28 January – Philippe Bernard, the French ambassador to Zaire, is killed in an attack on the French Embassy in Kinshasa by soldiers rioting against Zaire's President Mobutu Sese Seko.[1]
16 February – A memorial dedicated to French casualties in the First Indochina War is inaugurated by President François Mitterrand in Fréjus.[2]
18 February – Peugeot launches the 306 range of hatchbacks, estates, convertibles and saloons, which will mainly be built at Peugeot's factory near Coventry in England, which was formerly owned by the Rootes Group and the now-defunct European division of Chrysler.[3]
7 March – Citroën launches the Xantia[4] five-door hatchback, which replaces the 10-year-old BX. An estate model is due next year.[5]
20 March - Peugeot launched the 306 hatchback, which replaces the 309 and some versions of the 205.
April – The closure of four national observatories by the end of the decade is announced in a cost-saving measure to maintain France's funding commitments towards international astronomical facilities.[7]
15 May – Teacher Laurence Dreyfus and six children are rescued by police after being held hostage by a gunman in a nursery school in Paris for two days. Dreyfus is later awarded the Légion D'honneur for her bravery.[8]
8 June – René Bousquet, a banker and a former police administrator in Vichy France, is shot dead in his Parisian home. The shooter, Christian Didier, is arrested later that day after confessing in an impromptu press conference held with television media.[10]
18 June – Météo-France, the nation's meteorological service, is established.[11]
December – The Renault Laguna is launched as a hatchback to replace the Renault 21 hatchback and saloon, although the Savanna estate will continue until 1995 when the Laguna estate is launched.
2 December – A planned merger between Renault and Swedish car maker Volvo to create the world's sixth largest automotive manufacturer is cancelled after executives at Volvo force a withdrawal over concerns about the direction of the future merged company.[14]
10 December – Air France Flight 2306 between Paris and Nice is hijacked by a knife-wielding man shortly before arriving at Nice. Despite demands to be flown to Tripoli, the aircraft lands as intended at Cote d'Azur airport, where all 123 passengers and six crew members onboard are released unharmed.[15]
Arts and literature
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^Borretti, Catherine (2012). "The French Vigilance System, Contributing to the Reduction of Disaster Risks in France". In Golnaraghi, Maryam (ed.). Institutional Partnerships in Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 66. ISBN9783642253737.
