When was the last national mourning in France?

Emmanuel Macron declared a day of national mourning in France on Monday December 23. This moment of contemplation in support of the victims of Cyclone Chido in Mayotte is a first under the Fifth Republic. Never since 1958 has national mourning been declared after a natural disaster.

The only identical example dates back to 1930 during the floods which devastated the south-west of France after a hundred-year flood of the Tarn. Nearly a hundred years later, no reliable assessment is available. The most cautious sources suggest around twenty deaths. Others speak of 300 victims. Around 10,000 people were left homeless.

Only one precedent before the Fifth Republic

This March 9, 1930 is therefore the only national mourning organized before 1958, specifies Vie publique, the information site which depends on the Prime Minister’s services. The ten other days of national mourning (including that of December 23) were all under the Fifth Republic. For most of them, as a sign of contemplation after the death of former Presidents of the Republic: de Gaulle in 1970, Pompidou in 1974, Mitterrand in 1996, Chirac in 2019, Giscard d’Estaing in 2020.

On September 14, 2001, the day of mourning concerned for the first time a terrorist attack: those of September 11 in the United States. It is also, to date, the only national mourning for events that occurred outside French territory.

Our file on the disaster in Mayotte

The three other national mournings were declared after attacks which devastated France. January 8, 2015 after the one against Charlie Hebdo the day before. On November 15, 16 and 17, 2015, following the attacks of November 13 in Île-de-France, particularly at the Bataclan. It was then the first time that a three-day mourning was decreed by François Hollande. This was the case again from July 16 to 18, 2016, after July 14 in Nice.