1895 in France

Events from the year 1895 in France.

Incumbents

 * President: Jean Casimir-Perier (until 15 January), Felix Faure (starting 16 January)
 * President of the Council of Ministers:
 * until 26 January: Charles Dupuy
 * 26 January–1 November: Alexandre Ribot
 * starting 1 November: Léon Bourgeois

Events

 * 5 January – The military degradation of Alfred Dreyfus takes place on the Champ de Mars, Paris.
 * 17 January – Félix Faure is elected President of French Republic after the resignation of Jean Casimir-Perier.
 * 17 January – Dreyfus is moved into a military reformatory on the island of Ré.
 * 21 February – Dreyfus is put on board ship to be exiled.
 * 15 March – Dreyfus is landed on Devil's Island off French Guiana.
 * 22 March – Brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière make what is probably the first presentation of a projected celluloid film moving picture, the 46-second Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory, to members of the Société d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale in Paris.
 * 27 August – Swami Vivekananda is invited by the Paris Congress to deliver a speech on Psychic Prana.
 * 1 October – French troops capture Antananarivo, Madagascar.
 * 22 October – Montparnasse derailment: A railway locomotive runs through the exterior wall of the Gare Montparnasse terminus in Paris.

Arts and literature

 * 1 January – Alphonse Mucha's lithographed poster for the play Gismonda starring Sarah Bernhardt is posted in Paris. Bernhardt is so satisfied with its success that she gives Mucha a six-year contract.
 * 3 July – Painter Paul Gauguin leaves France to settle permanently in Polynesia.
 * November – Painter Paul Cézanne has his first solo exhibition, at the Paris gallery of Ambroise Vollard.
 * 28 December – Auguste and Louis Lumière make what is probably the first commercial public screening of projected moving picture films to a paying audience, at the Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris.

Sport

 * 11 June – The Paris–Bordeaux–Paris automobile trial is held.
 * 24 September–31 October – The Automobile Club de France sponsors the longest race to date, a 1710 km event from Bordeaux to Agen and back. Because it is held in ten stages, it can be considered the first rally. The first three places are taken by a Panhard, a Panhard, and a three-wheeler De Dion-Bouton.

January to March

 * 29 January – Pierre Gaxotte, historian (died 1982)
 * 11 February – Maurice Cottenet, soccer player (died 1972)
 * 28 February – Marcel Pagnol, novelist, playwright and filmmaker (died 1974)
 * 2 March – Marcel Carpentier, military officer (died 1977)
 * 16 March – Ernest Labrousse, historian (died 1988)
 * 20 March – Robert Benoist, motor racing driver and war hero (executed 1944)
 * 30 March
 * Père Marie-Benoît, friar who helps smuggle Jews to safety from Nazi-occupied Southern France (died 1990)
 * Jean Giono, author (died 1970)

April to June

 * 5 April – Fernand Mourlot, printer and publisher (died 1988)
 * 3 May – Gabriel Chevallier, novelist (died 1969)
 * 4 May – René Mayer, politician and Prime Minister of France (died 1972)
 * 11 May – Jacques Brugnon, tennis player (died 1978)
 * 9 June – Henri Diamant-Berger, screenwriter, film director and producer (died 1972)
 * 12 June – Eugénie Brazier, cook (died 1977)

July to September

 * 2 July – Gen Paul, painter and engraver (died 1975)
 * 7 August – Alain Saint-Ogan, comics author and artist (died 1974)
 * 20 August – Albert Gilles, copper craftsman (died 1979)
 * 18 September – Jean Batmale, soccer player (died 1973)

October to December

 * 9 October – René Lasserre, rugby union player (died 1965)
 * 3 November – Pierre Richard-Willm, actor (died 1983)
 * 5 November – Walter Gieseking, pianist and composer (died 1956)
 * 20 November
 * Pierre Cot, politician (died 1977)
 * Germain Jousse, member of the French Resistance (died 1988)
 * 25 November – Adrienne Bolland, test pilot and first woman to fly over the Andes (died 1975)
 * 27 November – Pierre-Paul Grassé, zoologist (died 1985)
 * 29 November – Edgard de Larminat, General (died 1962)
 * 9 December – Marguerite Huré, stained glass artist (died 1967)
 * 14 December – Paul Éluard, poet (died 1952)

January to June

 * 10 January – Benjamin Godard, violinist and composer (born 1849)
 * 28 January – François Certain de Canrobert, Marshal of France (born 1809)
 * 29 January – Charles Frédéric Girard, biologist (born 1822)
 * 16 February – André Garin, missionary and parish priest (born 1822)
 * 19 February – Auguste Vacquerie, journalist and man of letters (born 1819)
 * 11 March – Louis-Florentin Calmeil, psychiatrist and medical historian (born 1798)
 * 22 April – Étienne Léopold Trouvelot, artist, astronomer and amateur entomologist, introduced the gypsy moth into North America (born 1827)
 * 11 May – Auguste-Théodore-Paul de Broglie, professor of apologetics (born 1834)
 * 22 May – Claude Marie Dubuis, second Roman Catholic bishop of Texas (born 1817)
 * 28 May – Alexandre Martin, socialist statesman (born 1815)

July to December

 * 19 July – Henri Ernest Baillon, botanist and physician (born 1827)
 * 16 August – Mathieu Auguste Geffroy, historian (born 1820)
 * 28 September – Louis Pasteur, chemist and microbiologist (born 1822)
 * 24 November – Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire, philosopher, journalist and statesman (born 1805)
 * 27 November – Alexandre Dumas, fils, writer, author and playwright (born 1824)
 * 11 December – Jean-Baptiste Joseph Émile Montégut, critic (born 1825)
 * 31 December – Père Jean Marie Delavay, missionary, explorer and botanist (born 1834)