France in the American Revolutionary War

France played a key role in the American Revolutionary War (American War of Independence; 1775–1783). Motivated by a long-term rivalry with Britain and to avenge their territorial losses during the French and Indian War, France secretly began sending supplies to the Americans in 1775.

By 1763, the French debt acquired to fight in the French and Indian War came to a staggering 1.3 billion livres. It "set off France's own fiscal crisis, in which a political brawl over taxation soon became one of the reasons for the French Revolution." France obtained its revenge against Britain by assisting the Americans; however, it gained little real value and her massive debt severely weakened the government and escalated it towards the French Revolution.

The French objective in assisting the Americans was to weaken Britain and to seek revenge for the defeat in the Seven Years' War. In 1777, America captured the British invasion army at Saratoga. In 1778, France recognized the United States of America as a sovereign nation, signed a military alliance, and went to war with Britain. France built coalitions with the Netherlands and Spain, provided Americans with grants, weapons and loans, sent a combat army to serve under George Washington, and provided a navy that prevented the second British army from escaping Yorktown in 1781.

Benjamin Franklin served as the American ambassador to France from 1776 to 1785 and he met with many leading diplomats, aristocrats, intellectuals, scientists and financiers. Franklin's image and writings caught the French imagination. There were many images of Franklin being sold on the market, and he became the cultural icon of the archetypal new American. Franklin even became a hero for a call for new order inside France.

Having lost Canada in the Conquest of 1760, France wanted revenge. Meanwhile, the American colonists and the British government began a dispute over whether Parliament in London, or the colonial assemblies had primary responsibility for taxation. The ideological conflict escalated into open warfare in 1775, at which point the American patriots took control of each of the 13 colonies away from Royal officials. Britain refused to accept the independence. France, which had been rebuilding their Navy and other forces, now saw an opportunity to seriously weaken her perennial enemy.

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