In the last few days, the national press has taken hold of the change of color of the French flag. For a year, the emblem of France has not had the same blue. The information revealed by the head of the political service of Europe 1 Louis de Raguenel had so far gone unnoticed.
An old story!
"This change of color is an old story: the French flag was historically a rather navy blue. Then under the presidency of Valerie Giscard d'Estaing in 1976, this blue changed to a royal blue, which is lighter, to get closer to the blue of the European flag. The national navy always uses the navy blue" explains Arnaud de Leissègues, manager of Drapeaux Dejean-Marine located in Bordeaux.
The company, which works mainly for the navy, has supplied the official store of the Élysée Palace for several years. "We almost never use the lighter blue. In fact, the flags we made for the Elysee store two or three years ago were already in navy blue." he adds.
From Pantone Reflex Blue to Pantone 281
For Eric Borney, manager of the company Borney located in Argentan in the Orne region, which provides flags for French municipalities and various international events, the lightest blue is mainly chosen. "Yes the color has changed in the last year. And oddly enough, today is the day the world is taking notice."
However, the company manager has never received any official instructions in this regard. "Since always, our customers have the choice to order on our website the land flag which has a slightly less strong blue or the navy flag which is used in the navy. euros 90 %, it is the lighter blue, the land flag that is requested. With this media coverage, we will surely revisit these designations and the demand for navy blue should increase."
And the flag maker states: "The blue say 'Valerie Giscard d'Estaing' is the Pantone Reflex Blue. As for the navy blue, it is Pantone 281."
A tricolor flag simply "blue, white, red"
However, the colors of the flag are not really standardized. "The color codes appear in the bids, but other than that, there is no obligation." says Arnaud de Leissègues of Drapeaux Dejean-Marine.
The tricolor flag, the only national emblem of France, is defined in Article 2 of the Constitution of the Fifth Republic by these simple words: "The national emblem is the tricolor flag, blue, white, red."
The surprising peculiarity of the French Navy flag
Moreover, the French flag used by the French Navy is not composed of three vertical stripes of equal width. "Normally blue is smaller than white and white is smaller than red, but this is rarely respected" notes Eric Borney. Blue has a 30% share, white 33% and red 37%.
