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Rang

🇫🇷 The colours of France

7 meanings recorded, 58 colours tied to the country and 4 colour cities.

France’s national colours are blue, white, and red, arranged in three vertical stripes on the flag. Blue and red come from Paris’s traditional colours, while white is linked to the monarchy and the nation. The tricolour stands for unity, moderation, and the ideals of the French Revolution.

blueTraditional colour of Paris; associated with Saint Martin and sometimes the bourgeoisie or liberty.
whiteAncient French colour; linked to the monarchy, nation, and sometimes equality or the king.
redTraditional colour of Paris; associated with Saint Denis, sometimes the nobility or brotherhood.

Where no official value is given, the swatch shows the colour family, not the exact shade.

  • Blue and red are Paris’s traditional colours; white is the ancient French colour.
  • The tricolour flag was adopted during the French Revolution in 1790.
  • No official law defines the exact shades of blue, white, or red.
  • The flag’s proportions are 2:3, with equal stripes except in the navy.
  • The colours are sometimes linked to liberty, equality, and fraternity.

The colours of the flag of France

The French flag features three vertical stripes: blue nearest the hoist, then white, then red. Blue and red are Paris’s historic colours, seen on the city’s coat of arms and linked to Saints Martin and Denis. White, described as the ‘ancient French colour’, was added to unite revolutionary Paris with the nation’s royal past. Officially, the flag’s colours are not tied to a single meaning, but they are often said to symbolise liberty (blue), equality (white), and fraternity (red), echoing the revolutionary motto. The tricolour has come to represent unity and moderation, blending royalist and republican elements.

How the colours were chosen of France

Before the tricolour, French flags featured blue shields with gold fleurs-de-lis on white, or plain white banners for the monarchy. During the French Revolution, the Paris militia adopted blue and red cockades, later adding white to create a national symbol. The tricolour flag was first adopted in 1790, with its current blue-white-red order set in 1794. The flag was replaced by a plain white flag during the Bourbon Restoration but returned after the July Revolution of 1830. Since then, it has remained France’s national flag, with only minor changes in shade and proportion.

Official shades and rules of France

The French constitution names the flag’s colours as blue, white, and red, but does not specify exact shades. Traditionally, the blue is navy, though a lighter blue was used from 1974. Both versions have been used, but since 2020, the darker blue is standard at the Élysée Palace. The flag’s proportions are 2:3, with equal stripes except in the navy, where the stripes are 30:33:37 to account for visual effects when flying.

Where this page comes from

The facts in this overview come from the Wikipedia article "Flag of France", written by its contributors and used under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Rang rewrote the text in its own words, with AI assistance, and compares every page with the article to make sure no passage is copied. It may be reused under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 licence with a link back.

What colours mean in France

Customs vary by region, faith and family; these are the meanings most often recorded.

Compare with another country
Red

The red Phrygian cap, a soft cap with the tip pulled forward, became the sign of liberty in the Revolution. Marianne, the figure of the Republic, still wears it.

Politics and protestCourageSource: Phrygian cap
Yellow

From late 2018, protesters against fuel taxes and living costs wore the yellow high-visibility vests that every driver must carry. They became known as the gilets jaunes.

Politics and protestAngerSource: Yellow vests protests
Yellow

The leader of the Tour de France wears the yellow jersey. It was introduced in 1919 and matches the yellow paper of L'Auto, the newspaper that ran the race.

Festival and celebrationPrideSource: General classification in the Tour de France
Blue

Blue was the colour of the French kings, whose arms were gold lilies on blue. It is the first band of the tricolour, and national sports teams are called Les Bleus.

Politics and protestRoyalty and powerPrideSource: Bleu de France (colour)
Pink and magenta

Toulouse is called la Ville Rose, the pink city, for the soft pink brick of its old buildings.

Nature and renewalSource: Toulouse
White

White was the colour of the Bourbon kings. In the tricolour it sits between the blue and red of Paris, and after 1815 the restored monarchy flew a plain white flag.

Royalty and powerPolitics and protestSource: Flag of France
White

French queens once mourned in white, a custom called deuil blanc. Mary, Queen of Scots, was painted in white mourning after the death of her husband, Francis II.

Mourning and deathRoyalty and powerGriefSource: Mourning

Colour and feeling in France

Anger

French speaks of 'black anger', colère noire, and German of annoying oneself black, sich schwarz ärgern.

Sadness

Picasso painted almost wholly in cold blues from about 1901 to 1904, in Barcelona and Paris, after the death of his friend Carles Casagemas.

Sadness

To brood in French is 'broyer du noir', to grind black, and dark thoughts are 'idées noires'.

Fear

Great fear is blue in French and Italian: 'une peur bleue', a blue fear, and 'fifa blu', a blue funk.

Disgust

Britain, France, Ireland and New Zealand followed Australia in requiring cigarette packs in the same drab brown.

Loneliness

In his Blue Period, about 1901 to 1904, Picasso painted beggars, prisoners and solitary figures in cold blues.

Awe

The twelfth and thirteenth century windows of Chartres cathedral are famous for a deep blue glass often called Chartres blue.

Optimism

To see 'la vie en rose', life in pink, is to see the good in everything. Édith Piaf's 1940s song carried the phrase around the world.

Colour cities of France

🇫🇷 Painted half-timbered AlsaceColmarTimber-framed houses in pink, yellow, blue and green lean over small canals in eastern France.🇫🇷 The lemon townMentonThe last French town before Italy, with an old quarter in ochre and yellow and a famous lemon festival.🇫🇷 La Ville RoseToulouseThe pink city of south-west France, built of flat rosy bricks, once rich on a blue dye plant.🇫🇷 The ochre villageRoussillonA Provençal hill village built on, and painted with, cliffs of red, orange and yellow ochre.
Paris 8Lascaux 3Brittany 2Lyon 2Pech Merle 2Saint-Denis 2Adaouste 1Alps 1Avignon 1Bonne Fontaine 1Burgundy 1Chartres 1Chartreuse 1Chessy 1Corsica 1Côte d'Azur 1Fontainebleau 1Lamorlaye 1La Neuville-Roy 1Lauragais 1Le Moustier 1Maruéjols-lès-Gardon 1Montpellier 1Oise 1Pech-de-l'Azé 1Quiberon 1Rousillon 1Sèvres 1Versailles 1

Colours tied to France

FamilyRedOrangeYellowGreenTurquoiseBluePurplePinkBrownWhiteGreyBlackGold
KindBasic colourNamed shadePigmentDyeColour named from natureTraditional colourNational or team colourHeraldic colourStandard colourScreen colour
Made fromMineral or earthPlantAnimalSyntheticLight only (no pigment)
#800080 Purple A cool colour between red and blue, long linked with royalty and rarityBasic colour · 🇱🇧 Lebanon +5 #FF00FF Magenta A purplish-pink colour named after a battle and key to modern printingNamed shade · 🇫🇷 France +4 #F5F5DC Beige A pale, warm colour named after natural, undyed woolNamed shade · 🇫🇷 France +2 #007FFF Azure A clear sky blue, halfway between blue and cyan on the colour wheelNamed shade · 🇮🇹 Italy +2 #0047AB Cobalt blue A strong, stable blue pigment made from cobalt and alumina since the early 1800sPigment · 🇫🇷 France +3 #E0B0FF Mauve A pale purple named after the mallow flower and once a fashion sensationNamed shade · 🇫🇷 France #800020 Burgundy A purplish dark red named after the wine region in FranceNamed shade · 🇫🇷 France #002366 Royal blue A strong, deep blue linked with royalty and national flagsNamed shade · 🇫🇷 France +4 #4A412A Pantone 448 C A dull brown shade chosen to discourage smoking by making packaging unattractiveStandard colour · 🇦🇺 Australia +5 #0033CC International Klein Blue A deep blue made famous by Yves Klein's art and a special synthetic binderNamed shade · 🇫🇷 France #CC8899 Puce A brownish-purple shade named after the flea and once favoured in French fashionNamed shade · 🇫🇷 France +1 #318CE7 Bleu de France A vivid blue long linked with France and its national identityNamed shade · 🇫🇷 France Red Sang de boeuf glaze郎窑红 A deep red porcelain glaze first made in early 18th-century ChinaNamed shade · 🇨🇳 China +1 #A91101 Turkey red A lasting bright red dye for cotton, made from madder root by a complex processNamed shade · 🇹🇷 Turkey +4 #FA5053 Strawberry A bright red colour inspired by the ripe strawberry fruitNamed shade · 🇫🇷 France +4 #ADD8E6 Light blue A pale blue shade found between blue and cyan, seen in flags and daily life worldwideNamed shade · 🇫🇷 France +5 Orange Tenné A rare heraldic stain of orange-tawny, named for tanned leatherNamed shade · 🇫🇷 France +3 Brown Seal brown A near-black horse coat with tan or reddish highlights on soft areasNamed shade · 🇫🇷 France #FFBA00 Selective yellow A yellow defined for car headlamps and fog lamps to cut glare in bad weatherNamed shade · 🇫🇷 France +2 #4C5866 Marengo A dark grey or blue-grey shade, once a speckled fabric from northern ItalyNamed shade · 🇮🇹 Italy +2 Red Wine colour The range of colours seen in wines, from pale yellow to deep red and tawnyNamed shade · 🇫🇷 France #7CA2B8 Horizon blue A blue-grey shade famous for French army uniforms in World War INamed shade · 🇫🇷 France Brown Caramel A golden-brown colour and sweet made by heating sugar until it brownsNamed shade · 🇫🇷 France +2 #ED7A9B Rose Pompadour A pinkish-purple shade created in 18th-century France for Madame de PompadourNamed shade · 🇫🇷 France +1

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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