1890 in France

Incumbents

• President: Marie François Sadi Carnot
• President of the Council of Ministers: Pierre Tirard, Charles de Freycinet

  Events

• 21 February – First Franco-Dahomean War begins.
• 1 March – Léon Bourgeois succeeds Ernest Constans as Minister of the Interior.
• 4 March – Battle of Cotonou, attack on French positions repulsed.
• 27 July – Death of Vincent van Gogh: van Gogh perhaps paints Tree Roots at Auvers-sur-Oise, then apparently shoots himself, dying two days later.
• 4 October – First Franco-Dahomean War ends in French victory.
• 9 October – The first brief flight of Clément Ader's steam-powered fixed-wing aircraft Ader Éole takes place in Satory. It flies uncontrolled approximately at a height of, the first take-off of a powered airplane solely under its own power.
• Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts is founded. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes is president and co-founder.

  Literature

• Anatole France - Thaïs
• Octave Mirbeau - Sébastien Roch
• Georges Ohnet
• * L'Âme de Pierre
• * Serge Panine
• Albert Robida - Le Vingtième siècle. La vie électrique
• Jules Verne - César Cascabel
• Émile Zola - ''La Bête humaine''

  Births

January to June

• 19 January – Élise Rivet, nun and World War II heroine
• 1 February – Germaine Lubin, soprano
• 2 February – Jules Gros, Breton linguist
• 24 March – Robert Schurrer, athlete and Olympic medallist
• 6 April – André-Louis Danjon, astronomer
• 21 April – Eugène Séguy, entomologist
• 29 April – Daisy Fellowes, society figure, writer and heiress
• 29 May – Robert Desoille, psychotherapist
• 12 June – Théophile Alajouanine, neurologist

  July to December

• 4 July – Jacques Carlu, architect and designer
• 27 July – Jacques Forestier, rheumatologist
• 15 August – Jacques Ibert, composer
• 23 August – Marcelle Lalou, Tibetologist
• 25 September – Honoré Barthélemy, cyclist
• 22 November – Charles de Gaulle, general, statesman, President
• 29 November – Maurice Genevoix, author
• 2 December – Jean Médecin, lawyer and politician
• 20 December – Yvonne Arnaud, actress
• 25 December – André Lesauvage, sailor and Olympic gold medallist

  Full date unknown

• Henriette Sauret, feminist, author, pacifist, journalist

  Deaths

• 25 January – Jean Gailhac, priest
• 13 July – Auguste Jean François Grenier, doctor and entomologist
• 29 July – Vincent van Gogh Dutch painter
• 18 August – Albert Dubois-Pillet, painter and army officer
• 19 October – Émile Léonard Mathieu, mathematician
• 11 November – Marie-Charles David de Mayréna, adventurer
• 19 December – Eugène Lami, painter and lithographer