1916 in France

Incumbents

• President: Raymond Poincaré
• President of the Council of Ministers: Aristide Briand

Events

• 29 January – Paris is bombed by German zeppelins for the first time.
• 21 February – Battle of Verdun begins.
• 22 February – Battle of Bois des Caures ends.
• 27 April – Battle of Hulluch in World War I, 47th Brigade, 16th Irish Division decimated in one of the most heavily concentrated gas attacks of the war.
• 16 May – Britain and France conclude the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement to divide Arab areas of the Ottoman Empire following the conclusion of World War I into French and British spheres of influence.
• 1 July – First day on the Somme.
• 14 July – Battle of Bazentin Ridge, start of the second phase of the Battle of the Somme.
• 15 September – Battle of Flers-Courcelette begins and lasts for a week, third and last large-scale offensive by the British Army during the Battle of the Somme.
• 25 September – Battle of Morval.
• 26 September – Battle of Thiepval Ridge begins, German fortress of Thiepval is captured by the British.
• 28 September – Battle of Thiepval Ridge ends successfully, with the capture of the Schwaben Redoubt.
• 13 November – Battle of the Ancre launches, the final act of the Battle of the Somme.
• 18 November – Battle of the Somme ends.
• 18 December – Battle of Verdun ends.

Births

January to June

• 11 January – Bernard Blier, actor
• 22 January – Henri Dutilleux, composer
• 14 February – Marcel Bigeard, military officer
• 16 February – Julien Darui, international soccer player
• 1 March – Lucienne Abraham, Trotskyist politician
• 20 March – Pierre Messmer, Gaullist politician and Prime Minister
• 4 April – Robert Charpentier, cyclist and Olympic gold medallist
• 9 April – Léonie Duquet, nun
• 5 May – Andrée Clair, writer
• 6 May – Jacques-Laurent Bost, journalist
• 25 May – André Devigny, soldier and French Resistance member
• 30 May – Jacques Georges, soccer administrator
• 3 June – Denise Vernac, actress
• 10 June – André Mandouze, academic and journalist
• 16 June – Francis Cammaerts, Special Operations Executive agent

July to December

• 22 July – Marcel Cerdan, boxer
• 24 August – Léo Ferré, poet, composer, singer and musician
• 17 September – Francis Lefebure, physician
• 21 September – Françoise Giroud, journalist, screenwriter, writer and politician
• 18 October – Jean-Yves Couliou, painter
• 19 October – Jean Dausset, immunologist, shares the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1980
• 26 October – François Mitterrand, President of France from 1981 to 1995
• 14 November – Roger Apéry, mathematician

Deaths

• 17 January – Marie Bracquemond, Impressionist painter
• 22 February – Émile Driant, nationalist writer, politician and army officer
• 3 March - Jean Mounet-Sully, actor
• 4 March – Franz Marc, German painter and printmaker
• 21 March – Léon Labbé, surgeon and politician
• 12 May – Frank Cheadle, Australian rugby league footballer and World War I soldier
• 19 May – Georges Boillot, motor racing driver and World War I fighter pilot
• 25 May – Jane Dieulafoy, archaeologist and novelist
• 29 June – Georges Lacombe, sculptor and painter
• 6 July – Odilon Redon, painter and printmaker
• 8 July – Augustin Cochin, historian
• 28 August – Henri Harpignies, painter
• 26 September – Max Ritter von Mulzer, World War I German flying ace
• 13 December – Antonin Mercié, sculptor and painter
• 14 December – Frédéric Febvre, actor