Lothair (941-986), king of France, son of Louis IV, succeeded his father in 954, and was at first under the guardianship of Hugh the Great, duke of the Franks, and then under that of his maternal uncle Bruno, archbishop of Cologne.
The beginning of his reign was occupied with wars against the vassals, particularly against the duke of Normandy. Lothair then seems to have conceived the design of recovering Lorraine. He attempted to precipitate matters by a sudden attack, and in the spring of 978 nearly captured the emperor Otto II at Aix-la-Chapelle. Otto took his revenge in the autumn by invading France. He penetrated as far as Paris, devastating the country through which he passed, but failed to take the town, and was forced to retreat with heavy loss. Peace was concluded in 980 at Margut-sur-Chiers, and in 983 Lothair was even chosen guardian to the young Otto III.
Towards 980, however, Lothair quarrelled with Hugh the Great's son, Hugh Capet, who, at the instigation of Adalberon, archbishop of Reims, became reconciled with Otto III. Lothair died on the March 2, 986. By his wife Emma, daughter of Lothair, king of Italy, he left a son who succeeded him as Louis V.
Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the North Sea, and from the Rhine River to the Atlantic Ocean; it is bordered by the United Kingdom, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Monaco, Andorra, and Spain.
France possesses a large variety of landscapes, ranging from coastal plains in the north and west, where France borders the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, to the mountain ranges in the south (the Pyrenees) and the south-east (the Alps), the latter containing the highest point in western Europe, Mont Blanc at 4810 m.
In 2003, France's natural population growth (excluding immigration) was responsible for almost all the natural growth in European population: the population of the European Union increased by 216,000 inhabitants (without immigration), of which 211,000 was the increase in France's population alone, and 5,000 was the increase in all the other countries of the EU combined.
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