Asia–France relations
Asia–France relations span a period of more than two millennia, starting in the 6th century BCE with the establishment of Marseille by Greeks from Asia Minor, and continuing in the 3rd century BCE with Gaulish invasions of Asia Minor to form the kingdom of Galatia, and Frankish Crusaders forming the Crusader states. Since these early interactions, France has had a rich history of contacts with the Asian continent.
Antiquity
The Phoenicians had an early presence around Marseille in southern France. Phoenician inscriptions have been found there.The oldest city of France, Marseille, was formally founded in 600 BCE by Greeks from the Asia Minor city of Phocaea as a trading port under the name Μασσαλία. These eastern Greeks, established on the shores of southern France, were in close relations with the Celtic inhabitants of France, and Greek influence and artifacts penetrated northwards along the Rhône valley. The site of Vix in northern Burgundy became an active trading center between Greeks and natives, attested by the discovery of Greek artifacts of the period.
The mother city of Phocaea would ultimately be destroyed by the Persians in 545 BCE, further reinforcing the exodus of the Phocaeans to their settlements of the Western Mediterranean. Populations intermixed, becoming half-Greek and half-indigenous. Trading links were extensive, in iron, spices, wheat and slaves, and with tin being imported to Marseille overland from Cornwall. The Greek settlements permitted cultural interaction between the Greeks and the Celts, and in particular helped develop an urban way of life in Celtic lands, contacts with sophisticated Greek methods, as well as regular East-West trade.
Overland trade with Celtic countries declined around 500 however, with the troubles following the end of the Halstatt civilization.
File:Dying gaul.jpg|right|thumb| The Dying Gaul, an ancient Roman marble copy of a lost ancient Greek statue, thought to have been executed in bronze, commissioned some time between 230 and 220 BCE by Attalus I of Pergamon to honour his victory over the Galatians, also called Gallo-Graeci.
Because of demographic pressure, the Senones Gauls departed from Central France under Brennus to sack Rome in the Battle of the Allia c. 390 BCE. Expansion continued eastward, into the Aegean world, with a huge migration of Eastern Gauls appearing in Thrace, north of Greece, in 281 BCE in the Gallic invasion of the Balkans, favoured by the troubled rule of the Diadochi after Alexander the Great.
A part of the invasion crossed over to Anatolia and eventually settled in the area that came to be named after them, Galatia. The invaders, led by Leonnorius and Lutarius, came at the invitation of Nicomedes I of Bithynia, who required help in a dynastic struggle against his brother Zipoites II. Three tribes crossed over from Thrace to Asia Minor. They numbered about 10,000 fighting men and about the same number of women and children, divided into three tribes, Trocmi, Tolistobogii and Tectosages. They were eventually defeated by the Seleucid king Antiochus I, in a battle where the Seleucid war elephants shocked the Celts. While the momentum of the invasion was broken, the Galatians were by no means exterminated. Instead, the migration led to the establishment of a long-lived Celtic territory in central Anatolia, which included the eastern part of ancient Phrygia, a territory that became known as Galatia. There they ultimately settled, and being strengthened by fresh accessions of the same clan from Europe, they overran Bithynia and supported themselves by plundering neighbouring countries.
In 189 BCE Rome sent Gnaeus Manlius Vulso on an expedition against the Galatians. He defeated them. Galatia was henceforth dominated by Rome through regional rulers from 189 BCE onward.
Christianity, following its emergence in the Near-Eastern part of Asia, was traditionally introduced by Mary, Martha, Lazarus and some companions, who were expelled by persecutions from the Holy Land. They traversed the Mediterranean in a frail boat with neither rudder nor mast and landed at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer near Arles in 40 CE. Provençal tradition names Lazarus as the first bishop of Marseille, while Martha purportedly went on to tame a terrible beast in nearby Tarascon. Pilgrims visited their tombs at the abbey of Vézelay in Burgundy. In the Abbey of the Trinity at Vendôme, a phylactery was said to contain a tear shed by Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus. The cathedral of Autun, not far away, is dedicated to Lazarus as Saint Lazaire.
File:Sarcophagus Rignieux le Franc Ain end of 4th century.jpg|thumb|Gallo-Roman Christian sarcophagus, Rignieux-le-Franc, end of 4th century. Louvre Museum.
The first written records of Christians in France date from the 2nd century when Irenaeus detailed the deaths of ninety-year-old bishop Pothinus of Lugdunum and other martyrs of the 177 persecution in Lyon.
In 496 Remigius baptized Clovis I, who was converted from paganism to Catholicism. Clovis I, considered the founder of France, made himself the ally and protector of the papacy and his predominantly Catholic subjects.
In the beginning of the 5th century, various Asian nomadic tribes of Iranian origin, especially the Taifals and Sarmatians, were settled in Gaul by the Romans as coloni. They settled in the regions of Aquitaine and Poitou, which at one point was even called Thifalia or Theiphalia in the 6th century, with remaining place names such as Tiffauges. Some Sarmatians had also been settled in the Rodez–Velay region.
From 414, Alans who had allied and then split with the Visigoths, entered into an agreement with the Romans which allowed them to settle in the area between Toulouse and the Mediterranean where they played a defensive role against the Visigoth in Spain.
The Roman general Aetius settled Alans in Gaul for military purposes, first in the region of Valence in 440 to control the lower Isère valley, and in 442 in the area around Orléans, apparently to counter the Armorican Bacaudae. Some cities have been named after them, such as Allaines or Allainville.
In 450 Attila proclaimed his intent to attack the powerful Visigoth kingdom of Toulouse, making an alliance with Emperor Valentinian III in order to do so. Attila gathered his vassals—Gepids, Ostrogoths, Rugians, Scirians, Heruls, Thuringians, Alans, Burgundians, among others and began his march west. In 451 he arrived in Belgica with an army exaggerated by Jordanes to half a million strong. J.B. Bury believes that Attila's intent, by the time he marched west, was to extend his kingdom – already the strongest on the continent – across Gaul to the Atlantic Ocean. On 7 April, Attila captured Metz. Saint Genevieve is believed to have saved Paris.
The Romans under Aëtius allied with troops from among the Franks, the Burgundians, the Celts, the Goths and the Alans and finally stopped the advancing Huns in the Battle of Châlons.
Middle Ages
Exchanges with the Arab world (8th–13th centuries)
Following the rise of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century, the Arabs invaded northern Africa, then the Iberian Peninsula and France. They were finally repelled at the Battle of Poitiers in 732, but thereafter remained a significant presence in southern France and Spain.Various exchanges are known around that time, as when Arculf, a Frankish Bishop, visited the Holy Land in the 670s.
Abbasid-Carolingian alliance
An Abbasid-Carolingian alliance was attempted and partially formed during the 8th to 9th century through a series of embassies, rapprochements and combined military operations between the Frankish Carolingian Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate or the pro-Abbasid Muslim rulers in Spain.These contacts followed an intense conflict between the Carolingians and the Umayyads, marked by the landslide Battle of Tours in 732, and were aimed at establishing a counter–alliance with the distant Abbasid Empire. There were numerous embassies between Charlemagne and the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid from 797, apparently in view of a Carolingian-Abbasid alliance against Byzantium, or with a view to gaining an alliance against the Umayyads of Spain.
Cultural and scientific exchanges
From the 10th to the 13th century, Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe, including France, were numerous, affecting such varied areas as art, architecture, medicine, agriculture, music, language, education, law, and technology. Over several centuries Europe absorbed knowledge from the Islamic civilization, but also knowledge from India or lost knowledge from the ancient Greeks which was being retransmitted by the Arabs. The French scientist Gerbert of Aurillac, future Pope Sylvester II, who had spent some time in Catalonia in the 960s, was instrumental in the adoption of Arabic numerals, as well as the abacus in France and Christian Europe.France and the Near East (16th–19th centuries)
Between the 16th and 19th century, France had at times a relatively dormant relation with the Near East, while at other times was closely politically intertwined. Relations with the region were mostly dominated through the two empires that ruled the area, namely the rivaling Ottoman Empire, and the various Persian dynasties between these centuries. The rivalry between the French, British, and Russians was a key factor in foreign policies for the French for the region, finding themselves at times allied with the Turks or Persians.Franco-Ottoman alliance (16th–18th centuries)
Under the reign of Francis I, France became the first country in Europe to establish formal relations with the Ottoman Empire, and to set up instruction in the Arabic language, through the instruction of Guillaume Postel at the Collège de France.A Franco-Ottoman alliance was established in 1536 between the king of France Francis I and the Turkish ruler of the Ottoman Empire Suleiman the Magnificent following the critical setbacks which Francis had encountered in Europe against Charles V. The alliance has been called "the first nonideological diplomatic alliance of its kind between a Christian and non-Christian empire". It caused a scandal in the Christian world, and was designated as "the impious alliance", or "the sacrilegious union of the Lily and the Crescent"; nevertheless, it endured since it served the objective interests of both parties.
The French forces, led by François de Bourbon and the Ottoman forces, led by Barbarossa, joined at Marseille in August 1543, and collaborated to bombard the city of Nice in the Siege of Nice. In this action 110 Ottoman galleys, amounting to 30,000 men, combined with 50 French galleys. The Franco-Ottomans laid waste to the city, but met a stiff resistance which gave rise to the story of Catherine Ségurane. Afterwards, Francis allowed the Ottomans to winter at Toulon.
The strategic and sometimes tactical alliance lasted for about three centuries, until the Napoleonic Campaign in Egypt, an Ottoman territory, in 1798–1801.