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I am looking at creating a timeline in which France is able to gain Mediterranean naval supremacy during the Napoleonic wars; such a change would greatly improve the strength of Napoleon’s combined fleet which desperately needed actual sea experience and could aid in the French campaigns ins in Naples, Sicily and eventually Russia.

In 1798 OTL the British and French Med fleets were roughly equal until the disastrous battle of the Nile but what if Napoleon had another target? Strategically the seizing of Malta was clever but what if Napoleon avoided the conquest of Egypt, which was an attempt to strangle trade between Britain and India, but cut off the access to the Med at its source and instead attacked Gibraltar? With Spain supporting Napoleon and supplies by sea not a foregone conclusion for the British could the combined French-Spanish forces take it? Perhaps then Napoleon could move on to conquer Portugal and remove all British naval bases from continental Europe.

So would it be actual possible to take Gibraltar at the time?

Would the successful conquest of Gibraltar and Portugal make the Med an uncontested France and Spain Pond?

And finally would ego-hungry Napoleon agree to a less prestigious task?

Also as a side note attacks on Crimea and Sicily were also considered in OTL, how would those play out?
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