France has used its veto power sparingly, vetoing 18 resolutions from 1949 to 2007, compared with 82 by the United States and 123 by the Soviet Union and Russia, 32 by Britain, and 6 by China. France used its veto power along with the United Kingdom, to veto a resolution to resolve the Suez Crisis in 1956. France also used a veto in 1976 on the question of the Comoros independence, when the island of Mayotte was kept in French territory due to the vote of the local population. In 2002, France threatened to veto Resolution 1441 on the then-upcoming 2003 Iraq war.