2015 in France

Incumbents

President – François Hollande (Socialist)

Prime Minister – Manuel Valls (Socialist)

January

January 7 – Gunmen kill 12 people at the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo in Paris.

January 8 – One of the suspects in the killings, Hamyd Mourad, volunteerily surrenders to police at Charleville-Mézières while the other two suspects are still at large.

January 9 – Gunshots are reported in Dammartin-en-Goele as a manhunt continues for two suspects nearby.

January 9 – A hostage situation occurs at a Jewish market, Hypercacher, in the eastern Paris suburb of Vincennes. There are two suspected hostage takers, Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, and Amedy Coulibaly, 32, who were previously suspected of shooting a policewoman dead earlier in the week. There were at least sixteen hostages. The standoff ends with Coulibaly dead as well as four hostages. Four additional hostages and two police officers require hospitalization. Boumeddiene remains at large.

February

February 9 – Hooded gunmen attack French police in the city of Marseille, which Prime Minister Manuel Valls is due to visit.

March

March 9 – Villa Castelli helicopter collision: Two helicopters collide over Western Argentina, killing 10 people, including three French sports stars.

March 22 – Voters in France go to the polls for the first round of voting in local government elections. Exit polls show the conservative UMP in first place, Marine Le Pen's National Front in second, with President Francois Hollande's French Socialist Party in third.

March 24 – A Germanwings flight carrying 144 passengers and six crew crashes en route from Barcelona, Spain, to Düsseldorf, Germany, in a mountainous region of the Alps near Digne-les-Bains in Southern France. All on board are dead.

April

April 16 – Vladimir Putin wants France to refund Russia for Mistral warships. The deal for these warships may not go through because of conflict over the Ukrainian crisis

April 19 – Sid Ahmed Ghlam, a 24-year-old Algerian student, is arrested in Paris on suspicion of plotting a terrorist attack on one or more churches as well as for the killing of Aurélie Châtelain.

April 22 – President François Hollande says he will refund Russia for the Mistral warships if the deal falls through

April 30- Qatar buys 24 Rafale fighter jets from France, paying about 6.3 billion euros (or 7.05 million US dollars). Qatar is in search of military power due to instability in the Middle Eastern region. They are fearful of recent conflict in Yemen, Syria, and Libya, as well as the growing power of Iran. The deal also "includes MBDA missiles, and the training of 36 Qatari pilots and 100 technicians by the French army". France's arms exports are now at 15 billion euros for this year.

May

May 4 – Gilles Le Guen, who is accused of working with a branch of Al-Queda in North Africa, goes into trial in Paris. He is the first person to go on trial for a new anti-terrorism law that was passed in 2012. This law "allows French prosecutors to go after citizens who are suspected of participating in terrorist acts on foreign soil, or who have left the country to receive terrorist training."

May 6 – The French parliament passes a bill that gives power to intelligence services to do things such as tap cell phones and read emails. Intelligence services can use these powers "while bypassing the judiciary". The point of this bill is to protect France from security threats. The bill has raised questions about privacy of the French people

May 7

A French family is trapped in Portuguese water after their ship capsizes near the mid-Atlantic Azores islands. The six-year-old girl of the family dies of hypothermia after being stranded in 21 degree Celsius water for 7 hours. The rest of the family was rescued by a Spanish hospital ship.

Wiretaps of Nicolas Sarkozy (head of the UMP) were approved by a French court to be used as evidence. These wiretappings would likely be used against Sarkozy in a corruption case against him. Sarkozy's phones were first bugged "over allegations that he accepted illicit payments from L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt for his 2007 presidential campaign, much of it in cash-filled envelopes." The recordings entail conversations between Sarkozy and his lawyer. This case is seen as a threat to Sarkozy's recent "political comeback".

The state prosecutor of France confirms that judges in France will investigate rape allegations against French peacekeepers in Bangui, Central African Republic. The allegations come from six children between the ages of 9 and 13, claiming that fourteen French soldiers raped them in exchange for food between December 2013 and June 2014.

August

August 21 – An attempted mass shooting occurred on board a Thalys train on its way to Paris from Amsterdam. Four people including the assailant were injured but no fatalities were reported. Three Americans and one British person, who all helped to subdue the gunmen, were made Knights of the Legion of Honour (Chevaliers de la Légion d'honneur) by president François Hollande.

November

November 13 – Terrorist attacks rip through France with as many as 130 people reported to be dead. The Islamic State claims responsibility of the shooting.

January

January 1 – Géry Leuliet, Roman Catholic prelate (b. 1910)

January 2

Charles Baur, politician (b. 1929)

Maurice Fontaine, politician (b. 1919)

January 4 – Ives Roqueta, Occitan author (b. 1936)

January 5 – Jean-Pierre Beltoise, racing driver (b. 1937)

January 7

Cabu, cartoonist (b. 1938)

Elsa Cayat, psychoanalyst and columnist (b. 1960)

Charb, cartoonist and journalist (b. 1967)

Philippe Honoré, cartoonist (b. 1941)

Bernard Maris, economist and journalist (b. 1946)

Mustapha Ourrad, Algerian-born French copy editor (b. 1954)

Tignous, cartoonist (b. 1957)

Georges Wolinski, cartoonist (b. 1934)

January 9

Amedy Coulibaly, Islamic Jihadist (b. 1982)

Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, Islamic Jihadists (b. 1980 and 1982)

Christian Vanneque, sommelier and restaurateur (b. 1949)

January 15 – Jean-Claude Baker, French-born American restaurateur (b. 1943)

January 16 – Patrick Journoud, athlete (b. 1964)

January 20 – Wilfride Piollet, ballerina and choreographer (b. 1943)

January 24 – Robert Bonnaventure, cyclist (b. 1920)

January 25 – Pierre Gosnat, politician (b. 1948)

January 28 – Yves Chauvin, Belgian-French Nobel chemist (b. 1930)

February

February 1 – Aldo Ciccolini, Italian-French pianist (b. 1925)

February 6 – Assia Djebar, Algerian writer (b. 1936)

February 10

Corinne Le Poulain, actress (b. 1948)

Bernard Marie, rugby league referee and politician (b. 1918)

February 12 – Désiré Dondeyne, composer (b. 1921)

February 14

Louis Jourdan, actor (b. 1921)

Philippe Massoni, prefect (b. 1936)

February 17 – Henri Martin, political activist (b. 1927)

February 19 – Gérard Ducarouge, Formula One car designer (b. 1941)

February 20 – Gérard Calvi, French film score composer (b. 1922)

March

March 2 – Bettina Graziani, fashion model (b. 1925)

March 3

André Brulé, racing driver (b. 1921)

Gilles Cistac, French-Mozambican human rights lawyer (b. 1961)

March 9

Florence Arthaud, sailor (b. 1957)

Camille Muffat, swimmer (b. 1989)

Alexis Vastine, boxer (b. 1986)

March 24

Oleg Bryjak, Kazakh-German opera singer (b. 1960)

Maria Radner, German opera singer (b. 1981)

Victims of crash of Germanwings Flight 9525

April

April 19 – Murder of Aurélie Châtelain, a fitness instructor.

May

May 10 - Rachel Rosenthal, French-American actress and dancer (b. 1926)

May 17 - Claude Carliez, French fencer and stuntman (b. 1925)

July

July 17 - Jules Bianchi, racing driver (b. 1989)

December

December 23 - Jean-Marie Pelt , a biologist.