" | 2013-06-23 | 13 Upvotes 2 Comments
🔗 Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance
The Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance, originally known as the Renault–Nissan Alliance, is a French-Japanese strategic alliance between the automobile manufacturers Renault (based in Boulogne-Billancourt, France), Nissan (based in Yokohama, Japan) and Mitsubishi Motors (based in Tokyo, Japan), which together sell more than 1 in 9 vehicles worldwide. Renault and Nissan are strategic partners since 1999 and have nearly 450,000 employees and control eight major brands: Renault, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Infiniti, Renault Korea, Dacia, Alpine, and Venucia. The car group sold 10.6 million vehicles worldwide in 2017, making it the leading light vehicle manufacturing group in the world. The Alliance adopted its current name in September 2017, one year after Nissan acquired a controlling interest in Mitsubishi and subsequently made Mitsubishi an equal partner in the Alliance.
As of December 2021, the Alliance is one of the world's leading electric vehicle manufacturing groups, with global sales of over 1 million light-duty electric vehicles since 2009. The top selling vehicles of its EV line-up are the Nissan Leaf and the Renault Zoe all-electric cars.
The strategic partnership between Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi is not a merger or an acquisition. The three companies are joined through a cross-sharing agreement. The structure was unique in the auto industry during the 1990s consolidation trend and later served as a model for General Motors and the PSA Group, and Mitsubishi, as well as the Volkswagen Group and Suzuki, though the latter combination failed. The Alliance itself has broadened its scope substantially, forming additional partnerships with automakers including Germany's Daimler and China's Dongfeng.
Following the November 2018 arrest and imprisonment of Alliance chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn, accompanied by his dismissal from the alliance and its components, press analysts have questioned both the stability of the Alliance's shareholding agreement and its long-term existence. These analysts also note that, because the companies' recent business strategies are interdependent, attempts to restructure the Alliance could be counter-productive for all of the members.
In January 2023, Renault and Nissan moved to restructure their alliance in order to recover from Ghosn's arrest and manage through a post-Covid economy. The primary objective was to give both companies more autonomy.
🔗 1956 Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis or the Second Arab–Israeli War, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression in the Arab world and as the Sinai War in Israel, was a British–French–Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Israel invaded on 29 October, having done so with the primary objective of re-opening the Straits of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba as the recent tightening of the eight-year-long Egyptian blockade further prevented Israeli passage. After issuing a joint ultimatum for a ceasefire, the United Kingdom and France joined the Israelis on 5 November, seeking to depose Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and regain control of the Suez Canal, which Nasser had earlier nationalised by transferring administrative control from the foreign-owned Suez Canal Company to Egypt's new government-owned Suez Canal Authority. Shortly after the invasion began, the three countries came under heavy political pressure from both the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as from the United Nations, eventually prompting their withdrawal from Egypt. Israel's four-month-long occupation of the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula enabled it to attain freedom of navigation through the Straits of Tiran, but the Suez Canal itself was closed from October 1956 to March 1957. The Suez Crisis led to international humiliation for the British and the French in the wake of the Cold War, which established the Americans and the Soviets as the world's superpowers. It also strengthened Nasser's standing.
Before they were defeated, Egyptian troops had blocked all ship traffic by sinking 40 ships in the Suez Canal. It later became clear that Israel, the United Kingdom, and France had conspired to invade Egypt. Though the three allies had attained a number of their military objectives, the Suez Canal itself was useless. American president Dwight D. Eisenhower had issued a strong warning to the British if they were to invade Egypt; he threatened serious damage to the British financial system by selling the American government's bonds of pound sterling. Historians have concluded that the Suez Crisis "signified the end of Great Britain's role as one of the world's major powers" vis-à-vis the United States and the Soviet Union.
As a result of the conflict, the United Nations established the United Nations Emergency Force to police and patrol the Egypt–Israel border, while British prime minister Anthony Eden resigned from his position. For his diplomatic efforts in resolving the conflict through United Nations initiatives, Canadian external affairs minister Lester B. Pearson received a Nobel Peace Prize. Analysts have argued that the Suez Crisis may have emboldened the Soviet Union, prompting the Soviet invasion of Hungary.
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- "1956 Suez Crisis" | 2024-05-27 | 11 Upvotes 2 Comments
🔗 Great Woman of Mathematics: Marie-Sophie Germain, 1776-1831
Marie-Sophie Germain (French: [maʁi sɔfi ʒɛʁmɛ̃]; 1 April 1776 – 27 June 1831) was a French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. Despite initial opposition from her parents and difficulties presented by society, she gained education from books in her father's library, including ones by Leonhard Euler, and from correspondence with famous mathematicians such as Lagrange, Legendre, and Gauss (under the pseudonym of «Monsieur LeBlanc»). One of the pioneers of elasticity theory, she won the grand prize from the Paris Academy of Sciences for her essay on the subject. Her work on Fermat's Last Theorem provided a foundation for mathematicians exploring the subject for hundreds of years after. Because of prejudice against her sex, she was unable to make a career out of mathematics, but she worked independently throughout her life. Before her death, Gauss had recommended that she be awarded an honorary degree, but that never occurred. On 27 June 1831, she died from breast cancer. At the centenary of her life, a street and a girls’ school were named after her. The Academy of Sciences established the Sophie Germain Prize in her honor.
🔗 For Edward Snowden: How to live in an airport
Mehran Karimi Nasseri (Persian: مهران کریمی ناصری pronounced [mehˈrɒn kæriˈmi nɒseˈri]; born 1946), also known as Sir Alfred Mehran, is an Iranian refugee who lived in the departure lounge of Terminal One in Charles de Gaulle Airport from 26 August 1988 until July 2006, when he was hospitalized. His autobiography was published as a book, The Terminal Man, in 2004. His story was the inspiration for the 2004 Steven Spielberg film The Terminal.
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- "For Edward Snowden: How to live in an airport" | 2013-06-27 | 10 Upvotes 1 Comments
🔗 Pheasant Island belongs to Spain and France in alternating 6 months periods
Pheasant Island (French: Île des Faisans/Île de la Conférence, Spanish: Isla de los Faisanes, Basque: Konpantzia) is an uninhabited river island in the Bidasoa river, located between France and Spain, whose administration alternates between both nations.
🔗 Tromelin, the Island of Forgotten Slaves
Tromelin Island (; French: Île Tromelin, pronounced [il tʁɔmlɛ̃]) is a low, flat island in the Indian Ocean about 500 kilometres (310 mi) north of Réunion and about 450 kilometres (280 mi) east of Madagascar. Tromelin is administered as part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, a French Overseas Territory, but Mauritius claims sovereignty over the island.
Tromelin has facilities for scientific expeditions and a weather station. It is a nesting site for birds and green sea turtles.