Moselle (department) in the context of "United Protestant Church of France"

The French Third Republic (French: Troisième République, sometimes written as La III République) was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War, until 10 July 1940, after the Fall of France during World War II led to the formation of the Vichy government. The French Third Republic was a parliamentary republic.

The early days of the French Third Republic were dominated by political disruption caused by the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, which the Third Republic continued to wage after the fall of Emperor Napoleon III in 1870. Social upheaval and the Paris Commune preceded the final defeat. The German Empire, proclaimed by the invaders in Palace of Versailles, annexed the French regions of Alsace (keeping the Territoire de Belfort) and Lorraine (the northeastern part, i.e. present-day department of Moselle). The early governments of the French Third Republic considered re-establishing the monarchy, but disagreement as to the nature of that monarchy and the rightful occupant of the throne could not be resolved. Consequently, the Third Republic, originally envisioned as a provisional government, instead became the permanent form of government of France.

Laïcité ([la.i.si.te]; 'secularism') is the constitutional principle of secularism in France. Article 1 of the French Constitution is commonly interpreted as the separation of civil society and religious society. It discourages religious involvement in government affairs, especially in the determination of state policies as well as the recognition of a state religion. It also forbids government involvement in religious affairs, and especially prohibits government influence in the determination of religion, such that it includes a right to the free exercise of religion.

French secularism has a long history: Enlightenment thinkers emphasized reason and self direction. Revolutionaries in 1789 violently overthrew the Ancien Régime, which included the Catholic Church. Secularism was an important ideology during the Second Empire and Third Republic. For the last century, the French government policy has been based on the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State, which is however not applicable in Alsace and Moselle. While the term laïcité has been used from the end of the 19th century to denote the freedom of public institutions from the influence of the Catholic Church, the concept today covers other religious movements as well.

The Greater Region (German: Großregion [ˈɡʁoːsʁeˌɡioːn]; French: Grande Région [ɡʁɑ̃d ʁeʒjɔ̃]; Luxembourgish: Groussregioun), formerly also known as SaarLorLux, is a euroregion of eleven regional authorities located in four European states. The term has also been applied to cooperations of several of these authorities or of their subdivisions, administrations, organisations, clubs and people. Member regions represent different political structures: Wallonia, comprising the French and German-speaking Communities of Belgium; the former Lorraine part of the French Grand Est region, including the departments Meurthe-et-Moselle, Meuse, Moselle and Vosges; the German federated states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland; and the sovereign state of Luxembourg.

Saarland (German: [ˈzaːɐ̯lant] ) is a state of Germany in the southwest of the country. With an area of 2,570 km (990 sq mi) and a population of 990,509 in 2018, it is the smallest German state in area apart from the city-states of Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg, and the smallest in population apart from Bremen. Saarbrücken is the state capital and largest city; other cities include Neunkirchen and Saarlouis. Saarland is mainly surrounded by the department of Moselle (Grand Est) in France to the west and south and the neighboring state of Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany to the north and east; it also shares a small border, about 8 kilometres (5 miles) long, with the canton of Remich in Luxembourg to the northwest.

Having long been a relatively small part of the long-contested territories along the Franco-German linguistic border, Saarland first gained specific economic and strategic importance in the nineteenth century due to the wealth of its coal deposits and the heavy industrialization that grew as a result. Saarland was first established as a distinct political entity in 1920 after World War I as the Territory of the Saar Basin, which was occupied and governed by France under a League of Nations mandate.

Lorraine is a historical area of Eastern France that today falls within the administrative region of Grand Est. It was the medieval kingdom called Lotharingia (855–959 AD), after Emperor Lothair I or King Lothair II, which extended further north and came to be ruled by the Holy Roman Empire as the Duchy of Lorraine, before the Kingdom of France annexed it in 1766.

From 1982 until January 2016, Lorraine was an administrative region of France. In 2016, under a reorganisation, it became part of the new region Grand Est. As a region in modern France, Lorraine consisted of the four departments Meurthe-et-Moselle, Meuse, Moselle and Vosges (from a historical point of view the Haute-Marne department is also located in the region), containing 2,337 communes. Metz is the regional prefecture. The largest metropolitan area of Lorraine is Nancy, which was the seat of the duchy for centuries.

The Blue Banana (Dutch: blauwe banaan; French: banane bleue; German: Blaue Banane; Italian: banana blu), also known as the European Megalopolis or the Liverpool–Milan Axis, is a discontinuous corridor of urbanization in Western and Central Europe, with a population of around 100 million. Over time, the region has been referred to by several names, each reflecting its development and significance. Initially, French geographer Roger Brunet, as the leader of RECLUS (Network for the study of changes in locations and spatial units), described the area as 'the European Backbone', which depicted an urban corridor extending from Liverpool to Milan.

Characterized by significant industrialization and urbanization, this area has attracted numerous public and private enterprises since the early post-war period, prompting researchers and academics to investigate the factors behind its remarkable development within Europe. It stretches approximately from North West England through the English Midlands across Greater London to the European Metropolis of Lille, the Benelux states with the Dutch Randstad and the Flemish Diamond and along the German Ruhrgebiet, Rhineland, Southern Germany, Alsace-Moselle in France in the west and Switzerland (Basel and Zürich), Austria (Vorarlberg and Tyrol) to Northern Italy (Milan, Turin, and Genoa) in the south.

The Huguenots (/ˈhjuːɡənɒts/ HEW-gə-nots, UK also /-noʊz/ -⁠nohz; French: [yɡ(ə)no]) are a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Besançon Hugues, was in common use by the mid-16th century. Huguenot was frequently used in reference to those of the Reformed Church of France from the time of the Protestant Reformation. By contrast, the Protestant populations of eastern France, in Alsace, Moselle, and Montbéliard, were mainly Lutherans.

In his Encyclopedia of Protestantism, Hans Hillerbrand wrote that on the eve of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572, the Huguenot community made up as much as 10% of the French population. By 1600, it declined to 7–8%, and was reduced further late in the century after the return of persecution under Louis XIV, who instituted the Dragonnades to forcibly convert Protestants, and then finally revoked all Protestant rights in his Edict of Fontainebleau of 1685. In 1686, the Protestant population sat at 1% of the population.