In Nicktoons' IRON MAN: ARMORED ADVENTURES, produced by Marvel Animation and Paris' Method Animation, teen Tony Stark’s footwork allows him to dodge the fire-beams of Mandarin.

Variety reports that a French company's producing IRON MAN or that France's Moonscoop is making toon skein THE FANTASTIC FOUR with Marvel -- is a mark of the growth of Gallic toons.

"French companies producing U.S. properties, which are then screened Stateside -- this wasn't even imaginable five years ago," says Clement Calvet, Managing Director at Gaumont's Alphanim.

France boasts the biggest TV toon industry in Europe by a wide margin, according to International showbiz industry analysts Screen Digest and Gallic promo org the Centre National du Cinema.

Business has boomed thanks to domestic backing including compulsory broadcaster investment plus CNC subsidies and tax breaks that cover between 10%-80% of series' budgets.

This has eased International co-production and provided a spring board for expansion at internationally ambitions companies such as Marathon, which is now a lynchpin in Zodiak, a burgeoning Euro conglom, and Moonscoop, which bought L.A.-based Mike Young Prods. in 2005.

Gallic toons now faces a global recession and TV market fragmentation, both withering networks' budgets.

This fall, its kids/family channels -- Gulli, Canal J and TiJi -- are launching various co-productions, including comic book based RAYMOND and action-comedy LINUS & BOON, about a red alien.