1941 in France

Events from the year 1941 in France.

Incumbents

Events

17 January – Battle of Ko Chang. Decisive victory by the French over the Thai Navy.
3 February – The Nazis forcibly restore Pierre Laval to office in occupied Vichy France.
5 May – Georges Bégué becomes the first Special Operations Executive agent to be parachuted into France.
9 May – French-Thai War ends.
8 June – Allied invasion of Vichy French-controlled Syria and Lebanon begins, the Syria–Lebanon campaign.
9 June – Battle of the Litani River.
13 June – Battle of Jezzine.
15 June – Battle of Kissoué begins.
17 June – Battle of Kissoué ends with Allied victory.
18 June – Battle of Damascus begins.
19 June – Battle of Merdjayoun starts.
21 June – Battle of Damascus ends, with the Allies taking Damascus.
24 June – Battle of Merdjayoun ends.
1 July – Battle of Palmyra. Vichy garrison at Palmyra surrenders.
3 July – Battle of Deir ez-Zor. Allied victory over Vichy French.
5 July – Battle of Damour begins.
9 July – Battle of Damour ends, with Allied victory over Vichy French.
14 July – Vichy France signs armistice terms ending all fighting in Syria and Lebanon.
21 August
*Drancy internment camp officially opens.
*In revenge for the execution two days earlier of French Resistance member Samuel Tyszelman, communist activist Pierre Georges shoots and kills German naval cadet Alfons Moser at the Barbès – Rochechouart Paris Métro station, the first killing of a member of the German military in occupied Paris, initiating a cycle of assassinations and retribution that will claim hundreds of lives.
22 August - German Occupation Authority announces that anyone found either working for or aiding the Free French will be sentenced to death.
27 August - Pierre Laval is shot in an assassination attempt at Versailles.
24 November – The United States grants Lend-Lease to the Free French.
12 December – United States seizes French ship.

Sport

25 May – Coupe de France Football Final won by Girondins ASP.

Births

2 January – Jean-Pierre Destrumelle, soccer player and manager
13 April – Jean-Marc Reiser, comics creator
19 April – Michel Roux, chef and restaurateur
20 May – Raymond Forni, Socialist politician
25 May – Jean-Pierre Hubert, science fiction and detective fiction author
30 June – Cyril Atanassoff, French-born Bulgarian ballet dancer
17 July – Gribouille, singer
1 August
*Nathalie Delon, born Francine Canovas, film actress
*Étienne Roda-Gil, songwriter and screenwriter
13 September – Daniel Bernard, diplomat
26 October – François Duprat, negationist writer
30 December – Mario Giubilei, French worker-priest

Deaths

4 January – Henri Bergson, philosopher
19 February – Paul-Jacques Curie, physicist
24 February — Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière, German Imperial Naval submarine captain in World War I and Kriegsmarine Rear admiral
16 April – Émile Bernard, painter
26 July – Henri Lebesgue, mathematician
14 August – Paul Sabatier, chemist, shared Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1912
6 November – Maurice Leblanc, novelist and short story writer
7 December - Louise Compain, feminist author