The Rhodanic Republic was a French client republic that existed in the French-speaking part of Switzerland during the Napoleonic wars. Napoleon had long sought to make Switzerland dependent on him in order to facilitate his military operations in Italy and around the Alps. Therefore he had been trying various options in order to subjugate its territory or at least a part of its territory. The lands of French-speaking and French-oriented cantons of Geneva, Vaud and Valais seemed to him as especially convenient to fulfill these aims. Napoleon planned to form several puppet states in the realm of these three cantons. When the canton of Leman was formed, Napoleon tried to push through his idea of making a part of its territory into the so-called Rhodanic Republic.