How could France rival a unified Germany

A united Germany simply outmatched France in terms of population, industry, and war-making capacity.

Post-1871, how could France rival Germany?

Boosting the population via immigration and gaining more access to vital industrial materials would be another. Late 19th century France did get quite a bit of immigration IIRC. How could France get even more migration?

The country would need more coal and iron. Perhaps finding a way to more tightly link Spain to France could help in this regard (and help with the population issue).
 
Divide Belgium between the Netherlands and France. It would give France the coal and ironfields of Wallonia, a larger population and different border between Germany and France. You do need an earlier POD than 1871 though.
 
Divide Belgium between the Netherlands and France. It would give France the coal and ironfields of Wallonia, a larger population and different border between Germany and France. You do need an earlier POD than 1871 though.

Could France and Belgium come to some sort of agreement regarding France getting access to Belgian coal?

Or perhaps something causes Belgium to either collapse or lose territory France.

I'd like to avoid pre-1871 PODs.
 

Maoistic

Banned
Aside from the Bismarckian Franco-Prussian War and maybe World War II, at what point did Prussia outmatch or outdid France in any area? You're also ignoring France's vast colonial empire, which made France superior in the same aspects you cite.
 
Could France and Belgium come to some sort of agreement regarding France getting access to Belgian coal?

I doubt it. They are independent countries after all. I don't even think France would be able to outbit other parties and get all/most/ a large part of the Belgian coal

Or perhaps something causes Belgium to either collapse or lose territory France.
With a POD of 1871? That would take time. Probably too much time. Although there were (and are) tension in Belgium between the Flemish and Walloons (or at least between the Flemish speaking Flemish and the French speaking Belgians, which is a difference), I don't think the tensions were big enough for Belgium to actualy split in the late 19th century. Maybe if the Flemish nationalists were supported by a foreign power, but there aren't many foreign powers who would and/or could. The Dutch, even if they cared enough, would not been able to do it. At best the Germans might*, but since they have the Poles living inside the German borders, it would be an incredible feat of hypocracy, besides not gaining anything out of it.

In theory France could attack Belgium (and thus lose the support of Britain), but I doubt they would.


*which I would like if Germany would unwittingly support France by causing a breakup of Belgium
 
Maybe you could have the "French" speaking population in Elsass-Lothringen become expelled. Potentially fearing expulsion you could have other minorities flee to France. That would help with an increased population. Furthermore maybe France could be viewed as a Carlist refuge if the government wanted to really boost it's population.
Possibly fearing the Reich Belgium could be convinced to get close to Paris involving some sort of economic arrangement. Though this is very unlikely in my mind though could happen in a very extreme circumstance.
Otherwise, Germany needs to implode for France to catch up with relative ease.
 
Aside from the Bismarckian Franco-Prussian War and maybe World War II, at what point did Prussia outmatch or outdid France in any area? You're also ignoring France's vast colonial empire, which made France superior in the same aspects you cite.

Probably from about 1880. The industries of the Ruhr didn't really take off till about then. German success in 1870/1 was down to a more efficient army, not to any economic edge. Economically they were still about equal.
 
France is slowly surprassing Germany again. Unless you are talking of just before 1871 it is alredy happening.
 
A united Germany simply outmatched France in terms of population, industry, and war-making capacity.

Post-1871, how could France rival Germany?

Boosting the population via immigration and gaining more access to vital industrial materials would be another. Late 19th century France did get quite a bit of immigration IIRC. How could France get even more migration?

The country would need more coal and iron. Perhaps finding a way to more tightly link Spain to France could help in this regard (and help with the population issue).
You could do that easily by avoiding France's demographic crisis of the 19th and 20th centuries. That said, noone really agrees on what caused it to begin with, so...
 
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