1901 in France

Events from the year 1901 in France.

Incumbents

17 March – A showing of 71 Vincent van Gogh paintings in Paris, 11 years after his death, creates a sensation.
4 April – first issue of L'Assiette au beurre, satirical magazine created by Samuel-Sigismond Schwarz
10 August – Moberly-Jourdain incident.
19 October – Alberto Santos-Dumont manages to reach the distance between Saint-Cloud and the Eiffel Tower in an airship in less than 30 minutes and wins the Deutsch prize of 100,000 gold francs

1 January – The French rugby team plays its first Test against the New Zealand All Blacks.

7 April –
*André Trocmé, pastor who aided Jewish refugees
*Annemarie von Gabain, German linguist
8 April – Jean Prouvé, architect and designer
13 April – Jacques Lacan, psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, and doctor
15 April – René Pleven, politician
20 April – Michel Leiris, surrealist writer and ethnographer
24 April – René Le Hénaff, film editor and director
15 May – Jacques Natanson, writer
18 May - Henri Sauguet, composer
25 May
*Jean Borthayre, operatic baritone
*André Girard, painter, poster-maker and Resistance member
31 May – Charles Brunier, convicted murderer and veteran of the First and Second World Wars who claimed to have been the inspiration for Papillon
13 June – Jean Prévost, writer, journalist and member of the Maquis
16 June – Henri Lefebvre, sociologist and philosopher
24 June – Marcel Mule, classical saxophonist
26 June – Jean Boyer, film director and author

20 July – Gaston Waringhien, linguist, lexicographer and Esperantist
31 July – Jean Dubuffet, painter and sculptor
5 August – Claude Autant-Lara, film director and later MEP
17 August – Henri Tomasi, composer and conductor
18 August
*Lucienne Boyer, singer
* Jean Guitton, Catholic philosopher and theologian
19 August – René Capitant, lawyer and politician
27 August – Pierre Villon, member of the French Communist Party and of the French Resistance
29 August – Michel Olçomendy, first Archbishop of the Singapore
8 September – Jacques Perret, writer
13 September – Claude Dupuy, Roman Catholic archbishop
16 September
*Andrée Brunet, figure skater
*Louis Joxe, statesman and Minister
25 September – Robert Bresson, film director