Nord absolu (ROMAN) (French Edition)

About us About us. National Awards International Awards. Philip Niels, a hero of the nation, goes on the quest to find his neighbour, who has mysteriously disappeared. From poor suburbs to the great northern landscapes, from detention centres to ultrasecured zones, he explores a country which has been subjugated by a dictatorship. Facebook Twitter Google Pinterest. One sunny spring morning the Tasman Bay settlement of Kahukura is overwhelmed by a mysterious mass insanity.

A handful of survivors find themselves cut off from the world, and surrounded by the dead. As they try to take care of one another, Young Malian is being trained to rule. Her people garrison the mountain range known as the Wall of Night against an ancient enemy, keeping a tide of shadow from the rest of their world.

Something has gone wrong on the planet of Paradise. The human settlers - farmers and scientists - are finding that their crops won't grow and their lives are becoming more and more dangerous. The indigenous plant life - never entirely s Myriam Krepps of the University of Nebraska-Omaha argues that the view of "a unified territory one land since the beginning of civilization and a unified people" which de-emphasized "all disparities and the succession of waves of invaders" was first imprinted on the masses by the unified history curriculum of French textbooks in the late s. Since the beginning of the Third Republic — , the state has not categorized people according to their alleged ethnic origins.

Hence, in contrast to the United States Census , French people are not asked to define their ethnic appartenance, whichever it may be. The usage of ethnic and racial categorization is avoided to prevent any case of discrimination; the same regulations apply to religious membership data that cannot be compiled under the French Census. This classic French republican non- essentialist conception of nationality is officialized by the French Constitution , according to which "French" is a nationality , and not a specific ethnicity. France has been influenced by the many different human migrations that wide-crossed Europe over time.

Prehistoric and Neolithic population movements could have influenced the genetic diversity of this country. The five main haplogroups are R1 The high frequency of this haplogroup is typical in all West European populations. Haplogroups I and G are also characteristic markers for many different West European populations. Only adults with French surnames were analyzed by the study. Provence , a province of southern France was colonized by Ancient Greeks who founded the cities of Marseilles and Nice. There was also some evidence for limited Greek influence in Corsica. French nationality has not meant automatic citizenship.

Some categories of French people have been excluded, throughout the years, from full citizenship:. France was one of the first countries to implement denaturalization laws. Philosopher Giorgio Agamben has pointed out this fact that the French law which permitted denaturalization with regard to naturalized citizens of "enemy" origins was one of the first example of such legislation, which Nazi Germany later implemented with the Nuremberg Laws. Furthermore, some authors who have insisted on the "crisis of the nation-state" allege that nationality and citizenship are becoming separate concepts.

They show as example " international ", " supranational citizenship" or " world citizenship " membership to international nongovernmental organizations such as Amnesty International or Greenpeace. This would indicate a path toward a " postnational citizenship". Beside this, modern citizenship is linked to civic participation also called positive freedom , which implies voting, demonstrations , petitions , activism , etc.

Therefore, social exclusion may lead to deprivation of citizenship. In France, the conception of citizenship teeters between universalism and multiculturalism , especially in recent years. French citizenship has been defined for a long time by three factors: Political integration which includes but is not limited to racial integration is based on voluntary policies which aims at creating a common identity, and the interiorization by each individual of a common cultural and historic legacy. Since in France, the state preceded the nation, voluntary policies have taken an important place in the creation of this common cultural identity.

On the other hand, the interiorization of a common legacy is a slow process, which B. Villalba compares to acculturation. According to him, "integration is therefore the result of a double will: Villalba thus shows that any democratic nation characterize itself by its project of transcending all forms of particular memberships whether biological - or seen as such, [79] ethnic, historic, economic, social, religious or cultural. The citizen thus emancipates himself from the particularisms of identity which characterize himself to attain a more "universal" dimension.

He is a citizen, before being a member of a community or of a social class [80]. Therefore, according to Villalba, "a democratic nation is, by definition, multicultural as it gathers various populations, which differs by their regional origins Auvergnats, Bretons, Corsicans or Lorrains Ernest Renan described this republican conception in his famous 11 March conference at the Sorbonne , Qu'est-ce qu'une nation? A nation-state is not composed of a single homogeneous ethnic group a community , but of a variety of individuals willing to live together. Renan's non-essentialist definition, which forms the basis of the French Republic, is diametrically opposed to the German ethnic conception of a nation, first formulated by Fichte.

The German conception is usually qualified in France as an "exclusive" view of nationality, as it includes only the members of the corresponding ethnic group, while the Republican conception thinks itself as universalist , following the Enlightenment 's ideals officialized by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

While Ernest Renan's arguments were also concerned by the debate about the disputed Alsace-Lorraine region, he said that not only one referendum had to be made in order to ask the opinions of the Alsatian people, but also a "daily referendum" should be made concerning all those citizens wanting to live in the French nation-state. Henceforth, contrary to the German definition of a nation based on objective criteria, such as race or ethnic group , which may be defined by the existence of a common language , among other criteria, the people of France is defined as all the people living in the French nation-state and willing to do so, i.

This definition of the French nation-state contradicts the common opinion , which holds that the concept of the French people identifies with one particular ethnic group. This contradiction explains the seeming paradox encountered when attempting to identify a "French ethnic group ": This universalist conception of citizenship and of the nation has influenced the French model of colonization. While the British empire preferred an indirect rule system, which did not mix the colonized people with the colonists, the French Republic theoretically chose an integration system and considered parts of its colonial empire as France itself and its population as French people.

This ideal also led to the ironic sentence which opened up history textbooks in France as in its colonies: However, this universal ideal, rooted in the French Revolution "bringing liberty to the people" , suffered from the racism that impregnated colonialism. Liberal author Tocqueville himself considered that the British model was better adapted than the French one and did not balk before the cruelties of General Bugeaud 's conquest.

He went as far as advocating racial segregation there. This paradoxical tension between the universalist conception of the French nation and the racism inherent in colonization is most obvious in Ernest Renan himself, who went as far as advocating a kind of eugenics. In a 26 June letter to Arthur de Gobineau , author of An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races —55 and one of the first theoreticians of " scientific racism ", he wrote:.

The French mind turns little to ethnographic considerations: France has little belief in race, [ Does that mean total decadence? Yes, certainly from the standpoint of the stability of institutions, the originality of character, a certain nobility that I hold to be the most important factor in the conjunction of human affairs. But also what compensations! No doubt if the noble elements mixed in the blood of a people happened to disappear completely, then there would be a demeaning equality, like that of some Eastern states and in some respects China.

But it is in fact a very small amount of noble blood put into the circulation of a people that is enough to ennoble them, at least as to historical effects; this is how France, a nation so completely fallen into commonness, in practice plays on the world stage the role of a gentleman.

Setting aside the quite inferior races whose intermingling with the great races would only poison the human species, I see in the future a homogeneous humanity. Feudal law recognized personal allegeance to the sovereign , but the subjects of the sovereign were defined by their birthland. According to the 3 September Constitution, those who are born in France from a foreign father and have fixed their residency in France, or those who, after being born in foreign country from a French father, have come to France and have sworn their civil oath, become French citizens.

Because of the war, distrust toward foreigners led to the obligation on the part of this last category to swear a civil oath in order to gain French nationality. However, the Napoleonic Code would insist on jus sanguinis "right of blood". However, according to Patrick Weil , it was not "ethnically motivated" but "only meant that family links transmitted by the pater familias had become more important than subjecthood".

With the 7 February law, voted during the Second Republic — , "double jus soli " was introduced in French legislation, combining birth origin with paternity. Thus, it gave French nationality to the child of a foreigner, if both are born in France, except if the year following his coming of age he reclaims a foreign nationality thus prohibiting dual nationality. This law was in part passed because of conscription concerns.

This system more or less remained the same until the reform of the Nationality Code, created by the 9 January law. The reform, which defines the Nationality law , is deemed controversial by some. It commits young people born in France to foreign parents to solicit French nationality between the ages of 16 and This has been criticized, some arguing that the principle of equality before the law was not complied with, since French nationality was no longer given automatically at birth, as in the classic "double jus soli " law, but was to be requested when approaching adulthood.

Henceforth, children born in France from French parents were differentiated from children born in France from foreign parents, creating a hiatus between these two categories. The reform was prepared by the Pasqua laws. The first Pasqua law, in , restricts residence conditions in France and facilitates expulsions. With this law, a child born in France from foreign parents can only acquire French nationality if he or she demonstrates his or her will to do so, at age 16, by proving that he or she has been schooled in France and has a sufficient command of the French language.

This new policy is symbolized by the expulsion of Malians by charter. The second Pasqua law on "immigration control" makes regularisation of illegal aliens more difficult and, in general, residence conditions for foreigners much harder. Charles Pasqua, who said on 11 May Therefore, modern French nationality law combines four factors: The Maastricht Treaty introduced the concept of European citizenship , which comes in addition to national citizenships. By definition, a " foreigner " is someone who does not have French nationality.

Therefore, it is not a synonym of " immigrant ", as a foreigner may be born in France. On the other hand, a Frenchman born abroad may be considered an immigrant e. In most of the cases, however, a foreigner is an immigrant, and vice versa. They either benefit from legal sojourn in France, which, after a residency of ten years, makes it possible to ask for naturalisation. Some argue that this privation of nationality and citizenship does not square with their contribution to the national economic efforts, and thus to economic growth.

The INSEE does not collect data about language, religion, or ethnicity — on the principle of the secular and unitary nature of the French Republic. It is said by some [ who? As of , the French national institute of statistics INSEE estimated that 5,3 million foreign-born immigrants and 6,5 million direct descendants of immigrants born in France with at least one immigrant parent lived in France representing a total of Among them, about 5,5 million are of European origin and 4 million of North African origin. Between and , 1 million people with French passports emigrated to other countries.

There are nearly seven million French speakers out of nine to ten million people of French and partial French ancestry in Canada. The Canadian province of Quebec census population of 7,, , where more than 95 percent of the people speak French as either their first, second or even third language, is the center of French life on the Western side of the Atlantic; however, French settlement began further east, in Acadia.

Quebec is home to vibrant French-language arts, media, and learning. There are sizable French-Canadian communities scattered throughout the other provinces of Canada, particularly in Ontario , which has about 1 million people with French ancestry who have French as their mother tongue , Manitoba , and New Brunswick , which is the only fully bilingual province and is 33 percent Acadian.

The United States is home to an estimated 13 to 16 million people of French descent , or 4 to 5 percent of the US population, particularly in Louisiana , New England and parts of the Midwest. The French community in Louisiana consists of the Creoles , the descendants of the French settlers who arrived when Louisiana was a French colony, and the Cajuns , the descendants of Acadian refugees from the Great Upheaval. Very few creoles remain in New Orleans in present times.

In New England, the vast majority of French immigration in the 19th and early 20th centuries came not from France, but from over the border in Quebec, the Quebec diaspora. These French Canadians arrived to work in the timber mills and textile plants that appeared throughout the region as it industrialized. Today, nearly 25 percent of the population of New Hampshire is of French ancestry, the highest of any state.

English and Dutch colonies of pre-Revolutionary America attracted large numbers of French Huguenots fleeing religious persecution in France. In the Dutch colony of New Netherland that later became New York, northern New Jersey, and western Connecticut , these French Huguenots, nearly identical in religion to the Dutch Reformed Church , assimilated almost completely into the Dutch community. However, large it may have been at one time, it has lost all identity of its French origin, often with the translation of names examples: Huguenots appeared in all of the English colonies and likewise assimilated.

Even though this mass settlement approached the size of the settlement of the French settlement of Quebec, it has assimilated into the English-speaking mainstream to a much greater extent than other French colonial groups and has left few traces of cultural influence. New Rochelle, New York is named after La Rochelle , France, one of the sources of Huguenot emigration to the Dutch colony; and New Paltz, New York , is one of the few non-urban settlements of Huguenots that did not undergo massive recycling of buildings in the usual redevelopment of such older, larger cities as New York City or New Rochelle.

French Argentines form the third largest ancestry group in Argentina , after Italian and Spanish Argentines. Most of French immigrants came to Argentina between and , though considerable immigration continued until the late s. With something akin to Latin culture, the French immigrants quickly assimilated into mainstream Argentine society. French Uruguayans form the third largest ancestry group in Uruguay , after Italian and Spanish Uruguayans.

They were defeated by the changes in the electoral laws that prevented Boulanger from running in multiple constituencies; by the government's aggressive opposition; and by the absence of the general himself, who placed himself in self-imposed exile to be with his mistress. The fall of Boulanger severely undermined the political strength of the conservative and royalist elements within France; they would not recover their strength until Revisionist scholars have argued that the Boulangist movement more often represented elements of the radical left rather than the extreme right.

Their work is part of an emerging consensus that France's radical right was formed in part during the Dreyfus era by men who had been Boulangist partisans of the radical left a decade earlier. The Panama scandals of involved the enormous cost of a failed attempt to build the Panama Canal. Due to disease, death, inefficiency, and widespread corruption, the Panama Canal Company handling the massive project went bankrupt, with millions in losses. It is regarded as the largest monetary corruption scandal of the 19th century.

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Close to a billion francs were lost when the French government took bribes to keep quiet about the Panama Canal Company's financial troubles. French income levels were higher than German income levels despite France having fewer natural resources, while taxation and government spending were lower in France than in Germany. France lagged behind Bismarckian Germany, as well as Great Britain, in developing a welfare state with public health, unemployment insurance and national old age pension plans.

There was an accident insurance law for workers in , and in , France created a national pension plan. Unlike Germany or Britain, the programs were much smaller — for example, pensions were a voluntary plan. Germany set up vigorous measures of public hygiene and public sanatoria, but France let private physicians handle the problem. However, the reformers met opposition from bureaucrats, politicians, and physicians. Because it was so threatening to so many interests, the proposal was debated and postponed for 20 years before becoming law in Implementation finally came when the government realized that contagious diseases had a national security impact in weakening military recruits, and keeping the population growth rate well below Germany's.

There is no evidence to suggest than French life expectancy was lower than that of Germany. The Dreyfus affair was a major political scandal that convulsed France from until its resolution in , and then had reverberations for decades more. The conduct of the affair has become a modern and universal symbol of injustice. It remains one of the most striking examples of a complex miscarriage of justice in which a central role was played by the press and public opinion.

At issue was blatant anti-Semitism as practiced by the French Army and defended by conservatives and catholic traditionalists against secular centre-left, left and republican forces, including most Jews. In the end, the latter triumphed. The affair began in November with the conviction for treason of Captain Alfred Dreyfus , a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent.

Two years later, evidence came to light that identified a French Army major named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy as the real spy. After high-ranking military officials suppressed the new evidence, a military court unanimously acquitted Esterhazy. In response, the Army brought up additional charges against Dreyfus based on false documents. Activists put pressure on the government to re-open the case. In , Dreyfus was returned to France for another trial. The new trial resulted in another conviction and a year sentence, but Dreyfus was given a pardon and set free.

Eventually all the accusations against him were demonstrated to be baseless, and in , Dreyfus was exonerated and re-instated as a major in the French Army. From to , the scandal divided France deeply and lastingly into two opposing camps: It embittered French politics and facilitated the increasing influence of radical politicians on both sides of the political spectrum.

The democratic political structure was supported by the proliferation of politicized newspapers. The circulation of the daily press in Paris went from 1 million in to 5 million in ; it later reached 6 million in Advertising grew rapidly, providing a steady financial basis for publishing, but it did not cover all of the costs involved and had to be supplemented by secret subsidies from commercial interests that wanted favorable reporting. A new liberal press law of abandoned the restrictive practices that had been typical for a century.

High-speed rotary Hoe presses , introduced in the s, facilitated quick turnaround time and cheaper publication. New types of popular newspapers, especially Le Petit Journal , reached an audience more interested in diverse entertainment and gossip than hard news. It captured a quarter of the Parisian market and forced the rest to lower their prices.

French Third Republic

The main dailies employed their own journalists who competed for news flashes. All newspapers relied upon the Agence Havas now Agence France-Presse , a telegraphic news service with a network of reporters and contracts with Reuters to provide world service. The staid old papers retained their loyal clientele because of their concentration on serious political issues. The Roman Catholic Assumptionist order revolutionized pressure group media by its national newspaper La Croix.

It vigorously advocated for traditional Catholicism while at the same time innovating with the most modern technology and distribution systems, with regional editions tailored to local taste. Secularists and Republicans recognized the newspaper as their greatest enemy, especially when it took the lead in attacking Dreyfus as a traitor and stirring up anti-Semitism. After Dreyfus was pardoned, the Radical government closed down the entire Assumptionist order and its newspaper in Banks secretly paid certain newspapers to promote particular financial interests and hide or cover up misbehavior.

They also took payments for favorable notices in news articles of commercial products. Sometimes, a newspaper would blackmail a business by threatening to publish unfavorable information unless the business immediately started advertising in the paper. Foreign governments, especially Russia and Turkey, secretly paid the press hundreds of thousands of francs a year to guarantee favorable coverage of the bonds it was selling in Paris.

When the real news was bad about Russia, as during its Revolution or during its war with Japan, it raised the ante to millions. During the World War, newspapers became more of a propaganda agency on behalf of the war effort and avoided critical commentary. They seldom reported the achievements of the Allies, crediting all the good news to the French army.

In a sentence, the newspapers were not independent champions of the truth, but secretly paid advertisements for banking. The World War ended a golden era for the press. Their younger staff members were drafted, and male replacements could not be found female journalists were not considered suitable. Rail transportation was rationed and less paper and ink came in, and fewer copies could be shipped out. Inflation raised the price of newsprint, which was always in short supply. The cover price went up, circulation fell and many of the dailies published outside Paris closed down.

The government set up the Interministerial Press Commission to supervise the press closely. A separate agency imposed tight censorship that led to blank spaces where news reports or editorials were disallowed. The dailies sometimes were limited to only two pages instead of the usual four, leading one satirical paper to try to report the war news in the same spirit:. Regional newspapers flourished after However the Parisian newspapers were largely stagnant after the war. The major postwar success story was Paris Soir , which lacked any political agenda and was dedicated to providing a mix of sensational reporting to aid circulation and serious articles to build prestige.

By , its circulation was over 1. In addition to its daily paper. Paris Soir sponsored a highly successful women's magazine Marie-Claire. Another magazine, Match , was modeled after the photojournalism of the American magazine Life. France was a rural nation, and the peasant farmer was the typical French citizen. In his seminal book Peasants Into Frenchmen , historian Eugen Weber traced the modernization of French villages and argued that rural France went from backward and isolated to modern with a sense of national identity during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

He based his findings on school records, migration patterns, military service documents and economic trends. Weber argued that until or so a sense of French nationhood was weak in the provinces. Weber then looked at how the policies of the Third Republic created a sense of French nationality in rural areas. Weber's scholarship was widely praised, but was criticized by some who argued that a sense of Frenchness existed in the provinces before The French gloried in the national prestige brought by the great Parisian stores.

Zola represented it as a symbol of the new technology that was both improving society and devouring it. The novel describes merchandising, management techniques, marketing, and consumerism. The Grands Magasins Dufayel was a huge department store with inexpensive prices built in in the northern part of Paris, where it reached a very large new customer base in the working class.

French Third Republic - Wikipedia

In a neighbourhood with few public spaces, it provided a consumer version of the public square. It educated workers to approach shopping as an exciting social activity, not just a routine exercise in obtaining necessities, just as the bourgeoisie did at the famous department stores in the central city. Like the bourgeois stores, it helped transform consumption from a business transaction into a direct relationship between consumer and sought-after goods.

Its advertisements promised the opportunity to participate in the newest, most fashionable consumerism at reasonable cost. The latest technology was featured, such as cinemas and exhibits of inventions like X-ray machines that could be used to fit shoes and the gramophone. Increasingly after , the stores' work force became feminized , opening up prestigious job opportunities for young women. Despite the low pay and long hours, they enjoyed the exciting complex interactions with the newest and most fashionable merchandise and upscale customers.

It was classically liberal in political orientation and opposed the monarchists and clerical elements on the one hand, and the Socialists on the other. Many members had been recruited by the Freemasons. The workers' demands for strikes threatened such stability and pushed many Radicals toward conservatism. It opposed women's suffrage for fear that women would vote for its opponents or for candidates endorsed by the Catholic Church. In foreign policy, it favored a strong League of Nations after the war, and the maintenance of peace through compulsory arbitration, controlled disarmament, economic sanctions, and perhaps an international military force.

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Governing coalitions collapsed with regularity, rarely lasting more than a few months, as radicals, socialists, liberals, conservatives, republicans and monarchists all fought for control. Some historians argue that the collapses were not important because they reflected minor changes in coalitions of many parties that routinely lost and gained a few allies. Consequently, the change of governments could be seen as little more than a series of ministerial reshuffles, with many individuals carrying forward from one government to the next, often in the same posts.

Throughout the lifetime of the Third Republic — , there were battles over the status of the Catholic Church in France among the republicans, monarchists and the authoritarians such as the Napoleonists. The French clergy and bishops were closely associated with the monarchists and many of its hierarchy were from noble families. Republicans were based in the anti-clerical middle class, who saw the Church's alliance with the monarchists as a political threat to republicanism, and a threat to the modern spirit of progress.

The republicans were strengthened by Protestant and Jewish support. Numerous laws were passed to weaken the Catholic Church. In , priests were excluded from the administrative committees of hospitals and boards of charity; in , new measures were directed against the religious congregations; from to came the substitution of lay women for nuns in many hospitals; in , the Ferry school laws were passed.

Napoleon's Concordat of continued in operation, but in , the government cut off salaries to priests it disliked. Republicans feared that religious orders in control of schools—especially the Jesuits and Assumptionists —indoctrinated anti-republicanism into children. Determined to root this out, republicans insisted they needed control of the schools for France to achieve economic and militaristic progress.

Republicans felt one of the primary reasons for the German victory in was their superior education system. The early anti-Catholic laws were largely the work of republican Jules Ferry in Religious instruction in all schools was forbidden, and religious orders were forbidden to teach in them.

Funds were appropriated from religious schools to build more state schools. Later in the century, other laws passed by Ferry's successors further weakened the Church's position in French society. Civil marriage became compulsory, divorce was introduced, and chaplains were removed from the army. In , he told French bishops not to act in a hostile manner toward the State 'Nobilissima Gallorum Gens' [37]. In , he issued an encyclical advising French Catholics to rally to the Republic and defend the Church by participating in republican politics 'Au milieu des sollicitudes' [38].

This attempt at improving the relationship failed. Deep-rooted suspicions remained on both sides and were inflamed by the Dreyfus Affair — Catholics were for the most part anti-Dreyfusard. The Assumptionists published anti-Semitic and anti-republican articles in their journal La Croix. This infuriated republican politicians, who were eager to take revenge. Often they worked in alliance with Masonic lodges. The Waldeck-Rousseau Ministry — and the Combes Ministry —05 fought with the Vatican over the appointment of bishops.

Chaplains were removed from naval and military hospitals in the years and , and soldiers were ordered not to frequent Catholic clubs in Emile Combes , when elected Prime Minister in , was determined to defeat Catholicism thoroughly. After only a short while in office, he closed down all parochial schools in France.

Then he had parliament reject authorisation of all religious orders. This meant that all fifty-four orders in France were dissolved and about 20, members immediately left France, many for Spain. Combes reacted strongly and recalled his ambassador to the Holy See. Then, in , a law was introduced that abrogated Napoleon's Concordat. Church and State were finally separated. All Church property was confiscated.

Religious personnel were no longer paid by the State. Public worship was given over to associations of Catholic laymen who controlled access to churches. However, in practice, masses and rituals continued to be performed.

The Combes government worked with Masonic lodges to create a secret surveillance of all army officers to make sure that devout Catholics would not be promoted. Exposed as the Affaire Des Fiches , the scandal undermined support for the Combes government, and he resigned.

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It also undermined morale in the army, as officers realized that hostile spies examining their private lives were more important to their careers than their own professional accomplishments. This law was heavily supported by Combes, who had been strictly enforcing the voluntary association law and the law on religious congregations' freedom of teaching. On 10 February , the Chamber declared that "the attitude of the Vatican" had rendered the separation of Church and State inevitable and the law of the separation of church and state was passed in December The Church was badly hurt and lost half its priests.

In the long run, however, it gained autonomy; ever after, the State no longer had a voice in choosing bishops, thus Gallicanism was dead. Foreign-policy was based on a slow rebuilding of alliances With Russia and Britain in order to counteract the threat from Germany. Bismarck's decision came in response to popular demand, and the Army's demand for a strong frontier.

It was not necessary since France was much weaker militarily than Germany, but it forced Bismarck to orient German foreign policy to block France from having any major allies. Alsace and Lorraine were a grievance for some years, but by had largely faded away with the French realization that nostalgia was not as useful as modernization.

France rebuilt its Army, emphasizing modernization in such features as new artillery, and after invested heavily in military aircraft. Most important in restoring prestige was a strong emphasis on the growing French Empire, which brought prestige, despite large financial costs. Very few French families settled in the colonies,, and they were too poor in natural resources and trade to significantly benefit the overall economy. Nevertheless, they were second in size only to the British Empire, provided prestige in world affairs, and gave an opportunity for Catholics under heavy attack by the Republicans in Parliament to devote their energies to spread French culture and civilization worldwide.