Events from the year 1908 in France.
Incumbents President: Armand Fallières President of the Council of Ministers: Georges Clemenceau
Events 12 January – A long-distance radio message is sent from the Eiffel Tower for the first time. 21 March – Henri Farman pilots the first passenger flight.
Arts
Pierre Bonnard - Nu à contre-jour Georges Braque Le Compotier Maisons à l'Estaque Raoul Dufy - Arbres à L'Estaque Roger de La Fresnaye - Allée des Acacias in the Bois de Boulogne Henri Matisse Les Baigneuses à la tortue La Desserte rouge Les Joueurs de boules Portrait de Greta Moll Jean Metzinger - Baigneuses Claude Monet Le Palais Ducal vu de Saint-Georges Majeur Le Grand Canal Le Palais Ducal
Film
Charles le Bargy & André Calmettes - L'Assassinat du duc de Guise Albert Capellani - L'Arlésienne Segundo de Chomón - Excursion dans la lune Émile Cohl - Fantasmagorie Georges Méliès Le Mariage de Thomas Poirot La Toile d'araignée merveilleuse La Photographie électrique à distance Le Nouveau Seigneur du village Hallucinations pharmaceutiques ou le Truc du potard
Literature
Henri Barbusse - L'Enfer Anatole France - L'île des Pingouins Jean de La Hire - La Roue fulgurante Maurice Leblanc - Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes Gaston Leroux - Le parfum de la dame en noir Maurice Renard - Le Docteur Lerne, sous-dieu
Music
Isaac Albéniz - Iberia, Livre 4 Claude Debussy Children's Corner Images, 2e série Gabriel Fauré - Sérénade, Op. 98 Jules Massenet - Espada Gabriel Pierné - Ramuntcho Maurice Ravel - Rapsodie espagnole Camille Saint-Saëns - L'Assassinat du duc de Guise
Sport 13 July – Tour de France begins. 9 August – Tour de France ends, won by Lucien Petit-Breton.
Births
January to March 9 January – Simone de Beauvoir, author and philosopher (died 1986) 12 January – Jean Delannoy, actor, screenwriter and film director (died 2008) 26 January – Stéphane Grappelli, jazz violinist (died 1997) 31 January – Simonne Mathieu, tennis player (died 1980) 11 February – Pierre Hornus, footballer (died 1995) 12 February – Jean Effel, painter, illustrator and journalist (died 1982) 26 February – Jean-Pierre Wimille, motor racing driver and resistance member (died 1949) 27 February – Pierre Brunet, rowing coxswain and Olympic medallist (died 1979) 29 February – Balthus, artist (died 2001) 5 March – Christian Boussus, tennis player (died 2003) 8 March – Raymond Dronne, politician (died 1991) 14 March – Maurice Merleau-Ponty, phenomenological philosopher (died 1961) 20 March – Roger Trinquier, army officer (died 1986) 25 March – Henri Rochereau, politician and European Commissioner (died 1999)
April to June 9 April – Paula Nenette Pepin, composer, pianist and lyricist (died 1990) 12 April – André Martinet, linguist (died 1999) 21 April – Louis Hostin, weightlifter and Olympic champion (died 1998) 5 May – Jacques Massu, General (died 2002) 29 May – Pierre-Henri Teitgen, lawyer, professor and politician (died 1997) 30 May – André Cheuva, soccer player (died 1989) 2 June – Marcel Langiller, international soccer player (died 1980) 12 June – Henri Rol-Tanguy, communist and leader in the French Resistance (died 2002)
July to September 2 July – Léon Arthur Elchinger, Bishop of Strasbourg (died 1998) 5 July – Henri, comte de Paris, Orléanist claimant to the French throne (died 1999) 12 July – Alain Cuny, actor (died 1994) 25 July – Robert-Ambroise-Marie Carré, priest and author (died 2004) 5 August – Shlomo Pines, French-born Israeli scholar of Jewish and Islamic philosophy (died 1990) 18 August – Edgar Faure, politician, essayist, historian, and memoirist (died 1988) 22 August – Henri Cartier-Bresson, photographer (died 2004) 28 August – Robert Merle, novelist (died 2004) 2 September – Fania Fénelon, pianist, composer and cabaret singer (died 1983) 8 September – Luc Étienne (Périn), writer (died 1984). 19 September – Paul Bénichou, writer, critic and literary historian (died 2001) 19 September – Robert Lecourt, jurist, fourth President of the European Court of Justice (died 2004) 25 September – Jacqueline Audry, film director (died 1977) 25 September – Roger Beaufrand, Olympic gold medal-winning cyclist (died 2007)
October to December 30 October – Marcel Béalu, writer (died 1993) 1 November – Sylvia Bataille, actress (died 1993) 4 November – Pauline Trigère, fashion designer (died 2002) 6 November – Françoise Dolto, physician and psychoanalyst (died 1988) 16 November – Emmanuelle Cinquin, religious sister (died 2008) 19 November – Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur, organist and composer (died 2002) 24 November – Simone de la Chaume, golfer (died 2001). 10 December – Olivier Messiaen, composer, organist and ornithologist (died 1992) 17 December – Raymond Louviot, cyclist (died 1969) 31 December – Pauline de Rothschild, fashion icon and tastemaker (died 1976)
Full date unknown Gilbert Degrémont, water treatment expert (died 1974) Célestin Lainé, Breton nationalist and collaborator (died 1983)
Deaths 29 January – François-Marie-Benjamin Richard, Archbishop of Paris (born 1819) 13 April Victor André Cornil, pathologist (born 1837) 7 May – Ludovic Halévy, author and playwright (born 1834) 14 August – Jules Liégeois, jurist, member of the Nancy School of Hypnosis (born 1833) 25 August – Henri Becquerel, physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1852) 14 November – Denis Jean Achille Luchaire, historian (born 1846) 20 November – Marie-Louis-Antoine-Gaston Boissier, classical scholar (born 1823) 27 November – Jean Albert Gaudry, geologist and palaeontologist (born 1827) 5 December – Ernest Hébert, painter (born 1817) Full date unknown – Jacques-Eugène Feyen, painter (born 1815)
References