In north European and German historiography, the French period (German: ''Franzosenzeit''; Flemish - "franse tijd"; Luxembourgish - "Fransousenzäit") was a late 19th century term for the era between 1794 and 1815, during which most of Europe (including all the German-speaking nations) were directly or indirectly under French rule or within the French sphere of influence. It ended with the battle of Waterloo and is often confused with Napoleon I's rule - in the German states west of the river Rhine, it began with their occupation by troops of the French Revolutionary Army in 1794. However, in other areas of Germany it lasted roughly from 1804 to 1815 or (used in a stricter sense) from the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 to the battle of Leipzig in 1813.
The term emerged only gradually, sometime after the events involved. It entered Low German usage with Fritz Reuter's popular work Ut de Franzosentid (1860). It was used alongside the concept of 'Erbfeind' (hereditary enemy) to express anti-French feeling as part of the formation of a German national identity and as such was used in a non-neutral way under the German Empire and Third Reich. It has thus been shunned as a historical concept since the Bonn Republic, with 'French Revolutionary Wars' and 'Napoleonic Wars' more often in used today.
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