1902 in France
Events from the year 1902 in France.
Incumbents
- President: Émile Loubet
- President of the Council of Ministers: Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau, Emile Combes
Events
- January - Alfred Loisy writes L'évangile et l'Eglise, which inaugurates the crisis of modernism in the Catholic Church.
- 13 April – A new land speed record of is set in Nice by Leon Serpollet driving a steam car.
- 27 April – Legislative Election held.
- 8 May – 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée on Martinique.
- 11 May – Legislative Election held.
- 24 August – A statue of Joan of Arc is unveiled in Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier, the town which she stormed in 1429.
- 1 September – The first science fiction film, the trick film A Trip to the Moon, is premièred at the Théâtre Robert-Houdin in Paris by actor/producer Georges Méliès, and proves an immediate success.
- 5 October – Thousands attend the funeral of the novelist Émile Zola at the Cimetière de Montmartre, Paris. They include Alfred Dreyfus, given special permission by Mme Zola to attend.
- The capital of French Indochina is moved from Saigon to Hanoi.
- Claude Monet begins his Water Lilies series of paintings in his garden at Giverny.
Literature
Music
- Claude Debussy - Pelléas et Mélisande
- Jules Massenet - Le jongleur de Notre-Dame
- Maurice Ravel - Jeux d'eau
- Camille Saint-Saëns - Cello Concerto No. 2
- Erik Satie
- * Poudre d'or
- * Tendrement
Births
January–June
- 11 January – Maurice Duruflé, composer and organist
- 13 January – Raymond Ruyer, philosopher
- 18 January – Émile Aillaud, architect
- 21 January – Agnès Souret, model, "la plus belle femme de France"
- 25 January – André Beaufre, colonel
- 29 January – Arlette Marchal, actress
- 8 February – André Gillois, writer and radio pioneer
- 26 February – Jean Bruller, writer and illustrator
- 9 March – Elisabeth de Rothschild, World War II heroine
- 13 March – Louis Ducatel, politician and businessman
- 14 March – Henri Barbé, communist
- 16 March – Louis Couffignal, mathematician and cybernetics pioneer
- 22 March – Madeleine Milhaud, actress
- 29 March – Marcel Aymé, novelist and children's writer
- 4 April – Louise Leveque de Vilmorin, novelist, poet and journalist
- 9 April – Théodore Monod, naturalist, explorer and humanist scholar
- 3 May – Alfred Kastler, physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 7 May – Jean-Philippe Lauer, architect and Egyptologist
- 8 May – André Michel Lwoff, microbiologist, awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1965
- 27 May – Émile Benveniste, structural linguist
- 2 June – Georges Coudray, politician
- 15 June – Pierre Béarn, writer
- 28 June – Pierre Brunet, figure skater
July–December
- 6 July – Louis Vola, double bass player
- 16 July – Vincent Badie, lawyer and politician
- 21 July – Georges Wambst, Olympic cyclist
- 9 August – Zino Francescatti, violinist
- 11 August – Christian de Castries, military officer
- 16 August – Gilbert Gérintès, rugby union player
- 24 August – Fernand Braudel, historian
- 28 August – Jean Favard, mathematician
- 15 October – André Prudhommeaux, anarchist bookstore owner
- 20 October – René Floriot, lawyer.
- 31 October – Marie-Laure de Noailles, patron of the arts
- 4 November – Pierre Edouard Leopold Verger, photographer and ethnographer
- 16 November – Paul Bontemps, athlete and Olympic medallist
- 20 November – Jean Painlevé, film director
- 25 December – Maurice Gallay, footballer
- 31 December – Marcel Bidot, cyclist
Full date unknown
- Jules Semler-Collery, composer, conductor and teacher
Deaths
- 26 January- Noël Ballay, explorer, colonial administrator and poet
- 6 February – Clémence Royer, scholar
- 17 February – Marie-Louise Gagneur, feminist
- 12 April – Marie Alfred Cornu, physicist
- 15 April – Jules Dalou, sculptor
- 4 July – Hervé Faye, astronomer
- 8 August – James Tissot, painter
- 29 September – Émile Zola, writer
- 7 December – Pierre Paul Dehérain, chemist and botanist
- Full date unknown – Alexandre Bertrand, archaeologist