After the Great Black Deaths wiped out 80% of Europe's population, the Arab world soon came to dominate international trade and culture, physically controlling the Middle East, North Africa and Southern Europe, including Italy, Spain, Portugal and southern France. Arabic was the lingua franca and Islam the dominate religion, with the remaining Christians of Northern Europe being in a clear political, military and economic inferiority; for example, the elites of Christian Paris followed the latest fashions of Muslim Marseille. Technology and scientific exploration remained stagnant into the late 21st century. However, both Muslim Arabs and Christian Europeans started settling the land beyond the Western Ocean, competing with each other and fighting its copper-skinned natives.