1873 in France
Events from the year 1873 in France.
Events
- 16 September - German troops leave France upon completion of payment of indemnity for Franco-Prussian War.
- 21 December - Francis Garnier is attacked outside Hanoi by Black Flag mercenaries fighting for the Vietnamese.
Births
- 2 January - Thérèse de Lisieux, Roman Catholic Carmelite nun, canonised as a saint (died 1897).
- 28 January - Colette, writer (died 1954).
- 2 February - Maurice Tourneur, film director and screenwriter (died 1961).
- 19 February - Louis Feuillade, film director (died 1925).
- 17 May - Henri Barbusse, novelist, journalist and communist (died 1935).
- 28 June - Alexis Carrel, surgeon and biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (died 1944).
- 1 July - Alice Guy-Blaché, pioneer filmmaker, first female film director (died 1968).
- 4 August
- Joseph Paul-Boncour, politician (died 1972).
- Alice Pruvot-Fol, malacologist (died 1972).
- 8 September - Alfred Jarry, playwright and novelist (died 1907).
- 25 November - Pierre Lacau, Egyptologist and philologist (died 1963).
Deaths
- 9 January - Napoleon III of France, first President of the French Republic and only emperor of the Second French Empire (born 1808).
- 23 January - Louis Gustave Ricard, painter (born 1823).
- 1 April - Marc Girardin, politician and man of letters (born 1801).
- 16 April - Joseph Albert Alexandre Glatigny, poet (born 1839).
- 4 May - Charles Rigault de Genouilly, Admiral (born 1807).
- 16 June - Eugène Flachat, civil engineer (born 1802).
- 18 July - Philarète Chasles, critic and man of letters (born 1798).
- 8 August - Antoine Chintreuil, painter (born 1814).
- 7 September - Jules Verreaux, botanist and ornithologist (born 1807).
- 21 September - Auguste Nélaton, physician and surgeon (born 1807).
- 23 September - Jean Chacornac, astronomer (born 1823).