list of presidents of France

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list of presidents of France

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Article History

Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was elected the first president of France in 1848. Prior to that point, the country had been ruled by kings, emperors, and various executives. The succession of republics was several times interrupted (1852–70, 1940–44, and 1944–46) by other forms of government that did not entail a presidency. This is a chronologically ordered list of the presidents of France. (See also major rulers of France.)

Second Republic (1848–52)

Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte (1848–52)

Third Republic (1870–1940)

Adolphe Thiers (1871–73)
Patrice de Mac-Mahon (1873–79)
Jules Grévy (1879–87)
Sadi Carnot (1887–94)
Jean Casimir-Périer (1894–95)
Félix Faure (1895–99)
Émile Loubet (1899–1906)
Armand Fallières (1906–13)
Raymond Poincaré (1913–20)
Paul Deschanel (1920)
Alexandre Millerand (1920–24)
Gaston Doumergue (1924–31)
Paul Doumer (1931–32)
Albert Lebrun (1932–40)

Fourth Republic (1946–58)

Vincent Auriol (1947–54)
René Coty (1954–59)

Fifth Republic (1958– )

Charles de Gaulle (1959–69)
Georges Pompidou (1969–74)
Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (1974–81)
François Mitterrand (1981–95)
Jacques Chirac (1995–2007)
Nicolas Sarkozy (2007–12)
François Hollande (2012–17)
Emmanuel Macron (2017– )

This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.