France Flag

The French Tricolore is divided into three equal vertical bands of blue, white, and red — a design often called a tricolour. Each stripe is precisely one-third of the flag's width, giving the flag a clean, geometric simplicity that has influenced flag design worldwide.

In official usage, the blue is rendered as Pantone 280 C (a deep navy) and the red as Pantone 032 C (a vivid scarlet), though a lighter version with Pantone 286 C and 485 C is also used for certain state contexts.

The tricolour emerged during the French Revolution of 1789. The red and blue were the traditional colours of Paris; the white was the Bourbon royal colour. The revolutionary Marquis de Lafayette reportedly combined them into the cockade that became the flag's prototype.

The National Convention officially adopted the vertical tricolour on 15 February 1794. Napoleon's campaigns spread the tricolour design across Europe, inspiring similar flags in Italy, Belgium, Ireland, and many others.

With brief interruptions during the Restoration (1815–1830), the tricolour has flown continuously as France's national flag. The Fifth Republic confirmed it in the 1958 Constitution, and it remains one of the most recognised flags on Earth.