The colony of French Guinea opts for immediate independence as the republic of Guinea, breaking its links with France

Charles de Gaulle is elected first President of France's Fifth Republic

Francis Poulenc and Jean Cocteau collaborate on La Voix Humaine, a concerto for soprano voice and orchestra

Hiroshima Mon Amour is French director Alain Resnais' first feature film, with screenplay by Marguerite Duras

Asterix, written by René Goscinny and drawn by Albert Uderzo, makes his first appearance, in the French magazine Pilote

Jean-Luc Godard directs his first feature film, A Bout de Souffle ('Breathless'), a classic of French New Wave cinema

Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev defects from the Kirov company at Le Bourget airport and seeks political asylum in France

French film director François Truffaut makes Jules et Jim, starring Jeanne Moreau and Oskar Werner

Rudolf Nureyev makes his first appearance in a western company, dancing in The Sleeping Beauty for the Marquis de Cuevas

In a series of informal meetings, Harold Macmillan tries to persuade Charles de Gaulle that Britain should join the EEC

President de Gaulle makes a surprise appointment, selecting the little-known Georges Pompidou to be the French premier

French president Charles de Gaulle vetoes Britain's application to join the European Economic Community

NATO headquarters moves to Brussels after de Gaulle expels all NATO personnel from French soil

A student revolt begins in Paris and sweeps through France, shaking de Gaulle's government

The Anglo-French airliner Concorde makes its first supersonic test flight

President de Gaulle resigns after losing a plebiscite on government reform

Georges Pompidou is elected president of France in succession to de Gaulle

Jean-Marie Le Pen founds a neo-Fascist party in France, the National Front

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing defeats François Mitterrand in the French presidential election

Pierre Boulez establishes in Paris IRCAM, an advanced institute for research into the techniques of modern music

Jacques Chirac, leader of a recently formed neo-Gaullist party, is elected mayor of Paris

The Pompidou Centre, designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, opens in Paris

Francçois Mitterrand defeats Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in the French presidential election

16-year-old ballerina Sylvie Guillem joins the Paris Opera Ballet

Rudolf Nureyev begins a successful 6-year period as artistic director of the Paris Opera Ballet