Historical orders of France

This page is a list of the orders of knighthood and awarded by France, in the order they were established or incorporated in France, and their origins.

On January 1, 1791, the Order of Saint Louis and the Order of Military Merit were merged into the Military Decoration by the Convention, the revolutionary parliament. (French: "la Decoration Militaire")

Revolutionary France abolished in 1793 all knighthood orders of the monarchy. There were nevertheless decorations such as medals and weapons of Honour.

The French Republic possessed in Asia, Africa and America a large colonial empire. For the purposes of this huge area, a number of "Colonial orders of knighthood" were established or incorporated.

They were :

In addition, the Governor-General of French Indo-China established in 1900 :

France had also not enough in the fatherland with the Legion of Honor. The various ministries therefore proposed that they themselves managed and issued orders to:

In 1940, a French government was formed in exile . They suggested a knighthood order as:

The France-remaining government of Marshal Philippe Pétain, the so-called "Vichy government", proposed 2 knighthood orders:

The Fourth Republic knew a very large quantity of knighthood orders and decorations. There were in 1945 16 knighthood orders. The traditional position of the Legion of Honour as highest and most prominent award remained formally intact but the French ministers founded for use in homeland and overseas no less than 11 new orders.

The French ministries kept on establishing Ministerial Orders so there were finally 19 :

The French Republic knew following a decree of 1 September 1950 two "Orders of Overseas France" (Ordres de la France d'Outre-mer) :

The two Orders were an heritage of the colonial time during which the decorations of the colonized states such as Dahomey and the Comores were included in the French orders system. The French government awarded the Order of the Black Star in Europe until 1 January 1964. The decolonisation and restructuring of the French colonial empire, one speaks now of the "French Union", made necessary other adaptations in the French knighthood orders.

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