1886 in France

Template:Short description Template:Refimprove Template:Year in France header Events from the year 1886 in France.

Incumbents

• President: Jules Grévy
• President of the Council of Ministers:
  • until 7 January: Henri Brisson
  • 7 January-16 December: Charles de Freycinet
  • starting 16 December: René Goblet

Events

• 15 May – Portugal and France agree to regulate the borders of their colonies in Guinea.

Arts and literature

• 30 November – Folies Bergère in Paris stages its first revue.
• Georges Seurat finishes painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.

Births

January to June

• 28 January – Georges Painvin, cryptanalyst (died 1980)
• 5 March – Léon Mathot, actor and film director (died 1968)
• 7 March – Jacques Majorelle, painter (died 1962)
• 7 March – René Thomas, motor racing driver (died 1975)
• 28 March – Gustave Mesny, army general (died 1945)
• 29 March – Paul Amiot, actor (died 1979)
• 15 April – Amédée Ozenfant, cubist painter (died 1966)
• 19 April – Hermine David, painter (died 1970)
• 25 April – Marie Brémont, supercentenarian, the oldest recognized person in the world from November 2000 until her death (died 2001)
• 29 April – Count Renaud de la Frégeolière, author and first president of the Fédération Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing (died 1981)
• 3 May – Marcel Dupré, organist, pianist and composer (died 1971)
• 24 May – Paul Paray, conductor, organist and composer (died 1979)

July to December

• 16 July – Pierre Benoit, novelist (died 1962)
• 3 August – Henri Debain, actor (died 1983)
• 8 September – Marguerite Jeanne Carpentier, painter and sculptor (died 1965)
• 15 September – Paul Lévy, mathematician (died 1971)
• 16 September – Jean Arp, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist (died 1966)
• 30 September – Gaston Ramon, veterinarian and biologist (died 1963)
• 3 October – Alain-Fournier, author and soldier (died 1914)
• 4 October – Laurent Eynac, politician and Minister (died 1970)
• 6 November – André Marty, leading figure in the French Communist Party (died 1956)
• 15 November – René Guénon, orientalist and philosopher (died 1951)
• 30 December – Henri Chapron, automobile coachbuilder (died 1978)

Full date unknown

• Marie-Gabriel Tissot, Abbot of Quarr (died 1983)

Deaths

• 23 January – Jean Baptiste Prosper Bressant, actor (born 1815)
• 27 April – Eugène Isabey, painter, draftsman, and printmaker (born 1803)
• 17 March – Pierre-Jules Hetzel, editor and publisher (born 1814)
• 23 May – Pierre Édouard Frère, painter (born 1819)
• 12 July – Ferdinand Berthier, deaf educator, intellectual and political organiser (born 1803)
• 14 August – Edmond Laguerre, mathematician (born 1834)
• 8 September – Maurice Jean Auguste Girard, entomologist (born 1822)
• 16 September – Louis, duc de Decazes, statesman (born 1819)
• 26 September – Hippolyte Castille, writer (born 1820)
• 14 November – Alexandre-Emile Béguyer de Chancourtois, geologist and mineralogist (born 1820)