1956 in France

Incumbents

• President: Rene Coty
• President of the Council of Ministers: Edgar Faure, Guy Mollet

  Events

• 2 January - Legislative Election held.
• 1 February - Socialist leader Guy Mollet becomes prime minister
• 2 March - Morocco declares its independence from France.
• 20 March - Tunisia gains independence from France.
• 23 May - Minister Pierre Mendès-France resigns due to his government's policy on Algeria.
• 23 June - Loi Cadre passed by the French National Assembly, first step in the creation of the French Union.
• 10 September - Guy Mollet visits London and proposes a merger of France and the United Kingdom. However the idea is rejected by British Prime Minister Anthony Eden.
• 28 September - Eden considers allowing France to join the Commonwealth of Nations, but this idea is also rejected.
• 31 October - Suez Crisis: The United Kingdom and France begin bombing Egypt to force the reopening of the Suez Canal.
• 6 November - British and French forces seize control of two Egyptian ports before declaring a ceasefire.
• 7 November - Suez Crisis: The United Nations General Assembly adopts a resolution calling for the United Kingdom, France and Israel to withdraw their troops from Arab lands immediately.
• 23 December - British and French troops leave Suez Canal. region.
• The Tefal cookware firm is established.

  Arts and literatures

• Two attacks are made on Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa in the Louvre.
• 28 November - Roger Vadim's film And God Created Woman, starring Brigitte Bardot, is released.
• 3 December - Writing under the pseudonym of Emile Ajar, author Romain Gary becomes the only person ever to win the Prix Goncourt twice, this time for Les Racines du ciel.

  Sport

• 5 July - Tour de France begins.
• 28 July - Tour de France ends, won by Roger Walkowiak.

  Births

• 1 January - Christine Lagarde, politician
• 11 February - Didier Lockwood, jazz violinist
• 26 February - Michel Houellebecq, novelist
• 28 May - Francis Joyon, yachtsman
• 4 July - Éric Neuhoff, novelist and journalist
• 9 December - Jean-Pierre Thiollet journalist

  Deaths

• 5 January - Mistinguett, singer
• 3 February - Émile Borel, mathematician and politician
• 18 February - Gustave Charpentier, composer
• 17 March - Irène Joliot-Curie, scientist, shared Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935
• 20 May - Pierre Allemane, international soccer player
• 11 September - Lucien Febvre, social historian
• 26 October - Walter Gieseking, pianist and composer
• 23 November - André Marty, leading figure in the French Communist Party