What does blue white and red mean in France?

Answer 1

Meaning of Colors on French Flag

Actually, it's blue, white and red - reading from the flagpole outwards.

In the early days of the revolution, the people of Paris, fearful that the King was sending foreign mercenary soldiers to occupy the city, called out the local militia to defend them. This body needed some form of identification, so they made armbands and cockades in the colours of the city's coat of arms - blue and red. Later, when a brief accommodation was made between King and people, and the King had been forced to wear the cockade, a compromise was reached under which the new flag included the blue and red, with the addition of the white from the Bourbon family's royal flag. This proved popular and remained even after the execution of the King. Successive governments - the First republic, the Directory, the Consulate and Napoleon's Empire - adopted the tricolour, which disappeared for a time under the restoration, to return permanently in 1848.

A common interpretation is that the blue, white and red stand for the principles of the French Revolution - liberty, equality, and fraternity respectively - but this is a poetic re-interpretation, rather than based on any historical evidence.

I seem to answer this one on a regular basis.

The coat of arms of Paris is blue and red. At the storming of the Bastille, those attackers who had no uniform wore blue and red cockades. Later, when the KIng was a prisoner of the Parisians, it was Lafayette who suggested that a good new flag for the reformed French state would be the blue and red of Paris, enclosing the white of the old régime's Bourbon flag. This seemed a good idea at the time, and has proved most durable.

Note that the French flag is not red, white and blue, but blue, white and read (reading, as one does with flags, from the flagpole outwards).

The red also means blood from the french revalotion

COMMENT

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Answer 2

Colors on the French Flag

The French flag is the official French pavilion since 1794. It was drawn by Jacques Louis David, famous French painter, but it has its origins in July 1789. Shortly after the fall of the Bastille, the king visited the Paris town hall and was handed a blue and red cockade - the long-time colours of the town - which he put on his hat next to the white cockade (French kingdom emblem at the time), as a gesture towards the people of Paris. The "cockade story" was witnessed by Thomas Jefferson on the 17th of July 1789. The newly created cockade became rapidly popular. Lafayette claimed the idea, but the diary of a bookseller notes that three days before, on the 14th of July, "the three-coulour cockade begins to replace the green one"

(Since the reign of Henri IV, the red and blue could be found in the royal emblems, standing for the Kingdom of "Navarre".)

The blue and red colors in Paris' flag were standing for the patron saints of the town (Saint Martin, Saint Denis). The popular "Garde Nationale", heir of the "Garde française" (regiment meant to protect the King) already had the three colours blue, white and red on their uniforms. Members of the Garde Nationale took part - and even led - in the storming of La Bastille.

The white was associated at the time with the kingdom, or with France, more that with the kings, and indicated the dedication of the kingdom to the Virgin Mary ("voeu de Louis XIII", in 1638).

The three colours were used in different orders (blue-red-white for the scarf of public officials in 1790, white-red-blue in horizontal bands for the 'Fête de la Fédération' on the 14th of July 1790. In 1790 were also adopted new versions of ship's pavilions, despite some traditionalists arguing that because of the colours, it would resemble too much the Dutch flag.

The flag was adopted officially by the Convention as the national flag only in 1794 (15th of February).

The white flag replaced the three-color flag in 1814-1815, and from 1815 to 1830, during the two first periods when the monarchy was reinstated.

In 1830 the king Louis-Philippe came to power and reinstated the three-color flag.

After the overthrow of the Emperor Napoleon III, a royalist majority offered the throne to the Count of Chambord. He said he would accept the throne on the condition that the tricolour be replaced by the white flag. This proved impossible to accommodate and France remained a republic.

Answer 3

Blue and red are the symbol-colors af Paris. On the french flag, they "surround" the white, which is the colour of Monarchy

Answer 4

The blue and red are the colors of the city of Paris that the revolutionaries adopted. The white is the royal color, surrounded and controlled by the colors of the people.