1916 in France

Events from the year 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.

January to June

 * 11 January – Bernard Blier, actor (died 1989)
 * 22 January – Henri Dutilleux, composer (died 2013)
 * 14 February – Marcel Bigeard, military officer (died 2010)
 * 16 February – Julien Darui, international soccer player (died 1987)
 * 1 March – Lucienne Abraham, Trotskyist politician (died 1970)
 * 20 March – Pierre Messmer, Gaullist politician and Prime Minister (died 2007)
 * 4 April – Robert Charpentier, cyclist and Olympic gold medallist (died 1966)
 * 9 April – Léonie Duquet, nun (killed by a death squad in Argentina 1977)
 * 5 May – Andrée Clair, writer (died 1982)
 * 6 May – Jacques-Laurent Bost, journalist (died 1990)
 * 25 May – André Devigny, soldier and French Resistance member (died 1999)
 * 30 May – Jacques Georges, soccer administrator (died 2004)
 * 3 June – Denise Vernac, actress (died 1984)
 * 10 June – André Mandouze, academic and journalist (died 2006)
 * 16 June – Francis Cammaerts, Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent (died 2006)

July to December

 * 22 July – Marcel Cerdan, boxer (died 1949)
 * 24 August – Léo Ferré, poet, composer, singer and musician (died 1993)
 * 17 September – Francis Lefebure, physician (died 1988)
 * 21 September – Françoise Giroud, journalist, screenwriter, writer and politician (died 2003)
 * 18 October – Jean-Yves Couliou, painter (died 1995)
 * 19 October – Jean Dausset, immunologist, shares the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1980 (died 2009)
 * 26 October – François Mitterrand, President of France from 1981 to 1995 (died 1996)
 * 14 November – Roger Apéry, mathematician (died 1994)

Deaths

 * 17 January – Marie Bracquemond, Impressionist painter (born 1840)
 * 22 February – Émile Driant, nationalist writer, politician and army officer (born 1855; killed in action)
 * 3 March - Jean Mounet-Sully, actor (born 1841)
 * 4 March – Franz Marc, German painter and printmaker (born 1880)
 * 21 March – Léon Labbé, surgeon and politician (born 1832)
 * 12 May – Frank Cheadle, Australian rugby league footballer and World War I soldier (born 1885)
 * 19 May – Georges Boillot, motor racing driver and World War I fighter pilot (born 1884)
 * 25 May – Jane Dieulafoy, archaeologist and novelist (born 1851)
 * 29 June – Georges Lacombe, sculptor and painter (born 1868)
 * 6 July – Odilon Redon, painter and printmaker (born 1840)
 * 8 July – Augustin Cochin, historian (born 1876)
 * 28 August – Henri Harpignies, painter (born 1819)
 * 26 September – Max Ritter von Mulzer, World War I German flying ace (born 1893)
 * 13 December – Antonin Mercié, sculptor and painter (born 1845)
 * 14 December – Frédéric Febvre, actor (born 1835)