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The national flag of France (known in French as drapeau tricolore,
drapeau bleu-blanc-rouge, drapeau français, rarely, le tricolore
and, in military parlance, les couleurs) is a tricolour featuring
three vertical bands coloured blue (hoist side), white, and red.
The national flag of France is known to English speakers as the
French tricolor (American English), the French tricolour (British
English), or the tricolore. The flag is also known as The Reunionese
flag, or The Reunion's flag where it is used as the flag of the
overseas department of France in Southern Africa.
See many pictures of
French Flags
- Design
- History
- Influence
The red and blue colours of the flag are now officially
PANTONE "Reflex Blue" and PANTONE "Red 032", or RGB (0,85,164) and
(239,65,53), or CMYK (100,73,0,2) and (0,90,86,0). These were
adopted by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, replacing the previous darker
version of the flag.
Currently the flag is 50% longer than its height (i.e. in the
proportion 2:3) and, except in the navy, has stripes of equal width.
For many years the three stripes of the flag were not equally
wide, being in the proportions 30 (blue), 33 (white) and 37 (red),
the same proportions as the former flag of Paris. French naval
ensign below.
The theory was that if they were equal then the white stripe,
being brighter, would appear disproportionately wider to the
human eye.
This was changed to equal width by Napoleon, although by a
regulation dated 17 May 1853 (?), the navy went back to using the
30:33:37 proportions, which they continue to use.
Léon Cogniet, Scenes of July 1830, a painting alluding to the
July revolution of 1830. The flag of the Ancien Régime (white
background with fleur de lis), teared and soiled with blood, turns
into the tricolour flag of the Constitutional Monarchy. During the
Ancien Régime, the flag of Saint-Denis was used -- red, with 2,
3 or 5 spikes.
Originally, is was the personal flag of Charlemagne, given to him
by the Pope. Over the time, it became the royal banner under the
Carolingians and the Capetians. It was stored in Saint-Denis abbey,
where it was taken when war broke out.
In the French military, every regiment had its own flag. The
accidental attack of French regiment between each other at the
Battle of Fleurus in 1690 let to the habit of attaching a white
scarf to the flags of the regiments -- white being the colour of the
kings of France.
The origins of the tricolore are said to be a rosette, created in
July 1789 during the French Revolution, which (according to legend
among vexillologists) used a combination of the colours of the coat
of arms of Paris (red and blue), symbolically separated by the royal
colour (white), with the combination often being credited to the
Marquis de Lafayette.
There are many theories and suppositions about the choice of
colours and indeed Lafayette's involvement in the process. One
theory says that Lafayette was inspired by the colours used by the
American revolutionaries; another that the French design and scheme
originated with the Dutch flag - the first European tricolour.
The three colours in vertical stripes were first used as a canton on
Naval flags in 1790, and extended to the whole field in 1794. The
French National Convention adopted the modern blue-white-red flag as
the national flag on February 15, 1794 (27 pluviôse an. II in the
revolutionary calendar). The relevant part of the decree says, in
translation:
The national flag shall be formed of the three national colours,
set in three equal bands, vertically arranged so that the blue is
nearest to the staff, the white in the middle, and the red flying.
It came into use on May 20, 1794, in order to avoid confusion in
naval warfare. Its adoption was not universally welcomed; the navy
threatened to mutiny, since they were at the time continuing to
fight under the white flag of the monarchy.
Flag of a regiment of the Napoleonic era (3rd Swiss regiment),
with the blue and red patrs in the corner, and the white part as
a losange bearing inscriptions Even when the three colours had
been used - for example by the army in 1791 and by the National
Guard after 1789 - they were often used creatively.
For example, at the Battle of Arcole Napoleon brandished a white
standard, with a golden fasces lictoriae in the centre (a symbol of
the former Roman Republic), and four red and blue lozenges at the
corners.
The vertical striped flag was adopted by the army in 1812,
replacing the previous flags which were often a white cross on red
and blue.
After the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy following the defeat
of Napoleon in 1815 the tricolore was replaced by the royal white
standard with fleur-de-lis which had been in use before the
Revolution. However, the revolution of 1830 saw Louis-Philippe, the
Citizen-King, ascend to the throne who again designated the
tricolore as the national flag, which it has remained ever since.
During the Revolution of 1848, the red flag was raised by radicals
supporting a socialist alternative government to the new French
Second Republic while moderates rallied to the tricolore.
In World War II, Vichy France continued to use the traditional
French standard. To distinguish themselves, Free French Forces under
Charles De Gaulle bore a Tricolore with a red Cross of Lorraine
superimposed in the centre.
For the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France, Adidas designed the official
match ball with a triode blue, white and red design and called it
the "Tricolore".
The flag of France represented a new revolutionary movement; as
such, it influenced many other flags, including those of Belgium,
Chad, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Norway and Romania. The flag of the
Acadians is based on the French flag.
See many pictures of
French Flags
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