1911 in France

Events from the year 1911 in France.

Incumbents

• President: Armand Fallières
• President of the Council of Ministers:
• until 2 March: Aristide Briand
• 2 March-27 June: Ernest Monis
• starting 27 June: Joseph Caillaux

Events

• January – Champagne Riots begin.
• 19 May – Maurice Ravel's opera L'heure espagnole is premièred at the Opéra-Comique in Paris.
• 13 June – Igor Stravinsky's ballet Petrushka is premièred at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris by Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes with Vaslav Nijinsky in the lead.
• 14 June – British liner call at Cherbourg on her maiden transatlantic voyage.
• 1 July – Agadir Crisis.
• 21 August – Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is stolen from the Louvre museum in Paris by Vincenzo Peruggia; the theft is discovered the following morning. The thief is arrested and the painting returned from Italy in 1913. Among the suspects is Guillaume Apollinaire.
• 25 September – French battleship Liberté explodes at anchor in Toulon, killing around 300 onboard and in the surrounding area.
• 4 November – Morocco–Congo Treaty brings the Agadir Crisis to a close. This treaty leads Morocco to be split between France (as a protectorate) and Spain (as the colony of Spanish Sahara), with Germany forfeiting all claims to the country. In return, France gives Germany a portion of the French Congo (as Kamerun) and Germany cedes some of German Kamerun to France (as Chad).
• 20 December – First robbery by the Bonnot gang.

Literature

• Marcel Allain & Pierre Souvestre - Fantômas
• André Gide - Isabelle
• Jean de La Hire - Le Mystère des XV
• Alfred Jarry - Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician
• Valery Larbaud - Fermina Márquez

Music

• Claude Debussy - Le Martyre de saint Sébastien
• Gabriel Fauré - 9 Préludes, Op. 103
• Maurice Ravel
• L'heure espagnole
• Valses nobles et sentimentales
• Erik Satie
• En habit de cheval
• Trois Morceaux en forme de poire
• Sarabandes
• Igor Stravinsky - Pétrouchka
• Nikolai Tcherepnin - Narcisse et Echo

Births

January to June

• 5 January – Jean-Pierre Aumont, actor (died 2001)
• 15 January – Jean Talairach, neurosurgeon (died 2007)
• 16 January – Roger Lapébie, cyclist, won the 1937 Tour de France (died 1996)
• 17 January – André-Georges Haudricourt, anthropologist and linguist (died 1996)
• 18 January – Charles Delaunay, author, jazz expert, co-founder and long-term leader of the Hot club de France (died 1988)
• 22 January – André Roussin, playwright (died 1987)
• 24 January – René Barjavel, author, journalist and critic (died 1985)
• 30 January – René Duverger, weightlifter and Olympic gold medallist (died 1983)
• 2 February – Jean-Jacques Grunenwald, organist, composer and architect (died 1982)
• 14 February – Jean-Louis Nicot, Air Force officer involved in the Algiers putsch (died 2004)
• 23 February – Pierre Meile, French linguist (died 1963)
• 7 April – Hervé Bazin, writer (died 1996)
• 9 April – Paul Coste-Floret, politician (died 1979)
• 10 April – Maurice Schumann, politician (died 1998)
• 2 May – Edmond Pagès, cyclist (died 1987)
• 17 May – André Jaunet, flautist (died 1988)
• 24 May – Michel Pécheux, fencer (died 1985)
• 6 June – Jean Cayrol, poet and publisher (died 2005)
• 15 June – Joseph Alcazar, international soccer player (died 1979)
• 22 June – Michel Dens, baritone (died 2000)
• 29 June – Lucien Lauk, racing cyclist (died 2001)

July to September

• 5 July – Georges Pompidou, President of France (died 1974)
• 23 July – Jean Fontenay, cyclist (died 1975)
• 1 August – André Guinier, physicist (died 2000)
• 11 August – Louis Dumont, anthropologist (died 1998)
• 18 August – Jacques Wertheimer, businessman (died 1996)
• 25 August – André Leroi-Gourhan, archaeologist, paleontologist, paleoanthropologist and anthropologist (died 1986)
• 7 September – Henri de France, pioneering television inventor (died 1986)
• 10 September – Renée Simonot, actress (died 2021)

October to December

• 12 October – Louis de Guiringaud, politician and Minister (died 1982)
• 13 October – André Navarra, cellist and cello teacher (died 1988)
• 19 October – Laurette Séjourné, archeologist and ethnologist (died 2003)
• 31 October – René Hardy, French Resistance worker (died 1987)
• 1 November – Henri Troyat, author, biographer, historian and novelist (died 2007)
• 7 November – Yolande Beekman, World War II heroine (executed) (died 1944)
• 22 November – Georges Bégué, engineer and Special Operations Executive agent (died 1993)
• 26 November – Robert Marchand, cyclist (died 2021)
• 8 December – Sauveur Ducazeaux, cyclist (died 1987)
• 21 December – Yves Godard, military officer (died 1975)
• 25 December – Louise Bourgeois, artist and sculptor (died 2010)
• 28 December – Gustave Malécot, mathematician (died 1998)
• 29 December – Bernard Saint-Hillier, General (died 2004)
• 29 December – André Claveau, recording artist; singer (died 2003)

Full date unknown

• Louis Henry, historian (died 1991)
• Claude Saint-Cyr, milliner (died 2002)

Deaths

• 13 February – Alphonse Pinart, explorer, philologist, and ethnographer (born 1852)
• 17 February – Auguste Houzeau, agronomist and chemist (born 1829)
• 24 March – Rodolphe-Madeleine Cleophas Dareste de la Chavanne, jurist (born 1824)
• 29 March – Alexandre Guilmant, organist and composer (born 1837)
• 7 June – Maurice Rouvier, statesman (born 1842)
• 18 July – Jules Bourgeois, entomologist (born 1847)
• 11 September – Louis Henri Boussenard, author of adventure novels (born 1847)
• 30 September – Louis Joseph Troost, chemist (born 1825)
• 7 October – Marie Clément Gaston Gautier, botanist (born 1841)
• 8 December – Alphonse Legros, painter and etcher (born 1837)

References