The history of relations between France and Japan goes back to the early 17th century, when a Japanese samurai and ambassador on his way to Rome landed for a few days in Saint-Tropez and created a sensation. France and Japan have enjoyed a very robust and progressive relationship spanning centuries through various contacts in each other's countries by senior representatives, strategic efforts, and cultural exchanges.
Chronology of Franco-Japanese relations
17th–18th centuries
17th-century account of Hasekura's visit to France
1619: François Caron, son of French Huguenot refugees to the Netherlands enters the Dutch East India Company, and becomes the first person of French origin to set foot in Japan in 1619. He stays in Japan for 20 years, where he becomes a Director for the company. He later became the founding Director General of the French East India Company in 1664.
1636: Guillaume Courtet, a French Dominican priest, sets foot in Japan. He penetrates into Japan in clandestinity, against the 1613 interdiction of Christianity. He is caught, tortured, and dies in Nagasaki on September 29, 1637.
No French people visit Japan between 1640 and 1780.
Around 1700, the impostor known as George Psalmanazar claims to come from the Japanese tributary island of Formosa.
1787: La Pérouse (1741–1788) navigates in Japanese waters in 1787. He visits the Ryukyu Islands, and the strait between Hokkaidō and Sakhalin, giving it his name.
1844: A French naval expedition under Captain Fornier-Duplan onboard Alcmène visits Okinawa on April 28, 1844. Trade is denied, but Father Forcade is left behind with a translator.
1865: Shibata Takenaka visits France to prepare for the construction of the Yokosuka arsenal and organize a French military mission to Japan.
1865: On September 12, 1865, the Messageries Maritimes passenger liner ship Dupleix was the first to call at a Japanese port to start a new service with France, both for passengers as well as for cargoes such as Japanese silk.
The first French military mission to Japan in 1867. Jules Brunet in front, second from right.
1868: Kobe incident (February 4). A fight erupts in Kobe between 450 samurai of Okayama Domain and French sailors, leading to the occupation of central Kobe by foreign troops.[2]
1868: Eleven French sailors from the Dupleix are killed in the Sakai incident, in Sakai, near Osaka, by southern rebel forces.
1886: The French naval engineer Emile Bertin starts a four years' stay in Japan to advise the government on how to reinforce the Imperial Japanese Navy with new modern ships, and directs the expansion and modernization of the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal and the design and initial construction of the new arsenals of Kure and Sasebo, thereby contributing to the Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. He was special adviser to Emperor Mutsuhito for naval development and was awarded by the Japanese government with the titles of Takaku Yaku nin et Chokunin.
The first automobile in Japan, a French Panhard-Levassor, in 1898
1898: The first automobile (a Panhard-Levassor) is introduced in Japan.
20th century
1907: Signing of the Franco-Japanese Treaty of 1907. France took the lead in creating alliances with Japan, Russia and (informally) with Britain. Japan wanted to raise a loan in Paris, so France made the loan contingent on a Russo-Japanese agreement and a Japanese guaranty for France's strategically vulnerable possessions in Indochina. Britain encouraged the Russo-Japanese rapprochement. Thus was built the Triple Entente coalition that fought World War I.[3]
1909: The first Japanese mechanical flight, a biplane glider tractored by an automobile, occurs in Ueno through the collaboration of Shiro Aihara and Le Prieur at a French military attaché in Tokyo.
1910: Captain Tokugawa Yoshitoshi, trained in France as a pilot, makes the first self-propelled flight on board a Henri Farman plane.
1910: Sakichi Toyoda, founder of the Toyota Corporation, visits France to study spinning techniques.
1941: Japan pressures the Vichy France into making important military concessions in French Indochina, but leaves the French army and administration intact.
1943: Guangzhouwan, a small French enclave on the southern coast of China, is occupied by the Japanese.
1997: "Year of Japan in France" and the opening of a Japanese cultural centre in Paris.[9]
1998: "Year of France in Japan" in which 400 events took place across Japan to celebrate France and its people.[10]
Franco-Japanese relations today
In June 1996, in Lyon, as part of the G7 summit which took place thanks to the crucial role played by the Consul General of Japan, Louis Michallet, Ryutaro Hashimoto and Jacques Chirac decided to organize "The Year of Japan in France", from April 1997 to March 1998 in order to correct the superficial and sometimes inaccurate understanding of Japanese culture.[11] The start of that year coincided with the inauguration of the House of Culture of Japan in Paris. "The Year of France in Japan" followed "the Year of Japan", the combination of these two events inaugurating Franco-Japanese relations for the 21st century.[12]
In June 2005, France and Japan announced a collaboration to build the next generation supersonic commercial aircraft, a successor to the Concorde. Commercial service is not expected until 2050.[13][14]
The two countries have been collaborating closely in the area of fission energy generation. In September 2013, two years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan has officially accepted help from France for the decommission and dismantle of Fukushima's reactors.[19]Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a Japanese corporation and France's Areva began cooperating on constructing a nuclear reactor in Turkey in 2013.[20]
On 3 May 2023 French Minister for Energy Transition Agnes Pannier-Runacher and Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Nishimura Yasutoshi signed an agreement to develop sodium-cooled fast reactors.[21][22]
^Thierry Mormane : "La prise de possession de l'île d'Urup par la flotte anglo-française en 1855", Revue Cipango, "Cahiers d'études japonaises", No 11 hiver 2004 pp. 209-236.
^Text in League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. 68, pp. 236-239.
^John E. Dreifort, "Japan's advance into Indochina, 1940: the French Response". Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 13.2 (1982): 279-295.
^Kiyoko Kurusu Nitz, "Japanese Military Policy towards French Indochina during the Second World War: The Road to the Meigo Sakusen (9 March 1945)". Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 14.2 (1983): 328-350.
^Beatrice Trefalt, "Japanese War Criminals in Indochina and the French Pursuit of Justice: Local and International Constraints". Journal of Contemporary History 49.4 (2014): 727-742.
^Yamata, Kikou (1998). Le mois sans dieux. 5, rue Bugeaud 69005 Lyon: Jacques Andre Editeur. pp. 1–11. Foreword and prefaces. ISBN2-907922-61-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
Aminian, Nathalie, and K. C. Fung. "Silicon Valley, Japan and France: A Comparative Study of Innovation Systems and Policies" (2019). online
Edwards, Ewen W. "The Far Eastern Agreements of 1907". Journal of Modern History 26.4 (1954): 340–355. online
Ferrier, Michaël. "France-Japan: The Coral Writers (From stereotype to prototype, in favor of rethinking a critical approach to Japan)". Contemporary French and Francophone Studies 21.1 (2017): 8-27.
Hokenson, Jan Walsh. Japan, France & East-West Aesthetics: French Literature, 1867-2000 (2004), 520pp.
Jones, Christopher S. "A Lost Tradition: Nishida Kitarō, Henri Bergson and Intuition in Political Philosophy". Social Science Japan Journal 5.1 (2002): 55–70.
Lederman, Leonard L. "A comparative analysis of civilian technology strategies among some nations: France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States". Policy Studies Journal 22.2 (1994): 279–295.
Lehmann, Jean-Pierre. "France, Japan, Europe, and industrial competition: the automotive case". International Affairs 68.1 (1992): 37–53.
Locke, Robert R. Management & Higher Education since 1940: The Influence of America & Japan on West Germany, Great Britain & France (1989), 328pp.
Put, Max. Plunder & Pleasure: Japanese Art in the West, 1860-1930 (2000), 151pp covers 1860 to 1930.
Silberman, Bernard S. Cages of Reason: The Rise of the Rational State in France, Japan, the United States & Great Britain (1993) 487pp; covers 20th century
Slaymaker, Doug. Confluences: Postwar Japan & France. 2002 185 pp. covers 1945 to 1999.
White, John Albert. Transition to Global Rivalry: Alliance Diplomacy & the Quadruple Entente, 1895-1907 (1995) 344 pp. re France, Japan, Russia, Britain
Other languages
Maurice Pinguet, Le Texte Japon, introuvables et inédits, Seuil, 2009.
Polak, Christian. (2001). Soie et lumières: L'âge d'or des échanges franco-japonais (des origines aux années 1950). Tokyo: Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie Française du Japon,Hachette Fujin Gahōsha (アシェット婦人画報社).
Polak, Christian. (2002). 絹と光: 知られざる日仏交流100年の歴史 (江戶時代-1950年代) Kinu to hikariō: shirarezaru Nichi-Futsu kōryū 100-nen no rekishi (Edo jidai-1950-nendai). Tokyo: Ashetto Fujin Gahōsha, 2002. ISBN978-4-573-06210-8; OCLC50875162
_Een_levensechte_afbeelding_van_Fransen,_RP-P-2012-103-18.jpg)
Embassy of France in Tokyo
Embassy of Japan in Paris
