Events from the year 1846 in France.

• Monarch – Louis Philippe I

• 9 January – Barentin Viaduct on the Paris–Le Havre railway collapses soon after its completion by English engineers.^[1]
• 1 August – Legislative election held for the seventh legislature of the July Monarchy.
• 19 September – Our Lady of La Salette apparition.
• Dubonnet first sold.

• 1 January - Léon Denis, spiritist philosopher and researcher (died 1927)
• 4 April - Comte de Lautréamont, poet (died 1870)
• 8 May - Émile Gallé, artist (died 1904)
• 21 May - Luc-Olivier Merson, painter and illustrator (died 1920)
• 11 July - Léon Bloy, novelist, essayist, pamphleteer and poet (died 1917)
• 8 August - Élisabeth Renaud, teacher, socialist activist, and feminist (died 1932)
• 21 August - Étienne Bazeries, military cryptanalyst (died 1931)
• 2 September - Paul Déroulède, author and politician (died 1914)
• 24 October - Denis Jean Achille Luchaire, historian (died 1908)
• 28 October - Albert Dubois-Pillet, painter and army officer (died 1890)
• 28 October - Auguste Escoffier, chef, restaurateur and culinary writer (died 1935)
• 30 October - Victor, 5th duc de Broglie, aristocrat (died 1906)

• 17 June - Jean-Gaspard Deburau, actor and mime (born 1796)
• 25 July - Louis Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon I of France (born 1778)
• 16 August - Sylvain Charles Valée, Marshal of France (born 1773)
• 22 December - Jean Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent, naturalist (born 1778)