Flag of France

Flag origins

France’s flag is the tricolour, with vertical bands of blue, white and red running from the flagpole outward. The three colors emerged during the French Revolution. According to the French presidency, blue and red were the colors of Paris, while white represented the king and the monarchy. Their combination initially symbolized a bond between the king and the people. In the early Revolution in 1789, they first spread as a tricolour cockade before developing into a flag. The present blue–white–red vertical arrangement dates to February 15, 1794. The earlier naval flag of 1790 had red, rather than blue, nearest the flagpole.

Flag story

France once used an entirely white national flag. After Napoleon’s fall and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1814–1830, the revolutionary blue and red were removed in favor of the white associated with the monarchy. The tricolour returned with the July Revolution of 1830 and became firmly established thereafter. During the Revolution of 1848, some revolutionaries proposed replacing it with an all-red flag. Politician and poet Alphonse de Lamartine defended the tricolour in a speech, and the proposed change did not take place. Its history is unusually eventful: born in revolution, displaced by the restored monarchy, restored in 1830, and nearly replaced by a red flag in 1848.

Editorial notes and references

Edited by ABELHA WORKS. The English text translates the administrator-edited Japanese description. Legends should be distinguished from documented history. General reference links do not substantiate every statement in the text.

• France — general information on Wikipedia
• Japan MOFA: countries and regions (Japanese)

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