Events from the year 1853 in France.
Incumbents
Events
- 30 June – Georges-Eugène Haussmann is selected as préfect of the Seine (department) to begin the re-planning of Paris.
- 6 December – Taiping Rebellion: French minister de Bourboulon arrives at the Heavenly Capital aboard the Cassini.
- 14 December – Compagnie Générale des Eaux established by imperial decree.
- Arthur de Gobineau begins publication of his An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (Essai sur l’inégalité des races humaines).
Births
- 20 January – Marguerite de Witt-Schlumberger, feminist campaigner (died 1924).
- 23 April – Jules Auguste Lemire, priest and social reformer (died 1928).
- 27 April – Jules Lemaître, critic and dramatist (died 1914).
- 21 May – Jacques Marie Eugène Godefroy Cavaignac, politician (died 1905).
- 14 July – Henri Menier, businessman and adventurer (died 1913).
- 24 July – Henri-Alexandre Deslandres, astronomer (died 1948).
- 14 August – Dominique-Marie Gauchet, admiral (died 1931)
- 9 September – Pierre Marie, neurologist (died 1940).
- 30 October – Louise Abbéma, painter and designer (died 1927).
- 17 December – Pierre Paul Émile Roux, physician, bacteriologist and immunologist (died 1933).
- 26 December – René Bazin, novelist (died 1932).
- 30 December – André Messager, composer and conductor (died 1929).
Deaths
- 8 January – Claude-Laurent Bourgeois de Jessaint, aristocrat and civic administrator (born 1764).
- 20 February – Jean-François Bayard, playwright (born 1796).
- 3 April – Louis Gustave le Doulcet, comte de Pontécoulant, politician (born 1764).
- 11 April – Louis-Emmanuel Jadin, composer, pianist and harpsichordist (born 1768).
- 23 April – Auguste Laurent, chemist (born 1807).
- 27 May – Jean Marie Pardessus, lawyer (born 1772).
- May – Henri-Bernard Dabadie, baritone (born 1797).
- 3 September – Augustin Saint-Hilaire, botanist and traveller (born 1799).
- 10 October – Pierre François Léonard Fontaine, architect, interior decorator and designer (born 1762).