| 1910 | January 4 | An aviation rally organized to mark the inauguration of the Croix d’Hins airfield at Bordeaux is marred by several accidents including one which results in the death of Léon Delagrange. |
| January 13 | A ban on Belgians working in France provokes sharp reaction in Belgium. |
| January 16 | Les Cahiers de la Quinzaine publishes Le Mystère de la Charité de Jeanne d’Arc, by Charles Péguy. |
| January 28 | The rapidly rising waters of the Seine reach the gare Saint Lazare in Paris. |
| January 29 | Flood waters peak in Paris (8.5 meters below the Pont de la Tournelle). |
| February 1 | The International Red Cross begins aiding victims of the Seine flood. |
| February 3 | The Chamber of Deputies approves the participation of the German concern Krupp with a French consortium for the exploitation of iron mines in North Africa. |
| February 13 | The Vélodrome d’Hiver, “Vel’ d’Hiv”, opens in Paris. |
| March 3 | A production of Oscar Strauss’ operetta A Waltz Dream opens in Paris. |
| March 5 | An envoy of the Sultan arrives in Paris to ratify the Franco-Moroccan Accord of December 25th. |
| March 11 | A meeting of the learned societies of Paris declares in favor of women’s suffrage. |
| March 12 | L’Ecole des ménages an unedited work by Honoré de Balzac is produced in Paris. |
| March 19 | Five year interest free loans are granted to flood victims. |
| March 20 | Pioneer photographer Nadar (born: Gaspard-Felix Tournachon) dies at age 90. |
| March 23 | The suffragettes prepare for the legislative elections in which though ineligible they will present their candidates. |
| March 28 | A flying boat invented by Marseillais engineer Henri Fabre makes its first flight around the étang de Berre, near Marseilles. |
| March | Elise Deroche (aka Baroness Raymonde de la Roche) becomes the first French woman licensed to pilot an airplane. |
| April 1 | Au Printemps great hall and shopping arcade opens in Paris. |
| April 4 | General Jean Jules Brun, Minister of War, encourages military training for youths. |
| April 5 | A new law set the age of retirement at 65. |
| April 7 | Literary critic and historian René Doumic enters the Académie française. |
| April 17 | Gustav Mahler conducts his second symphony at le Châtelet in Paris. |
| April 21 | Novelist Marcel Prévost enters the Académie française. |
| April 29 | Aristide Briand bans a scheduled demonstration by the Confédération Générale du Travail in the Bois de Boulogne. |
| May 1 | The Confédération Générale du Travail cancels its scheduled May Day march in Paris after the Government mobilizes 20,000 troops. |
| May 8 | The Radicals and the Socialists emerge victorious in the legislative elections. The governing coalition carries 370 of 597 seats. |
| May 12 | Playwright Eugène Brieux enters the Académie française. |
| May 18 | The first international conference on aerial navigation opens in Paris. |
| May 22 | Author Jules Renard dies in Paris at age 46. |
| May 23 | Time signals are transmitter from the Eiffel Tower as regular service for the first time. |
| May 26 | Churchman, historian and philosopher Monsignor Louis Duchesne enters the Académie française. |
| May 27 | The submarine Pluviôse sinks after a collision with a steamboat off Calais. Twenty eight submariners perish. |
| June 3 | La Comédie-Française reestablishes its lecture committee. |
| | Le Pourquoi-pas? Carrying member of Dr. Jean-Baptiste Charcot’s Second French Antarctic Expedition returns to Le Havre after two years of exploration in the polar region. |
| June 4 | Serge Diaghilev’s Les Ballets Russes returns to Paris. |
| June 5 | Dr. Charcot and members of the Second French Antarctic Expedition receive a triumphal welcome to Rouen. |
| June 7 | Edmond Rostand’s Chantecler premiers. The play which the public has waited ten years for is a rated a near failure. |
| June 9 | Two military pilots return to Vincennes from Châlons-sur-Marne in record time on board a Farman biplane. The General Staff is convinced of the usefulness of the airplane. |
| June 23 | The King and Queen of Bulgaria pay an official visit to Paris. |
| June 25 | Les Ballets Russes returns to Paris with a presentation of Igor Stravinski’s The Firebird. |
| July 1 | Militant anarchists clash with the authorities near la Santé prison during the night. The impending execution of shoemaker Jean Jacques Liabeuf who was convicted of murdering two policemen sparks the protest. |
| July 2 | Jean Jacques Liabeuf is executed as scheduled at dawn. |
| July 12 | King Albert I and Queen Elisabeth of Belgium pay an official visit to Paris. |
| July 29 | The Government creates a reserve unit of Alsacians in the ranks of the Foreign Legion to serve in Africa and Indochina. |
| July | Gustave Garrigou is the first Tour de France rider to cross the Pyrenees’ “circle of death”. Octave Lapize follows 15 minutes behind on foot, pushing his bike through the mud, and shouting “assassins” at the officials. Lapize makes up time on the Tourmalet and the Aubisque and wins the stage and eventually the race. Adolphe Hélière becomes the Tour’s first fatality when he is electrocuted by a a jellyfish while bathing in Nice on the rest day. |
| August 5 | A follower of the executed anarchist Liabeuf kills one police officer and wounds two others following a traffic accident. |
| August 7 | The six stage, 782 kilometer, Circuit Aérien de l’Est (Aerial Race of the East), sponsored by Le Matin begins. |
| August 15 - 16 | President Fallières makes an official visit to Switzerland. |
| August 16 | The Paris Prefect of Police publishes an ordance regulating automobile traffic. |
| August 17 | Alfred Le Blanc, victor in the Circuit Aérien de l’Est, receives a triumphal welcome to Paris after 12 hours and 56 seconds of flight. |
| August 25 | Pope Pius X issues an Episcopal letter condemning the Sillon Movement for seeking to escape the authority of the Church and propagate false notions of dignity, social justice and equality. |
| August 30 | Marc Sangnier, founder of the Sillon Review in 1894, submits to the Pope’s authority. The movement is dissolved. |
| September 2 | Painter Henri Rousseau, called le Douanier, dies in Paris from a gangrenous wound to the leg at age 66. |
| September 3 | President Fallières visits Savoie to mark the 50th anniversary of the region’s annexation to France. |
| | Parisian shop girls go on strike. The seamstresses hold a meeting at the labor exchange and then stage a demonstration on the Rue Réaumur where the stores are concentrated. |
| September 5 | Marie Curie and Andrée Debierne inform the Academy of Science that they have refined radium in a metallic form. |
| September 8 | Peruvian aviator Jorge Chavez reaches a record altitude of 2,587 meters at Issy-les-Moulineaux. |
| September 19 | An international conference on unemployment is held in Paris. It calls for creation of an unemployment insurance system in each of the industrialized countries. |
| October 1 | An international conference on cancer is held in Paris. |
| | Funeral services are held in Paris for Peruvian aviator Jorge Chavez, who died four days after a crash which followed his successful flight across le Simplon in the Alps. |
| October 7 | César Birotteau, a play based on a work by Balzac, is produced in Paris. |
| October 15 | The railway workers strike hardens. The Government arrests the editors of extreme leftist newspapers and trade union organizors. |
| | The Aeronautical Salon opens in Paris. |
| October 21 | Sarah Bernhardt departs for a tour of the United States. |
| October 24 | General Maunoury is named military governor of Paris and a member of the war council. |
| October 27 | Judith Gautier is elcted to Goncourt Academy to replace Jules Renard. |
| October 29 | The Chamber of Deputies conducts a stormy debate on the rail strike. |
| October 30 | The National Assembly accords the Briand Government a new vote of confidence. Rene Viviani is ousted as Minister of Labor and Social Welfare. |
| November 2 | The Briand cabinet resigns. |
| November 4 | Marie-Claire, an autobiographical romance, by Marguerite Audoux appears in bookstores. |
| November 9 | France accords diplomatic recognition to the new Portuguese republic. |
| | Marc Sangnier opens a cooperative bakery where night work is abolished in Paris. |
| November 11 | The Seine begins a new round of flooding. |
| November 12 | The steamer La Seyne sinks killing 105 people. |
| November 16 | The first issue of Excelsior, an illustrated daily, appears. |
| November 20 | The Seine flood crests at Paris. |
| November 25 | Jules Durand, secretary of the Le Havre coal miners union is sentenced to death for the murder of a strikebreaker. Le Havre’s workers decide to launch a General Strike in an effort to overturn the conviction. Durand is later pardoned by the President. |
| November | Jean Jaurès publishes L’Armée nouvelle (The New Army). |
| December 3 | France occupies the port of Agadir in Morocco. |
| | The 12th Paris Automobile Salon opens. |
| December 7 | Doctor Jean Charcot speaks to the cabinet on his Antarctic expedition. |
| December 26 | The French Navy receives its first airplane, a Farman biplane delivered to L. V. Byassan. |
| December 28 | The Hôtel Lutétia, “the last word in modern comfort”, opens on Paris’ Boulevard Raspail. |
| During the Year | French Equatorial Africa is established with its capital at Brazzaville to administer the colonies of Congo, Ubangi Shari and Chad. |
| 1911 | January 2 | France defeats Scotland in a rugby match at the stade de Colombes in Paris. |
| January 4 | The French Institute debates the eligibility of women for membership in the academies. Marie Curie’s candidacy is allowed. |
| January 12 | Le Vieil Homme (The Old Man), a play by Georges de Porto-Riche, is produced in Paris. |
| January 16 | Maurice Ravel performs works by Erik Satie dating from 1887. |
| January 17 | A mentally unbalanced man attempts to assassinate Aristide Briand outside the Palais-Bourbon. |
| January 23 | Albert, Prince of Monaco, inaugurates the Oceanographic Institute in Paris. |
| | The Academy of Sciences rejects Marie Curie’s candidacy in favor of a man. |
| February 1 | Joseph Henri Rosny aîné’s novel La Guerre du feu (The War of Fire) appears. |
| February 2 | The German Reichstag begins debate on a proposed constitution for Alsace-Lorraine. The territory annexed by Germany in 1871 has since been classified as “Reichsland” under the direct authority of the Kaiser. The proposal calls for proper parliamentary system with a Diet sitting at Strasbourg. |
| February 7 | The law faculty of the Univeristy of Paris is closed in the wake of disturbances. |
| February 10 | The Steamer Général-Chanzy sinks carrying 156 passengers to their deaths. |
| February 14 | Two trains collide on the railway at Courville near Chartres. Thirty people are killed in the accident. |
| February 21 | Dramatist Henry Bernstein is the object of an anti-semitic demonstration at the Comédie-Française. |
| February 27 | The Government of Aristide Briand resigns. |
| February 28 | Wales defeats France 15 to 0 in a rugby match at Paris. |
| March 1 | The law faculty of the University of Paris reopens. |
| March 2 | Maurice Maetherlinck’s The Blue Bird premiers at the Théâtre Réjane in Paris. |
| March 5 | Radical Party senator Ernest Monis is named Premier. |
| | A census counts 39,601,509 inhabitants in France. The increase of 350,000 over the 1906 census is among the weakest in Europe. |
| March 10 | France abandons the Paris Meridian in favor of Greenwich. Clocks in France are setback 9 minutes and 21 seconds. |
| March 16 | The Government refuses to allow wines produced in the Aube region to use the appellation “Champagne”. |
| April 3 | Daphnis and Chloé Suite #1 by Maurice Ravel is produced in Paris. |
| April 6 | Jacques Copeau produces Les Frères Karamazov, a play based on Dostoïevski’s novel The Brothers Karamozov. |
| April 11 | The Minister of War, Maurice Berteaux, presents designs for new military uniforms to the members of the National Assembly. |
| April 12 | The vinters of the Champagne stage an angry demonstration to protest the misuse of their appellation by competitors. |
| | The first nonstop airplane flight between London and Paris is flown. |
| April 17 | 7,000 Italian workers recruited by the Comité des Forges de l’Est arrive at Longwy to labor in the iron mines of Meurthe-et-Moselle in French Lorraine. |
| April 20 | The French Government dispatches troops to quell disturbances in Fez at the request of the Sultan of Morocco. |
| April 30 | The Confédération Générale du Travail calls for a march on the Place de la Concorde despite a government ban on all May Day demonstrations. |
| May 1 | The Confédération Générale du Travail’s demonstration in Paris is broken up by the police who make dozens of arrests. |
| May 6 | Runner Jean Bouin sets three French records in the 2,500 meters, 3,000 meters and the 2 mile. |
| May 9 | President Fallières makes an official visit to Belgium. |
| May 18 | Writers complain about an abandonment of “classical culture” in the wake of the 1902 school syllabus reform which placed greater emphasis on the sciences. |
| May 19 | French troops under General Moinier occupy Fez, Morocco without a fight. Moinier is received by the Sultan. |
| May 21 | Minister of War Maurice Bertheaux, age 59, is killed by an airplane. The Premier is gravely wounded. |
| | Aviators Roland Garros and Jules Védrines race from Paris to Madrid with a stop at Angoulême. |
| May 22 | The Martrydom of Saint Sebastian, a play by Gabriel d’ Annunzio with music by Claude Debussy, is presented at the théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. The Archbishop forbids attendance by Catholics. |
| May 26 | The new constitution for German Alsace-Lorraine is established. |
| June 8 | French troops occupy the Moroccan city of Meknès. |
| June 10 | France protests the landing of Spanish troops at Larrache in Morocco. |
| June 13 | Igor Stravinsky’s Petrouchka premiers in Paris with a performance by Serge Diaghilev’s Les Ballets Russes. |
| June 15 | General Hippolyte Langlois enters the Académie française. |
| | Georges Carpentier wins the Welterweight Boxing Championship of France with a 16th round technical knock out of Robert Eustache in Paris. |
| June 21 | Aviator Edouard Nieuport attains a speed of 133.35 km/h at Châlons. |
| June 27 | Joseph Caillaux becomes Premier of France. |
| July 1 | The German gunboat Panther enters the port of Agadir, Morocco to protect German nationals. German opposition to French intervention in Morocco sparks an international crisis. |
| July 4 | Great Britain decides to support France in the Moroccan Crisis. |
| July 6 | Three editors of Sou du soldat, a trade union publication that the Confédération Générale du Travail is attempting to distribute within the enlisted ranks of the Army, are arrested. |
| July 7 | Actor-director Firmin Gémier’s Théâtre national ambulant (National Touring Theatre Company) makes its debut in Paris. |
| July 8 | The German light cruiser Berlin relieves the gunboat Panther at Agadir, Morocco. |
| July 10 | Paris construction workers strike in support of demands for a 9 hour workday in all seasons. |
| July 16 | Western and Central Europe are enveloped by a record breaking heatwave. |
| July 20 | Parisian construction workers end their ten day strike and return to work. |
| July 22 | A third Franco-Spanish incident occurs at El Ksar, Morocco. |
| July 24 | A fire coinciding with the heatwave destroys over 1,000 hectares in the forest of Fontainebleau. |
| July 28 | General Joseph Joffre is named Chief of Staff of the Armies of the North and Northeast replacing General Michel who resigns. |
| July 30 | Gustave Garrigou of France takes the lead on the 2556 meter high Col du Galibier in the Alps and goes on to victory in the 9th Tour de France. |
| August 2 | The National Congress of Railworkers debates the question of sabotage at a meeting in the Parisian quarter of Belleville. |
| August 21 | The Mona Lisa is discovered to be missing from the Louvre. |
| August 22 | Franco-German negotiations on the colonial question commence. |
| August 25 | The decennial Paris-Brest-Paris cycling race begins. |
| August 26 | A reporter for l’Excelsior, Jager-Schmidt, returns to Paris after completing a round the world tour in forty days. |
| August 29 | The Louvre reopens under heavy guard after a week long closure following the theft of the Mona Lisa. |
| September 4 | Aviator Roland Garros breaks the world altitude record by ascending to a height of 3,910 above Saint Malo on board a Blériot XI. |
| September 6 | Thomas W. Burgess becomes the second person to swim across the English Channel. The 37 year old Yorkshireman succeeds on his 13th attempt completing the crossing from South Foreland to Le Chatelet in 22 hours and 35 minutes. |
| September 7 | Poet Guillaume Apollinaire is arrested and accused of harboring the thief who stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre. Appollinaire’s former secretary had stolen statuettes from the museum. |
| September 15 | Negotiation on the future of Morocco between French ambassador Paul Cambon and the German Minister of Foreign Affairs lessen the danger of further conflict. |
| September 22 | The cruiser Jean Bart is launched at the Arsenal de Brest. |
| September 25 | An explosion on board the cruiser Liberté, anchored in the port of Toulon, kills 300 sailors. |
| September 30 | The largest cinema in Europe, the 3,400 seat Gaumont Palace, opens on the Place Clinchy in Paris. |
| October 17 | Sacha Guitry’s play Un Beau Mariage is produced in Paris. |
| October 23 | French boxer Georges Carpentier defeats Englishman Joseph Young to win the Welterweight Championship of Europe with 10th round knock out in a match at London. |
| October 27 | The National Education League which proposes to introduce a movement resembling the British Scouts is formed in Paris. |
| October 29 | The Catholic Center Party wins 25 of 60 seats the first elections for the Alsace-Lorraine Diet. |
| November 4 | France and Germany reach an accord on the colonial question. Germany recognizes French preemince in Morocco in exchange for French cession of a disputed territory called, “the duck’s beak” to the German colony of Cameroon. |
| November 10 | The census reports a fall in the birthrate and a rapidly aging population. Deaths exceed births by 21,189 during the first half of the year. |
| November 13 | A film version of Victorien Sardou’s Madame Sans-Gêne, directed by André Calmettes, opens in Paris to critical acclaim. |
| November 16 | Peter I, King of Serbia, visits Paris. |
| November 25 | Socialist theoretician Paul Lafargue, age 69, and his wife Laura commit suicide to escape the onset of old age. |
| November 28 | Taxi drivers strike to protest the rising price of gasoline. |
| December 10 | The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded to Marie Sklodowska Curie, "in recognition of her services to the advancement of chemistry by the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element." |
| December 11 | France joins Great Britain and Russia in banning whaling during 1912 to protect the species. |
| December 14 | The French Government purchases the Farnèse Palace in Rome for use as an embassy. |
| December 16 | The 3rd Salon of Aerial Locomotion opens at the Grand Palais in Paris. |
| December 20 | The Franco-German accord on Morocco is ratified by the Chamber of Deputies after two days of raucous debate. |
| During the Year | Guillaume Appolinaire introduces Picasso to Georges Braque and helps organize the cubist room 41 at the Salon des Indépendants. |
| | Lenin leaves Paris after spending three years in the French capital. |
| 1912 | January 1 | Ireland defeats France 11 to 6 in a rugby match at the Parc des Princes in Paris. |
| January 11 | Joseph Caillaux resigns as Premier and Minister of Finance. |
| January 13 | Raymond Poincaré is named Premier. |
| January 15 | The ballet company of l’Opéra de Paris goes on strike. |
| January 18 | Poet, novelist and essayist Henri de Régnier enter the Académie française. |
| January 20 | The strike by the ballet company of l’Opera de Paris ends. |
| January 29 | Marguerite Durand leads a delegation of suffragettes that marches on the Palais-Bourbon to demand that women be enfranchised under the next electoral law. |
| January | Two French ships, the Carthage and the Manouba, suspected of transporting weapons for the Turks are seized by the Italian Navy in Sardinian waters. Premier Giolitti defuses the potentially serious diplomatic incident by agreeing to submit the matter to the International Court of Justice at The Hague. |
| February 1 | The taxi companies attempt to crush the two month old cab drivers’ strike by hiring recently licensed drivers. The strikebreaking action sets off two days of rioting in Levallois Perret where the main taxi depots are located. |
| | The first issue of Guillaume Apollinaire’s monthly revue les Soirées de Paris appears. |
| February 4 | Pioneer Austrian parachutist Franz Reichelt is killed in a jump from the Eiffel Tower. |
| February 8 | Essayist and novelist Henry Roujon enters the Académie française. |
| February 17 | A measles epidemic kills 40 Parisians during the preceding week. |
| February 22 | An address by the Chief of Staff, General Joffre, to the National Defense Council on military situation raises concern regarding German advances in manpower and material. |
| February 23 | Le Matin launches a fund raising campaign to aid the development of French military aviation. |
| February 27 | Legislation lowering the retirement age to 60 is enacted. |
| February 29 | Essayist and statesman Denys Cochin enters the Académie française. Gabriel Hanotaux delivers the reception address. |
| | Georges Carpentier wins the Middleweight Boxing Championship of Europe with a 2nd round knock out of Jim Sullivan in a match at Monte Carlo. |
| March 1 | The first issue of Cinéma, “a revue consecrated to the seveth art” appears. |
| March 8 | La Dame aux camellias, Sarah Bernhardt’s second film, is released in Paris. |
| March 11 | The first military air revue is held at Vincennes. |
| March 29 | The National Assembly enacts legislation creating an air force. |
| March 30 | The Treaty of Fez sign by France and the Sultan Moulay Hafiz establishes a French protectorate over Morocco. |
| April 6 | Susie, Vincent Scotto’s first operetta, is produced in Toulouse. |
| April 10 | France and Monaco sign a customs convention. |
| April 16 | France rejects the latest Spanish proposals on the Moroccan question. |
| | American Harriet Quimby pilots a Blériot on the first airplane flight across the English Channel by woman pilot. |
| April 17 | An antifrench uprising begins in Fez, Morocco. |
| April 19 | Parisian taxi drivers return to work ending their 144 day strike. |
| April 28 | General Lyautey is named Resident General in Morocco. |
| May 17 | The highest railway in the Alps is constructed at Bionnassay at an altitude of 2,400 meters. |
| May 18 | Parisian monarchists celebrate the 500th anniversary of the birth of Joan of Arc. |
| May 20 | An international standard of measurement for radium is created in France. |
| May 21 | The Clément-Bayard dirigible attains an altitude of 2,900 meters. |
| June 1 | Max Decugis and Madamoiselle de Borman win the mixed doubles competition of the first world tennis championships at the stade de la Faisanderie in Saint Cloud. |
| June 9 | The submarine Vendémiaire sinks carrying 24 sailors to their death. |
| June 11 | The Chamber of Deputies appropriates 30,000 francs for celebrations marking the bicentennial of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s birth. |
| June 25 | French aviator Hubert Latham is trampled to death by a waterbuffalo while on safari near Fort Archambault (present day Sarh, Chad). He was 29 years old. |
| June | Jeanne Matthey wins her fourth consecutive French Open tennis championship. |
| July 1 | The Chamber of Deputies ratifies the French protectorate over Morocco. |
| July 17 | Henri Poincaré, noted mathematician and philosopher, dies at age 58. |
| July 20 | Mayol invents the electric curling iron. |
| July 24 | France and Great Britain conclude an accord which envisions the intervention of British Expeditionary Force in the event that war erupts on the continent. |
| July 28 | Belgian cyclist Odile Defraye wins the Tour de France on points as Belgian riders ban together to ensure victory to one of their own. |
| July 30 | The first airmail flight in France links Nancy and Lunéville. |
| August 1 | Airmail service between Paris and London begins. |
| August 9 | Premier Raymond Poincaré pays an official visit to Saint Petersburg and expresses French support for Russian policy in the Balkans. |
| August 13 | Composer Jules Massenet dies in Paris at age 70. |
| August 14 | General Franchet d’Esperey is named commandant of French troops in western Morocco. |
| August 20 | The Confédération Générale du Travail splits between reformist and revolutionary factions. |
| August 23 | The Government orders teachers unions to dissolve. |
| September 1 | French troops suppress a nationalist uprising in Morocco. |
| September 7 | Aviator Roland Garros reaches an altitude of 5,000 meters. |
| September 30 | Modigliani exhibits eight sculptures in stone at the Salon d’automne. |
| October 9 | La Boétie gallery in Paris hosts an exposition of the Cubist Section d’or. |
| October 28 | The Bernheim-Jeune gallery in Paris hosts a retrospective exhibition of paintings by Douanier Rousseau. |
| October 31 | General Lyautey and philosopher Émile Boutroux are elected to the Académie française. |
| November 4 | The Ottoman Empire requests French and Austro-Hungarian assistance in mediating peace talks following the defeat of its armies at the hands of the Bulgarian-Serbian and Greek coalition. |
| November 17 | The Socialist International organizes peace demonstrations in several European capitals including Paris and Berlin to protest against the risks of an extension of the Balkan conflict. |
| November 27 | France and Spain sign a convention delimiting their respective spheres of influence in Morocco. |
| December 10 | Alexis Carrel is awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine, "in recognition of his work on vascular suture and the transplantation of blood vessels and organs". |
| | The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is share by Victor Grignard of the University of Nancy, "for the discovery of the so-called Grignard reagent, which in recent years has greatly advanced the progress of organic chemistry" and Paul Sabatier of the University of Toulouse, "for his method of hydrogenating organic compounds in the presence of finely disintegrated metals whereby the progress of organic chemistry has been greatly advanced in recent years". |
| December 16 | The Confédération Générale du Travail’s call for a General Strike to protest the war in the Balkans is ignored. |
| December 17 | General Maunoury reaches the mandatory retirement age of 65 steps down as military governor of Paris and member of the War Council. |
| December 21 | L’Annonce Faite a Marie (The Tidings Brought to Mary) a play by Paul Claudel, opens in Paris. |
| 22 décembre | La femme seule (The Woman on Her Own), a comedy by Eugène Brieux opens at the Théâtre du Gymnase in Paris. |
| December 26 | Raymond Poincaré announces his candidacy for the presidency of the Republic. |
| During the Year | Paul Deschanel is reelected President of the Chamber of Deputies. |
| 1913 | January 1 | Scotland defeats France 21 to 3 in the opening match of the Five Nations Rugby Tournament at Paris Parc des Princes. French supporters dissatisfaction with the officiating sparks several incidents that mar the event. |
| January 12 | Alexandre Millerand resigns as Minister of War. |
| January 17 | Premier Raymond Poincaré is elected President of the Republic to succeed Armand Fallières. |
| January 18 | Raymond Poincaré submits his resignation as Premier. |
| January 21 | Aristide Briand becomes Premier of his third cabinet in which he also carries the Interior portfolio. |
| January 26 | Ignacy Paderewski, celebrated Polish pianist, performs works by Chopin at the Paris Conservatory. |
| January 31 | The Dreyfus Affair reemerges in the wake of chief accuser Lieutenant Colonel du Paty de Clam’s administrative rehabilitation. |
| February 1 | La Colline inspirée by Maurice Barrès appears in bookstores. |
| February 4 | Watchtower style telephone kiosques are installed in Paris. |
| | The River Seine rises 4.09 meters at Paris. |
| February 12 | Georges Carpentier wins the Light Heavyweight Boxing Championship of Europe with a 2nd round knock out of Dick “Bandsman” Rice in Paris. |
| February 18 | The French Right demands an increase in the length of military service and the defense budget to deal with German militarism. |
| | Raymond Poincaré moves into the Elysée Palace. |
| February | The First Lord of the British Admiralty, Winston Churchill, plays a leading role in the conclusion of an Anglo-French naval assistance pact. |
| March 1 | The French and German socialist parties publish a manifesto opposing new armaments. |
| March 4 | The War Council declares in favor of a three year term of military service, “equal for all and without dispensation.” |
| March 7 | The Chamber of Deputies ratifies the Franco-Spanish accord on Morocco. |
| March 12 | Italian nationalist writer Gabriele D’Annunzio’s 50th birthday is marked by pompus celebration in the Parisian literary world. The poet has been living at Arcachon since the summer of 1910 and is a regular visitor to Paris. |
| March 17 | The First International Congress on Physical Education is held in Paris. |
| March 18 | Premier Briand resigns following the Senate’s refusal to approve proposed electoral reforms. |
| March 22 | Louis Barthou forms a center-right coalition cabinet. |
| | Le Secret, a play by Henry Bernstein, is produced in Paris. |
| March 31 | The Théâtre des Champs-Elysées is inaugurated with a performance of Benvenutto Cellini by Berlioz. |
| April 1 | The first issue of Science et la Vie, a magazine of popular science appears. |
| April 3 | A German zeppelin crash lands at Lunéville. After conducting indenty checks, the French authorities authorize engine repairs and permit the airship to depart. |
| April 4 | La Comédie des Champs-Elysées opens with a presentation of L’Exilée, a comedy by Henry Kistemaeckers. |
| April 9 | La Brebis, a play by Francis Jammes is produced in Paris. |
| April 19 | The Minister of the Interior bars distribution of films depicting recently commited crimes or executions. |
| April 20 | The two children of American dancer Isadora Duncan and their governess are carried to their deaths when the car they are riding in slides into the Seine at Neuilly. |
| April 22 | Police and Customs report that the port of Toulon houses 163 opium dens supplied by state financed factories in Indochina. |
| May 5 | The first issue of Georges Clenmenceau’s l’Homme libre appears. |
| May 9 | Fantômas, a film serial by Louis Feuillade, is released in Paris. |
| May 13 | Pénélope, a lyric tragedy by Gabriel Fauré, premiers in Paris. |
| May 15 | Jeux, a ballet by Claude Debussy, is produced in Paris but achieves little success. |
| May 19 | Antimilitarists demonstrate against the law extending the term of military service to three years. |
| May 29 | Igor Stravinky’s Le Sacred au Printemps (The Rite of Spring) premiers at the théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris. The performance opens to derisive snickering among the audience that grows into an uncontrollable rage provoked by what one witness terms, “Nijinsky’s perverse choreography”, which is interpreted by some as, “a blasphemous effort to destroy music.” Director Serge Diaghilev, fearing a panic, orders electricians to turn the houselights on and off. |
| June 1 | Alcools (Alcohol), poems by Guillaume Apollinaire, appears in bookstores. |
| | Georges Carpentier wins the Heavyweight Boxing Championship of Europe with 4th round knock out of Englishman Bombardier Billy Wells in a match at Ghent, Belgium. |
| June 5 | Romain Rolland is awarded the Académie française’s Grand Prize for Litterature for his novel Jean-Christophe. |
| June 8 | Les Ballets Russes performs Khovanshchina by Modest Moussorgsky in Paris. |
| June 18 - 23 | The Arab Community of the Ottoman Empire holds a Congress in Paris. |
| June 25 | President Raymond Poincaré makes an official visit to London. |
| July 1 | The Academy of Sciences supports a census of person affected with tuberculosis. |
| | Peugeot launches its Bébé model, designed by Bugatti. |
| July 3 | A young Breton aviator, Marcel Brindejonc from Moulinais, lands his monoplan at Villacoublay aérodrome completing a 4,820 kilometer tour of Europe that passed through Warsaw, Saint Petersburg, Stockholm, Copenhagen and The Hague. |
| | Another war in the Balkans seems inevitable. The Chamber of Deputies takes up debate on several proposals for an extension of the term of compulsory military service. |
| | Henri de Rochefort-Luçay, Communard and founder of the Radical Socialist journal L'Intransigeant, dies at age 83 in Aix-les-Bains. |
| July 18 | The Chamber of Deputies passes legislation extending the term of compulsory military service to three years. |
| July 27 | Belgian cyclist Philippe Thys wins the Tour de France. |
| August 6 | Premier Louis Barthou broaches a revival of the proposed Channel Tunnel during a visit with his British counterpart Prime Minister Herbert Asquith in London. |
| August 10 | The Senate approves the Chamber of Deputies bill extending the term of military service to three years without modification. |
| August 12 | The bell of Sebastopol, weighing three tons, is removed from Notre-Dame de Paris and returned to Russia. |
| August 13 | The Orient Express marks its 25th anniversary. |
| August 20 | Adolphe Pégoud makes the world’s first parachute jump from an airplane over the terrain de Buc. |
| | Former Premier Emile Ollivier dies in Saint-Gervais-les-Bains at age 88. |
| August 24 | The railways of the Midi region are electrified. |
| September 1 | Coco Chanel designs La Marinière, a petite vest with a sailor’s collar, causing a furor in the fashion world. |
| | Adolphe Pégoud perfoms an inverted flight in a Blériot XI. |
| September 13 | Augustin Seguin departs Buc, France, at 5 a.m.in Farman biplane. He completes a successful non-stop flight to Berlin 11 hours later. |
| September 17 | Three cars of a Marseillais tramway fall into a ravine killing 12 passengers. |
| September 19 | A bridge at Villeneuve-Loubet collapses killing 17 people. |
| September 20 | Marcel Berthet sets a new world cycling record by traveling 47.775 kilometers in an hour. |
| September 21 | Adolphe Pégoud performs a loop de loop in a Blériot XI. |
| September 23 | Aviator Roland Garros completes the first airplane flight across the Mediteranean in his Morane-Saulnier. He crosses the 730 kilometers separating Saint Raphael and Bizerte, Tunisia in 7 hours and 53 minutes. |
| September 30 | André Calmettes’ film version of Alexander Dumas’ The Three Musketeers is released to the cinemas. |
| October 1 | Paris introduces motor trucks for the removal of household trash. |
| | A flash flood leaves 14 people dead at an arms factory in the Pyrénées. |
| | Adolphe Pégoud follows up on his invention of the loop de loop with a display of aerial acrobatics that includes six complete loops. |
| October 2 | Marcel Redureau, a 15 year old apprentice, kills seven members of his patron’s family at Landreau near Nantes. |
| October 7 | President Poincaré begins a four day state visit to Madrid. |
| October 23 | Jacques Copeau opens the théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in Paris. |
| November 4 | A catastrophic train wreck at Melun leaves 41 dead and 15 injured. |
| November 5 | Kaiser Wilhelm II declares that war is a good thing, a highly patriotic and imperial necessity and implies that war with France is inevitable during an audience with King Albert I of Belgium. |
| November 6 | Camille Saint-Saëns performs a farwell concert at age 78 at la salle parisienne, Gaveau. |
| November 14 | Abstract and Futurist works including Francis Picabia’s Udnie and Jeune Américain Danse and Frank Kupka’s Plans Veritcaux III and create a sensation at the Salon d’Automne in Paris. |
| November 16 | Marcel Proust’s Du côté de chez Swann, A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, Tome I (Swann’s Way, In Search of Lost Time, volume I) appears in bookstores. |
| November | Francophile Alsacians clash with German soldiers at Saverne. |
| December 1 | Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier and Jean Barois by Roger Martin du Gard appear in bookstores. |
| December 2 | The Government of Louis Barthou loses a vote of confidence in the Chamber of Deputies. The Cabinet resigns. |
| December 8 | Gaston Doumergue forms a Radical and Radical Socialist cabinet. René Viviani becomes Minister of Public Instruction. |
| | La Musée Jacquemart-André opens in the former residence of art collectors Edouard André and Nélie Jacquemart on the Boulevard Haussmann, Paris. |
| December 9 | Maurice Ajam is named under secretary of state for the Navy, in charge of the merchant marine. |
| December 10 | Physiologist Charles Richet of the Sorbonne is awarded theNobel Prize in Physiology, "in recognition of his work on anaphylaxis." |
| December 11 | Vincenzo Perugia, painter who stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911, attempt to sell the work to a Florence antique dealer. Perugia is arrested. The painting is returned to France. |
| December 16 | Pioneer Le Mans automobile maker Léon Bollée dies at age 43 in Neuilly. |
| December 28 | Aviator Georges Legagneux breals the world altitude record by climbing to an elevation of 6,120 meters. |
| During the Year | Publication of Guillaume Appolinaire’s Peintres Cubistes (The Cubist Painters) helps popularize the genre. |
| | Joseph Caillaux is elected provisional head of the Radical Socialist Party. |
| | Louis Lépine the first Prefect of the Paris police retires after 12 years in the post. |
| 1914 | January 8 | Aviator Eugène Gilbert makes a safe landing on the roof of 216 Rue Saint Charles in Paris after his plane’s engine quits. |
| January 14 | Sarah Bernhardt receives the Legion of Honor. |
| January 23 | Blocks of ice are spotted floating down the Seine. |
| January 25 | The equine population of Paris has dropped from 98,000 to 63,000 since 1900. |
| January 26 | Socialist Party Congress held in Amiens |
| January 30 | Nationalist author Paul Déroulède dies in Nice at age 68. |
| January | Joseph Caillaux becomes president of the Radical Party. |
| February 12 | Philosopher Henri Bergson is elected to the Académie française. |
| February 13 | Alphonse Bertillon developer of Anthropometry dies at age 61. |
| February 14 | Jean Cocteau composes Un Hymne au Général Joffre (The General Joffre Antheme). |
| February 17 | The Senate rejects Finance Minister Joseph Caillaux plans for an income tax. Several members label the plan, “bad manners”. |
| February 18 | Je ne trompe pas mon mari (I Don’t Cheat on my Husband), a play by Georges Feydeau, premiers in Paris. |
| February | A new Russian bond issue is floated in France. |
| March 2 | L’Ecole pratique de police (police academy) opens in Paris. |
| March 4 | Doctor Filliâtre separates Siamese twins in an operation at Paris. |
| March 6 | The first French court for juveniles age 13 to 18 is established in Paris. The deliberations are a carried out in closed chambers. |
| March 10 | The publisher of Le Figaro, Gaston Calmette accuses Finance Minister Joseph Caillaux of aiding fugitive financier Henri Rochette’s escape. |
| March 11 | Ottoman commandant Mustafa Kemal, age 32, the future Turkish Head of State, is made a knight of the Legion of Honor in a Paris ceremony. |
| March 14 | Le Figaro publishes a secret letter from Joseph Caillaux to his mistress, Madame Gueydan, who became his first wife, and implies that it will publish additional letters from Caillaux to another mistress who became his second wife. |
| March 16 | The Publisher of Le Figaro, Gaston Calmette, is killed in his office by six shots from a revolver fired by Henriette Caillaux, the wife of Finance Minister Joseph Caillaux. |
| March 17 | Joseph Caillaux resigns as Finance Minister and is replaced by René Renoult. |
| March 19 | Navy Minister Ernest Monis resigns. |
| March 21 | European boxing champion Georges Carpentier is defeated in the 15th round by American Joe Jeannette in a match at Luna Park, Paris. |
| March 24 | The first issue of Bonnet Rouge (Red Bonnet) an antimilitarist newspaper editied by Miguel Almereyda appears. |
| March 25 | The Minister of War, Joseph Noulens, request a supplementary appropriation of 754 million francs. |
| | Poet Frédéric Mistral dies at age 84 in Maillane. |
| April 5 | Lille defeats Sète 3 to 0 in the final match of the French football championship. |
| April 9 | France and the Ottoman Empire sign a convention allowing a new Turkish bond issue. |
| April 12 | The new spring fashion, featuring capes, high heels and and double split skirts, provokes criticism in the press and moral defense leagues. |
| April 15 | French aviator Roland Garros wins the Monaco International Air Rally covering the circuit in 15 days aboard his Morane-Saulnier flying boat. |
| April 21 | King George V of Great Britain makes an official state visit to Paris. |
| May 1 | Le Démon de midi by Paul Bourget is published. |
| May 7 | Joseph Caillaux and Jean Jaurès form an alliance for the legislative elections. |
| May 8 | René Caudron makes the first successful takeoff by an airplane from a ship. |
| May 10 | The Radical Left and Socialists win a majority in the legislative election. Independent Socialist René Viviani is called to form a ministry. |
| May 11 | French forces capture Taza in Morocco. |
| May 16 | King Christian X and Queen Alexandra of Denmark begin an official visit to Paris. |
| May 19 | Léontine Zanta receives the first doctorate in philosophy awarded to a French woman. |
| May 21 | The opera-ballet Le Coq d’or is performed in Paris. |
| May 24 | Suzanne Lenglen, 14 year old discovery of the year, loses in the final match of the French tennis championship. |
| May 26 | Le Rossignol (The Nightingale) an opera by Igor Stravinky is produced in Paris. |
| May | The new Panhard & Levassor 20 hp sportscar is introduced to the public. |
| June 4 | Experiments with radiotelephony are carried out involving and exchange of messages between a Paris transmitter and receivers located 200 kilometers from the capital. An amateur operator in England confirms reception of the messages. |
| June 6 | L'Otage (The Hostage), a play by Paul Claudel, opens at the théâtre parisien. |
| June 9 | Alexandre Ribot becomes Premier. |
| June 13 | The Ribot Government falls. |
| June 15 | An exceptionally violent storm strikes Paris causing heavy damage and the collapse of the roads to Saint Augustin and Saint Philppe du Roule. |
| June 16 | Socialist René Viviani is appointed Premier by President Poincaré. Viviani is also named Foreign Affairs Minister. |
| June 19 | The Chamber of Deputies approves an 800 million franc bond issue to finance armament. |
| June | Celebrations mark the 200 anniversary of the discovery of Champagne. |
| | Marguerite Broquedis defeats Suzanne Lenglen to win her second French Open tennis championship. Lenglen wins the next four championships when competition resumes after World War I. |
| July 2 | The Army decides to adopt a new field uniform colored a grayish blue which is less visible than the dark blue top with red trousers in current use. |
| July 3 | The Senate approves an income tax. |
| July 7 | A national loan of 805 million francs at 3.36% is fully subscribed. |
| July 16 | The Socialist Party Congress approves Jean Jaurès’ proposal for a General Strike against the war. |
| July 20 – 24 | President Poincaré and Premier Viviani visit Czar Nicolas II in Saint-Petersburg to reconfirm the Franco-Russian alliance. |
| July 25 | Jean Jaurès holds a meeting in Brussels with antiwar Socialists from Germany, Austria, England and Belgium. |
| July 26 | Belgian cyclist Philippe Thys wins the Tour de France for a second time. |
| July 28 | Madame Caillaux is acquitted of murdering Le Figaro publisher Gaston Calmette. |
| July 29 | President Poincaré and Premier Viviani return to France. |
| July 31 | Jean Jaurès, age 55, President of the Socialist Party, is assassinated while dining at Paris’ Café du Croissant. Raoul Villain, a 29 year old nationalist, fires two shots from a revolver killing the leader of the pacifist camp. |
| | Germany delivers an ultimatum to France and Russia. |
| July | André Gide publishes Les Caves du Vatican. ( The Vatican Swindle/Lafcadio’s Adventures) |
