According to some, France's relationship with Lebanon stretches back to the 13th century. Apparently, Louis IX safeguarded the Maronites, a branch of Catholicism that remains Lebanon's major Christian group. Some argue that it began later, in the 16th century, when François I made an alliance with Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. What we do know is that by the end of the nineteenth century, French Jesuit missionaries had established schools in Lebanon and, in 1875, Saint Joseph Institution, a prominent French-speaking university. Following World War One, France took control of Lebanon under the provisions of the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement. France drafted the constitution for the Leb