Short answers, pulled from the story.
French house is a style of house music created by French musicians in the 1990s. Its defining characteristics are filter and phaser effects applied to samples from late 1970s and early 1980s European disco records, with tempos in the 110-130 beats per minute range and four-on-the-floor beats.
Music journalist Martin James coined the term in 1996 in a review of Étienne de Crécy's debut album Super Discount, published in the weekly paper Melody Maker. The French newspaper Liberation and Radio NRJ both credited James as the originator of the phrase.
Thomas Bangalter, both through his Roulé label solo work and as a member of Daft Punk and Stardust, is among the earliest architects of French house. The duo Motorbass released the influential album Pansoul in 1996, and Daft Punk, Cassius, and Stardust were the first artists from the genre to achieve international commercial success.
French house draws from three main traditions: the space disco sound associated with French artists like Cerrone and Sheila and B. Devotion, Euro disco productions, and the deep American house influence from Chicago. American P-Funk, particularly the work of George Clinton and Bootsy Collins, also played a role, as did 1970s French pop by artists such as Jean-Michel Jarre, François de Roubaix, and Serge Gainsbourg.
Commercial success arrived in 1997, when Daft Punk, Cassius, and later Stardust became the first internationally successful artists from the genre. Daft Punk's debut album Homework entered the top ten of the UK Albums Chart, making the duo the biggest-selling French act in the UK since Jean-Michel Jarre.
Yes. Madonna released Confessions on a Dance Floor in late 2005, and several of the album's songs carry significant French house influences. It is one of the clearest examples of the genre's reach into mainstream pop during the 2000s.