1944 in France

Incumbents

• Chairman of the Provisional Government: Philippe Pétain, Charles de Gaulle
• Vice-President of the Council of Ministers: Pierre Laval, Charles de Gaulle

  Events

• 15 March - The National Council of the French Resistance approves the Resistance programme.
• 1 June - BBC transmits coded messages to underground resistance fighters in France warning that the invasion of Europe is imminent.
• 2 June - The provisional French government is established.
• 5 June - More than 1000 British bombers drop 5000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries on the Normandy coast in preparation for D-Day.
• 5 June - At 10:15 p.m. local time, the BBC transmits coded messages including the second line of the Paul Verlaine poem to the underground resistance indicating that the invasion of Europe is about to begin.
• 6 June - Battle of Normandy begins - Operation Overlord, code named D-Day, commences with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy.
• 6 June - Battle of Cherbourg begins.
• 7 June - Bayeux liberated by British troops.
• 9 June - Over 200 people are killed by 2nd SS Panzer Division in the Tulle massacre
• 10 June - 642 people are killed by 2nd SS Panzer Division in the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre.
• 10 June - Battle of Carentan begins.
• 13 June - Battle of Bloody Gulch, near Carentan, United States forces victory.
• 14 June - Battle of Carentan ends with Allied victory.
• 26 June - American troops enter Cherbourg.
• 30 June - Battle of Cherbourg ends with the fall of the strategically valuable port to American forces.
• 9 July - British and Canadian forces capture Caen.
• 9 August - the declared the Constitutional Law of 1940 issued by the Provisional Government void ab initio.
• 12 August - The world's first undersea oil pipeline is laid, between England and France in Operation Pluto.
• 15 August - Operation Dragoon lands Allies in southern France.
• 19 August - Liberation of Paris: The city rises against German occupation with the help of Allied troops.
• 20 August - American forces successfully defeat German forces at Chambois. This victory closed the Falaise Gap.
• 24 August - Liberation of Paris: The Allies enter Paris, successfully completing Operation Overlord.
• 25 August
• *German surrender of Paris: General Dietrich von Choltitz surrenders Paris to the Allies, in defiance of Hitler's orders to destroy it.
• *Maillé massacre: 129 civilians are massacred by the Gestapo at Maillé, Indre-et-Loire.
• *The Red Ball Express convoy system begins operation, supplying tons of materiel to Allied forces in France.
• 26 August - Toulon liberated in Battle of Toulon .
• 28 August - Marseille liberated in Battle of Marseille.
• 8 September - Menton is liberated from Germany.
• 11 September - Northern and Southern France invasion forces link up near Dijon.
• 24 September - The U.S. Army 45th Infantry Division takes the strongly defended city of Epinal before crossing the Moselle River and entering the western foothills of the Vosges.
• 5 October - Royal Canadian Air Force pilots shoot down the first German jet fighter over France.
• 31 October - Mass murderer Marcel Petiot is apprehended in a Paris Métro station.
• 23 November - Liberation of Strasbourg.
• Toymaker Jouef established.

  Arts and literature

• 6 February - Première of Jean Anouilh's tragedy Antigone, at the Théâtre de l'Atelier in Nazi-occupied Paris.
• May - Première of Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist drama Huis Clos, at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in Nazi-occupied Paris.

  Births

January to June

• 17 January - Françoise Hardy, singer.
• 10 February - Jean-Daniel Cadinot, film director and producer
• 25 February - François Cevert, motor racing driver
• 7 April - Jean-Pierre Brucato, soccer player
• 22 May - Henri Guédon, percussionist
• 25 May - Pierre Bachelet, singer songwriter
• 26 May - Laurent-Michel Vacher, philosopher, writer and journalist
• 22 June
• * Pierre Goldman, left-wing intellectual, convicted of several robberies and assassinated
• * Gérard Mourou, electrical engineer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics
• 24 June - Ticky Holgado, actor

  July to December

• 12 July - Jean-François Jenny-Clark, double bass player
• 9 August - Patrick Depailler, motor racing driver
• 14 August - Jean-François Bizot, journalist and writer
• 2 September - Gilles Marchal, songwriter and singer
• 6 September - Christian Boltanski, photographer, sculptor and installation artist

  Full date unknown

• Jean-Jacques Le Chenadec, urban violence victim

  Deaths

• 14 January - Eugène Louis Bouvier, entomologist and carcinologist
• 31 January - Jean Giraudoux, novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright
• 4 February - Yvette Guilbert, singer and actress
• 5 March - Max Jacob, poet, painter, writer and critic
• 22 March - Pierre Brossolette, journalist and Resistance fighter
• 30 April - Paul Poiret, fashion designer
• 20 May - Fraser Barron, New Zealand bomber pilot at Le Mans
• 6 July - Andrée Borrel, French World War II heroine
• 6 July - Sonia Olschanezky, German-born French Jewish World War II heroine
• 7 July - Georges Mandel, politician and Resistance leader
• 31 July - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, pilot and writer
• 9 September - Robert Benoist, motor racing driver and war hero
• 11 September - Yolande Beekman, World War II heroine
• 13 September - Madeleine Damerment, World War II heroine
• 1 November - Lucien Cayeux, sedimentary petrographer
• 5 November - Alexis Carrel, surgeon and biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• 13 December- Wassily Kandinsky, artist
• 30 December - Romain Rolland, writer, Nobel Prize in Literature