1891 in France
Events from the year 1891 in France.
Incumbents
Events
- 1 May – Fusillade de Fourmies, nine killed and thirty wounded when troops fire on workers' May Day demonstration in support of eight-hour workday in Fourmies.
- 27 August – France and Russia conclude defensive alliance.
- Gustave Moreau becomes a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
- Henri Matisse begins his studies as an artist at École des Beaux-Arts
Literature
- Maurice Barrès - Le Culte du moi
- Joris-Karl Huysmans - Là-bas
- Jules Verne - Mistress Branican
- Émile Zola - ''L'Argent''
Music
- Claude Debussy
- * Ballade
- * Danse
- * Deux arabesques
- * Rêverie
- * Valse romantique
- Gabriel Fauré - 5 Mélodies, Op. 58
- Charles Gounod - Saint Francois d'Assise
- Jules Massenet - Le Mage
- Camille Saint-Saëns - Africa
Births
January to June
- 2 January – Didier Daurat, aviation pioneer
- 14 January – Félix Goethals, cyclist
- 19 April – Françoise Rosay, actress
- 17 May – Roger Blaizot, General
July to September
- 11 July
- * Gabriel Benoist, writer
- * Joseph Sadi-Lecointe, aviator
- 21 July – Marcel-Frédéric Lubin-Lebrère, rugby union player
- 1 August – Charles Ritz, hotelier and fly fisherman
- 6 August – Yvette Andréyor, actress
- 9 August – Joseph-Marie Martin, cardinal
- 15 August – Jean De Briac, actor
- 3 September – Marcel Grandjany, harpist and composer
- 10 September – Raymond Abescat, oldest man in France and oldest veteran in France at the time of his death
- 26 September – Charles Münch, conductor and violinist
October to December
- 10 October – Raymond Bernard, filmmaker
- 17 November – Jean Del Val, actor
- 15 December – Martial Guéroult, philosopher and historian of philosophy
- 23 December – Xavier Vallat, politician and Commissioner-General for Jewish Questions in Vichy France
- 26 December – Jean Galtier-Boissière, writer, polemist and journalist
- 30 December – Antoine Pinay, politician and Prime Minister of France
Deaths
January to June
- 14 January – Aimé Millet, sculptor
- 16 January – Léo Delibes, composer
- 21 January – Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, painter and sculptor
- 15 March – Théodore de Banville, poet and writer
- 29 March – Armand-François-Marie de Charbonnel, Bishop of Toronto
- 29 March – Georges-Pierre Seurat, painter
- 24 May – Joseph Roumanille, poet
- 17 June – Théophile Nicolas Noblot, politician
July to December
- 7 July – Célestin Joseph Félix, Jesuit
- 20 August – Leopold Chasseriau, planter
- 29 August – Pierre Lallement, bicycle inventor
- 5 September – Elie Delaunay, painter
- 30 September – Georges Ernest Boulanger, general and politician
- 3 October – Édouard Lucas, mathematician
- 10 November – Arthur Rimbaud, poet
- 26 November – Eugène Bouchut, physician
- 12 December – Charles Émile Freppel, Bishop and politician
- December – Émile Bayard, illustrator