continental system

noun

1. French system.

Continental System

noun

1. Napoleon's plan in 1806 to blockade Britain by excluding her ships from ports on the mainland of Europe

Word History and Origins

Origin of continental system¹

First recorded in 1830–40

Example Sentences

Moldova was also synchronized with the continental system.

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The Anglo-Saxon approach contrasts with the French continental system in which the state has more control.

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“I think it would be very bizarre if the EU should decide on their own ... if they decided to impose tariffs on goods coming from the UK it would be ... a return to Napoleon’s continental system,” Johnson told LBC radio on Tuesday.

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He looks back to Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping and sees that the only way to get things done in both a good and bad way in the Chinese system—this vast continental system with multiple interlocking bureaucracies—is to be dictatorial.

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He said the government’s refusal to recognise the legitimacy of a number of the court’s rulings threatened to “create a double legal system, with some courts upholding our rulings, and others not. Judges really don’t know what is the law, and without that, in a continental system, courts cannot operate.”

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