France crossed a new threshold in qualifying for the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™, having never before graced the finals on four consecutive occasions. Les Bleus have become a regular presence in recent years, having earned a reputation as one of world football’s leading teams since the late 1990s. Their fine displays at the first edition in 1930 marked them out as a good side and they have occasionally produced legendary talents, but only in the last decade or so have they evolved into a team that starts every major tournament with serious hopes of winning it.

The generation of players that included Zinedine Zidane, Laurent Blanc, Didier Deschamps and Fabien Barthez finally found a way past the obstacles that had blocked the route of earlier vintages. The fine team featuring Michel Platini, Alain Giresse, Luis Fernandez and Jean Tigana had stumbled at the semi-final stage in 1982 and 1986, but their successors went all the way to lifting the Trophy in 1998.

Origin of the French flag

In brief we can accept that the colours are basically those of Paris as used on the day of the storming of the Bastille, mixed with the Royal white. It is thought that the Marquis de Lafayette was responsible for inventing the red, white and blue cockade which soon became compulsory for Revolutionaries in 1789. We don't have to believe that the combination arose because the King placed a red-blue cockade in his hat next to a Royal white one, but combinations of Revolutionary and Royal emblems were common at that time.

The flag was created in 1790 but with the colours the reverse of what they are today, i.e. with red at the hoist, and revised in 1794 to the modern form. The 1790 flag existed only as part of the jack and ensign of the navy.

The flag went out of use with Napoléon I's defeat at Waterloo, but was brought back in 1830 (again by Lafayette) and has remained in use ever since. Although significances have been attached to the colours these are all spurious and invented after the fact. The red and blue of Paris were the livery colours of the coat of arms and natural ones for use by the militia.

William Crampton,undated

Colours of the French flag

The colors of the French flag "combine" different symbols, invented after the fact:
- Blue is the color of Saint Martin, a rich Gallo-Roman officer who ripped his blue cloak with his sword to give one half of it to a poor who was begging him in the snow. This is the symbol of care, of the duty that the rich had to help the poor.
- White is the color of the Virgin Mary, to whom the Kingdom of France was consecrated by Louis XIII in the 17th century; it is also the color of Joan of Arc, under whose banner the English were finally driven out of the Kingdom (15th century). It became logically the color of Royalty. The King's vessels carried plain white flags at sea.
- Red is the color of Saint Denis, the saint patron of Paris. The original oriflamme (war banner) of the Kings was the red oriflamme of Saint Denis.

Pierre Gay, 15 September 1998

Most French flags, at least in the beginning of their use, have a very dark blue shade, sometimes called bleu drapeau (flag blue). Petit Larousse Illustré has nothing on bleu drapeau, but has:
Bleu roi : bleu soutenu (celui du drapeau francais) (King blue: strong blue, the blue of the French flag).
Therefore, it seems that the use of a dark blue for the French flag has been widely accepted, since it is highligted to examplify the "King blue" shade.

Ivan Sache, 23 September 2001

Jean-Pierre Raffarin, Prime Minister of France from 6 May 2002 to 31 May 2005, made a consistent use of his own interpretation of the colours of the flag in his political speeches.

8 May 2002 - Interview by F. Leroy, France3 Poitiers, the regional TV channel of Poitou, Raffarin's region.
Mais aujourd hui, je sers ces trois belles couleurs, le bleu de notre histoire, le blanc de nos espoirs, et le rouge du sang de nos ancêtres, ce drapeau bleu, blanc, rouge [...] (Today, I serve these three beautiful colours, the blue of our history, the white of our hopes, and the red of the blood of our ancestors, this blue, white, red flag [...])

11 November 2002 - Commemoration of the 11 November 1918 Armistice in Rethondes, the place where the Armistice was signed.
Ce drapeau qui allie le bleu de notre histoire, le blanc de notre espoir et le rouge du sang de nos aînés, le sang de notre gloire [...] (This flag, which matches the blue of our history, the white of our hope and the red of the blood of our elders, the blood of our glory [...])

7 March 2003 - European Forum in Avignon.
[...] notre appartenance à notre drapeau, à ce bleu de l'histoire, à ce blanc de notre espoir, à ce rouge du sang de nos ancêtres. ( [...] our sence of belonging to our flag, to this blue of history, this white of hope, this red of the blood of our ancestors.)

Ivan Sache, 22 November 2003

Nickname of the French flag

Nouveau Petit Larousse Illustré has for Tricolore the following entry:

Tricolore adj. (du pref. tri , et du latin color , couleur). De trois couleurs. Le drapeau tricolore, le drapeau français. - L'origine des trois couleurs qui figurent dans notre drapeau national remonte à l'année 1789 : pour cimenter la bonne intelligence entre le roi et la ville de Paris, dans la journée où, suivant le mot heureux de Bailly, Paris reconquit son roi, on réunit à la couleur blanche, qui était celle de la royauté, le bleu et le rouge, couleurs qui figuraient dans les armes de la ville de Paris.
Tricolore adj. (from prefix tri and Latin color, colour). Of three colours. Le drapeau tricolore: The French flag. - The origins of the three colours shown on our national flag dates back to year 1789: In order to create a good relation between the King and the town of Paris, on the day where, as Bailly expressed it rejoicing, Paris reconquered its King, the colour white, which was that of Royalty, was associated with blue and red, which are colours figuring in the arms of the town of Paris.

Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 26 September 2001

Decree on the French flag

The French National Convention adopted as national flag the three colours blue, white, red on 15 February 1794 - or more exactly, on 27 Pluviôse of the Year II, according to the revolutionary calendar. The Decree says:

II. The national flag shall be formed of the three national colours, set in three equal bands, placed vertically so that blue is closed to the staff of the flag, white in the middle, and red at the fly.
III. The jack and the ensign are formed in the same way, observing the size proportions established by custom.
IV. The commissioning pennant shall also be made of the three colours, with one-fifth blue, one-fifth white, and three-fifths red.

Armand Noël du Payrat, 4 February 1998