Events from the year 1956 in France.

• President: René Coty
• President of the Council of Ministers: Edgar Faure (until 1 February), Guy Mollet (starting 1 February)

• 2 January – Legislative Election held.
• 1 February – Socialist leader Guy Mollet becomes prime minister
• 2 March – Morocco declares its independence from France.
• 20 March – Tunisia gains independence from France.
• 23 May – Minister Pierre Mendès-France resigns due to his government's policy on Algeria.
• 23 June – Loi Cadre passed by the French National Assembly, first step in the creation of the French Union.
• 10 September – Guy Mollet visits London and proposes a merger of France and the United Kingdom. However the idea is rejected by British Prime Minister Anthony Eden.^[1]
• 28 September – Eden considers allowing France to join the Commonwealth of Nations, but this idea is also rejected.^[1]
• 31 October – Suez Crisis: The United Kingdom and France begin bombing Egypt to force the reopening of the Suez Canal.
• 6 November – British and French forces seize control of two Egyptian ports before declaring a ceasefire.^[2]
• 7 November – Suez Crisis: The United Nations General Assembly adopts a resolution calling for the United Kingdom, France and Israel to withdraw their troops from Arab lands immediately.
• 23 December – British and French troops leave Suez Canal. region.^[3]
• The Tefal cookware firm is established.

• Two attacks are made on Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa in the Louvre.^[4][5]
• 28 November – Roger Vadim's film And God Created Woman (Et Dieu… créa la femme), starring Brigitte Bardot, is released.
• 3 December – Writing under the pseudonym of Emile Ajar, author Romain Gary becomes the only person ever to win the Prix Goncourt twice, this time for Les Racines du ciel.

• 5 July – Tour de France begins.
• 28 July – Tour de France ends, won by Roger Walkowiak.

• 1 January – Christine Lagarde, politician
• 11 February – Didier Lockwood, jazz violinist (died 2018)
• 26 February – Michel Houellebecq, novelist
• 28 May – Francis Joyon, yachtsman
• 4 July – Éric Neuhoff, novelist and journalist
• 28 October – Jean-Luc Montama, karateka^[6]
• 9 December – Jean-Pierre Thiollet journalist

• 5 January – Mistinguett, singer (born 1875)
• 3 February – Émile Borel, mathematician and politician (born 1871)
• 18 February – Gustave Charpentier, composer (born 1860)
• 17 March – Irène Joliot-Curie, scientist, shared Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935 (born 1897)
• 20 May – Pierre Allemane, international soccer player (born 1882)
• 11 September – Lucien Febvre, social historian (born 1878)
• 26 October – Walter Gieseking, pianist and composer (born 1895)^[7]
• 23 November – André Marty, leading figure in the French Communist Party (born 1886)

• 1956 in French television
• List of French films of 1956