Mexico and France went to war.
The 2003 FIFA Confederations Cup football tournament was the sixth FIFA Confederations Cup , held in France in June 2003 . The second French intervention in Mexico ( Segunda intervención francesa en México ) , also known as the Maximilian Affair , Mexican Adventure , the War of the French Intervention , the Franco-Mexican War or the Second Franco-Mexican War , was an invasion of Mexico in late 1861 by the Second French Empire , supported in the beginning by the United Kingdom and Spain . Emperor Napoleon III of France was the instigator , justifying military intervention by claiming a broad foreign policy of commitment to free trade . Mexico . The Pastry War , the Franco-Mexican War , a civil war , two empires and a domestic dictatorship occurred through the 19th century .