Tricolour (flag) orange-white-blue design of the Prince's Flag ("Prinsenvlag", predecessor of the flags of the Netherlands and Luxembourg), used from 1579 by William I of Orange-Nassau in the Eighty Years' War, establishing the independence of the Dutch Republic from the Spanish Empire. Though not the first tricolour flag, one of the most famous, known as "Le Tricolore", is the blue, white and red (whence also called "Le Bleu-Blanc-Rouge") flag of France adopted in the French Revolution. With the formation of French client republics after 1795, the revolutionary tricolour was exported and adopted more widely in Europe, by the Republic of Alba 1796
Flag of Gabon the more progressive" of French colonies – swiftly formulated a design for a new flag, which was officially adopted a year later in 1959. It featured a horizontal tricolour identical to the current flag, but with the yellow stripe at the centre narrower than the green and blue bands surrounding it. The French Tricolour was situated at the canton of the flag, making Gabon the only French autonomous republic to feature this "symbolic link" with France. On August 9, 1960 – just over a week before Gabon became an independent country on August 17 – the flag was slightly modified.