The flag of France
The tricolour is the ancestor of most three-band flags in the world, and its own symbolism is a political compromise: the white of the Bourbon monarchy set between the red and blue of the city of Paris. In 1976 Valéry Giscard d'Estaing lightened the blue to match the European flag, largely so the two looked right side by side on television. In 2020 Emmanuel Macron quietly reverted public buildings to the older navy blue of 1794, and for several years both shades were flying in Paris at once. The bands are equal today, but under Napoleon they were not — the hoist band was made wider to counteract the way a flag furls.
Flags it gets confused with
Drawn at each flag’s own official ratio, which is itself the difference in some of these pairs.
| Flag | How to tell them apart |
|---|---|
| Netherlands | The Netherlands uses the same three colours in horizontal bands, not vertical ones. |
| Russia | Russia is horizontal and puts white on top, then blue, then red. |
What the colours mean
- Blue
#000091A colour of Paris, with red - White
#FFFFFFThe colour of the monarchy, placed between the two - Red
#E1000FThe second colour of Paris
Flag laws usually specify a Pantone chip, a CMYK mix or just a colour name. Converting any of those to sRGB is lossy, which is why published hex values disagree.
- Ratio
- 2:3
- Current design adopted
- 1794
- Colours
- blue, white, red
Common questions
- What does the flag of France look like?
- Three equal vertical bands of blue at the hoist, white, and red.
- What do the colours of the France flag mean?
- Blue: a colour of Paris, with red. White: the colour of the monarchy, placed between the two. Red: the second colour of Paris.
- How do you tell the France flag from the Netherlands one?
- The Netherlands uses the same three colours in horizontal bands, not vertical ones.
- When was the France flag adopted?
- The current design dates from 1794, and its official ratio is 2:3.
Related pages
- France Capital, area, population and currency
- The flag of Netherlands Routinely mistaken for this one
- The flag of Russia Routinely mistaken for this one
- Every flag with blue in it
- The flag of United States Ratio 10:19
- The flag of India Ratio 2:3
- The flag of United Kingdom Ratio 1:2
- The flag of Brazil Ratio 7:10
- The flag of Australia Ratio 1:2
- The flag of South Korea Ratio 2:3
- The flag of Ukraine Ratio 2:3
- The flag of Nepal Ratio Non-rectangular; the constitution gives a geometric construction, and the resulting height is about 1.22 times the width
Sources
- Official vendor product documentation — At One Place