1885 in France

Incumbents

• President: Jules Grévy
• President of the Council of Ministers: Jules Ferry, Henri Brisson

  Events

• 28 February – Siege of Tuyên Quang ends, as French Foreign Legion is relieved after being besieged by forces of the Empire of China.
• 23 March – Battle of Bang Bo in Vietnam, significant battle of the Sino-French War and French defeat. Led to the Tonkin Affair, a major political crisis.
• 28 March – French abandon Lạng Sơn.
• 9 June – Sino-French War ends as treaty is signed.
• 14 October – Legislative Election held.
• 18 October – Legislative Election held.

  Births

January to June

• 8 January – Charles Basle, motor racing driver
• 22 January – Eugène Christophe, cyclist
• 28 January – Maurice Brocco, cyclist
• 1 February – Camille Chautemps, politician and three times Prime Minister of France
• 6 March – Yvonne Gall, operatic soprano
• 16 March – Fernand Baldet, astronomer
• 23 March – Yves le Prieur, naval officer and inventor
• 6 April – Jules Goux, motor racing driver
• 5 June – Georges Mandel, politician and Resistance leader
• 15 June – Roland Dorgelès, novelist
• 27 June – Pierre Montet, Egyptologist

  July to December

• 5 July – André Lhote, sculptor and painter
• 26 July – André Maurois, author and man of letters
• 26 August – Jules Romains, poet and writer
• 31 August – Lucien Chopard, entomologist
• 15 September – Marcel Allain, writer
• 11 October – François Mauriac, author, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
• 25 October – Xavier Lesage, horse rider and Olympic gold medallist
• 10 November – Lou Albert-Lasard, painter
• 23 December – Pierre Brissaud, illustrator, painter and engraver

  Full date unknown

• Camille Arambourg, paleontologist

  Deaths

• 10 January – Amable Tastu, woman of letters.
• 16 January – Edmond François Valentin About, novelist, publicist and journalist
• 18 April – Marc Monnier, writer
• 3 May – Paul-Quentin Desains, physicist
• 18 May – Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville, painter
• 22 May – Victor Hugo, poet, playwright, novelist and statesman
• June – Amédée Courbet, admiral
• 29 July – Henri Milne-Edwards, zoologist
• 17 December – Augustus Thébaud, Jesuit educator and publicist
• 24 December – Louis Prosper Gachard, man of letters