1916 in France

Incumbents

• President: Raymond Poincaré
• President of the Council of Ministers: Aristide Briand

  Events

• 29 January - Paris is bombed by German zeppelins for the first time.
• 21 February - Battle of Verdun begins.
• 27 April - Battle of Hulluch in World War I, 47th Brigade, 16th Irish Division decimated in one of the most heavily concentrated gas attacks of the war.
• 16 May - Britain and France conclude the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement to divide Arab areas of the Ottoman Empire following the conclusion of World War I into French and British spheres of influence.
• 1 July - First day on the Somme.
• 14 July - Battle of Bazentin Ridge, start of the second phase of the Battle of the Somme.
• 15 September - Battle of Flers-Courcelette begins and lasts for a week, third and last large-scale offensive by the British Army during the Battle of the Somme.
• 25 September - Battle of Morval.
• 26 September - Battle of Thiepval Ridge begins, German fortress of Thiepval is captured by the British.
• 28 September - Battle of Thiepval Ridge ends successfully, with the capture of the Schwaben Redoubt.
• 13 November - Battle of the Ancre launches, the final act of the Battle of the Somme.
• 18 November - Battle of the Somme ends.
• 18 December - Battle of Verdun ends.

  Sport

Births

January to June

• 11 January - Bernard Blier, actor
• 22 January - Henri Dutilleux, composer
• 14 February - Marcel Bigeard, military officer
• 16 February - Julien Darui, international soccer player
• 20 March - Pierre Messmer, Gaullist politician and Prime Minister
• 4 April - Robert Charpentier, cyclist and Olympic gold medallist
• 9 April - Léonie Duquet, nun
• 5 May - Andrée Clair, writer
• 6 May - Jacques-Laurent Bost, journalist
• 25 May - André Devigny, soldier and French Resistance member
• 30 May - Jacques Georges, soccer administrator
• 3 June - Denise Vernac, actress
• 10 June - André Mandouze, academic and journalist
• 16 June - Francis Cammaerts, Special Operations Executive agent

  July to December

• 22 July - Marcel Cerdan, boxer
• 24 August - Léo Ferré, poet, composer, singer and musician
• 17 September - Francis Lefebure, physician
• 21 September - Françoise Giroud, journalist, screenwriter, writer and politician
• 18 October - Jean-Yves Couliou, painter
• 19 October - Jean Dausset, immunologist, shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1980
• 26 October - François Mitterrand, President of France from 1981 to 1995
• 14 November - Roger Apéry, mathematician

  Full date unknown

• Lucienne Abraham, Trotskyist politician

  Deaths

• 17 January - Marie Bracquemond, artist
• 22 February - Émile Driant, nationalist writer, politician, and army officer
• 4 March — Franz Marc, German painter and printmaker
• 21 March - Léon Labbé, surgeon and politician
• 12 May - Frank Cheadle, Australian rugby league footballer and World War I soldier
• 19 May - Georges Boillot, motor racing driver and World War I fighter pilot
• 29 June - Georges Lacombe, sculptor and painter
• 6 July - Odilon Redon, painter and printmaker
• 8 July - Augustin Cochin
• 28 August - Henri Harpignies, painter
• 26 September — Max Ritter von Mulzer, World War I German flying ace
• 13 December - Antonin Mercié, sculptor and painter
• 14 December - Frédéric Febvre, actor