French Flag Now Has A Darker Blue — It's The Traditional Pre-1976 Tone & Symbol Of French Revolution

The blue in the French Tricolore no longer matches that in the European Union flag and returns to the pre-1976 tone that ‘evokes the memory’ of the heroes who fought in the French Revolution

A French flag flies at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris in December 2020 | Photo: Getty

New Delhi: The official flag of France has started to look a little more blue now. President Emmanuel Macron’s office has reverted the blue colour of the flag to how it was after the French Revolution — a change that appears to go largely unnoticed. 

The change in the colour to the flags flying around the Elysée Palace to navy blue was first made a year ago, but without much fanfare, news agency AFP reported.

It was then President Valery Giscard d'Estaing who had switched the colour to a lighter blue in 1976, matching it to the European Union flag that displays yellow stars on a blue background.

The colour, navy blue, marks a return to tradition as the tricolour goes back to the pre-1976 tone.

"The President of the Republic (Emmanuel Macron) has chosen for the tricolour flags that adorn the Élysée Palace the navy blue that evokes the imagination of the Volunteers of Year II, the Poilus of 1914 and the Compagnons de la Libération of Free France," an AFP report quoted the Presidency as saying.

"It is also the blue of the flag that has always flown under the Arc de Triomphe every (Armistice Day) 11 November," it added.

The Volunteers of Year II were the men who voluntarily enrolled in the army in 1791, when France was still reeling from the Revolution and trying to defend its territory from a Prussia-led coalition.

The French presidential election is due in April 2022, and the country is set to take on the rotating EU presidency in January.

Quoting a presidential official who didn’t want to be named, AFP reported that flags with the navy blue shade were placed behind Macron at speeches from 2018 and then on those flying around the Elysee Palace and other presidential buildings from 2020.

The official said the draker blue "evokes the memory" of the heroes who fought in the French Revolution, and also the trenches of World War I and in the Resistance during WWII.

The change was finally noticed after a book, "Elysee Confidential", published recently by journalists Eliot Blondet and Paul Larrouturou, revealed this.

According to the book, the initiative came from Arnaud Jolens, head of operations at the Elysee, who was interviewed for the book. The change is believed to have cost a symbolic 5,000 euros.

"Giscard changed this blue for aesthetic reasons during integration with Europe, but the flag that all the presidents took along with them ever since was not the real French flag," Jolens is quoted as saying in the book, according to the AFP report.