Flag of France

What the flag of France looks like

The national flag of France is a vertical tricolor with three bands: blue next to the flagpole, white in the middle and red at the fly. The proportions are 2:3. In the version flown on ships, the bands are slightly different in width, about 30:33:37, so that the flag looks equal when it flutters, as the red at the fly appears narrower in the wind.

The flag has no emblem. The coat of arms is not part of the national flag, though a shield and fasces symbol, used as the unofficial emblem of the Republic, appears on official documents. The Constitution of 1958 states in Article 2 that the national emblem is the blue, white and red tricolor flag.

The shade of blue has not always been the same. In 2020 the presidential palace began to use a darker navy blue, closer to the original revolutionary shade, instead of the brighter blue adopted in the 1970s, and the darker blue has since been seen on some other official sites as well.

French flag meaning and symbolism

The colors are rooted in Paris. Blue and red were the colors of the city's coat of arms and of the Paris militia, and white was the color of the Bourbon royal house. When the revolutionaries joined them in 1789, the flag came to stand for the union of the people with the king, and then with the nation alone.

Later explanations were added. Blue and red are often called the colors of the city of Paris, and white the color of royalty. Later, the flag has been linked to the Republic's motto of liberty, equality and fraternity, and to the idea of unity, but that is an interpretation. There is no official statement about what each color means.

History of the French flag

Before the Revolution, French ships and armies used white flags and other royal banners, and the white flag with fleurs-de-lis was the main symbol of the kingdom. In July 1789 the Marquis de Lafayette, commander of the new National Guard, added the blue and red of Paris to the white of the king in a cockade. This is the usual starting point of the tricolor. The tricolor was officially made the national flag on 15 February 1794, with the blue placed at the hoist.

The tricolor was carried through Napoleon's wars and spread across Europe. When the monarchy returned in 1814-15, King Louis XVIII brought back the plain white flag. The revolution of July 1830 restored the tricolor, and Louis-Philippe, the new king, made it the flag of the July Monarchy. During the 1848 revolution some protesters demanded a red flag, but the poet Alphonse de Lamartine argued against it and the tricolor was kept.

Since then the flag has remained unchanged apart from the shade of the blue, and the 1946 and 1958 constitutions confirmed it. The French tricolor inspired flags with vertical or horizontal stripes elsewhere, including those of Italy and Ireland.

Flags that look like the French flag

The French flag is often mixed up with the Dutch flag, which has the same colors in a different order and in horizontal bands: red, white and blue. Luxembourg's flag also has horizontal red, white and a lighter blue. Russia's flag is horizontal white, blue and red. Paraguay uses red, white and blue horizontally too, with an emblem on each side.

French Guiana, a region of France in South America, uses the French flag as its official flag. You can see how the flag appears as an emoji on the France flag emoji page, or browse the flags of Europe.