1901 in France
Events from the year 1901 in France.Incumbents
January to March
- 1 January - Marcel Balsa, motor racing driver
- 2 January — Louis Poterat, lyricist
- 8 January - Eugène Constant, rower and Olympic medallist
- 19 January - Henri Daniel-Rops, writer and historian
- 24 January - Adolphe Mouron Cassandre, painter, commercial poster artist and typeface designer
- 20 February
- *Marc Detton, rower and Olympic medallist
- *René Dubos, microbiologist, experimental pathologist, environmentalist and humanist
- 21 February
- *Albert Dupouy, rugby union player
- *Pierre Lewden, athlete
- 3 March — Corentin Louis Kervran, scientist
- 17 March - Alexandre Bioussa, rugby union player
- 26 March - Maurice Dorléac, actor
April to June
- 7 April - André Trocmé, pastor who aided Jewish refugees
- 8 April - Jean Prouvé, architect and designer
- 13 April - Jacques Lacan, psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, and doctor
- 15 April - René Pleven, politician
- 20 April - Michel Leiris, surrealist writer and ethnographer
- 24 April - René Le Hénaff, film editor and director
- 15 May - Jacques Natanson, writer
- 18 May- Henri Sauguet, composer
- 25 May
- *Jean Borthayre, operatic baritone
- *André Girard, painter, poster-maker and Resistance member
- 31 May - Charles Brunier, convicted murderer and veteran of the First and Second World Wars who claimed to have been the inspiration for Papillon
- 16 June - Henri Lefebvre, sociologist and philosopher
- 24 June - Marcel Mule, classical saxophonist
- 26 June - Jean Boyer, film director and author
July to September
- 20 July - Gaston Waringhien, linguist, lexicographer and Esperantist
- 31 July - Jean Dubuffet, painter and sculptor
- 5 August - Claude Autant-Lara, film director and later MEP
- 17 August - Henri Tomasi, composer and conductor
- 18 August — Jean Guitton, Catholic philosopher and theologian
- 19 August - René Capitant, lawyer and politician
- 27 August - Pierre Villon, member of the French Communist Party and of the French Resistance
- 29 August - Michel Olçomendy, first Archbishop of the Singapore
- 8 September - Jacques Perret, writer
- 16 September
- *Andrée Brunet, figure skater
- *Louis Joxe, statesman and Minister
- 25 September — Robert Bresson, film director
October to December
- 3 October - François Le Lionnais, chemical engineer and mathematician
- 12 October - Gabriel-Marie Garrone, Cardinal
- 3 November - André Malraux, author, adventurer and statesman
- 14 December - Henri Cochet, tennis player
Full date unknown
- Roland Ansieau, graphic artist
Deaths
- 5 January - Pierre Potain, cardiologist
- 13 January - Gaspard Adolphe Chatin, physician, mycologist and botanist
- 16 January - Jules Barbier, poet and librettist
- 28 January - Henri de Bornier, poet and dramatist
- 9 February - Louis-Nicolas Ménard, man of letters
- 17 March - Jean-Charles Cazin, landscape painter and ceramicist
- 29 March - Xavier Barbier de Montault, theologian
- 9 June - Casimir Marie Gaudibert, astronomer and selenographer
- 28 July - Paul Alexis, novelist, dramatist and journalist
- 12 August - Ernest de Jonquières, mathematician
- 17 August - Edmond Audran, composer
- 9 September - Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, painter
- date unknown
- *Henriette Browne, painter and traveller
- *Charles Jalabert, painter
