- Around the year 300 CE, 11 or 13-year-old Faith of Agen reportedly[1][2] refused the publican's order to serve the idols. Her hagiographies tell she performed miracles but was executed according to Roman law for her Christianity.
- 1212, 12-year-old Stephen of Cloyes preached, assembled followers and led them on the Kingdom of France's roads.[3][4]
- Ca. 1490, Anne, heiress of the Duchy of Brittany (born 1477), chose a husband when she was aged 12 or 13.[5]
- Since at least the time of the Ancien Régime, young people were able and allowed to enlist in the army.[citation needed]
- Ca. 1523, at the age of 8, Petrus Ramus (born 1515), descendant of an impoverished refugee from Liège, freely left his home in Cuts, Vermandois for Paris, driven by a desire to learn. Aged 12, he enrolled at the College of Navarre.[6]
- 1537, aged 16 and provided with a large dowry, princess Madeleine of Valois married to become Queen of Scotland. She celebrated for months, but died the same year.[7][8]
- January 1643,[9] 13-year-old Armand Jean de Vignerot du Plessis, heir and great-nephew of late Cardinal Richelieu, took the oath of office of the Crown dignity of General of the Galleys,[10][11] a rank equivalent to Admiral of the Navy.[12][13]
- February 1764, Maria Anna Mozart, 13, and her brother Wolfgang Amadeus, 8, were granted 50 louis d'or and a gold snuff box from the royal purse while on their grand tour in Paris.[14]
- The French Revolution, the République, the SI and the 1804 Napoleonic Code (Code civil des Français) enforce the principles stated in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. One motto, "Liberté, égalité, fraternité", gradually became the official motto of the French state between 1848[15][16] and 1946.[17][18]
- August 1870, 15-year-old Arthur Rimbaud from Charleville was locked up for vagrancy.[19] Aged 16, he traveled and slept at the place of his married 27-year-old poet boyfriend Paul Verlaine.
- 1882, compulsory secular instruction was introduced for all between the age of 6 and 13.[20] Article 4 delegates enforcement to the father.
- 1977, petition against age of consent laws.
- On 5 March 2018, Marlène Schiappa, the minister of equality, proposed to set an age of consent for sex, at 15. The future law will set the age below which a person cannot agree to any sexual intercourse at 15.[21] A person below that age will be considered a victim of sexual assault or rape, even if that person calls itself "consenting".[22]
- From 25 May 2018 on, people under 15 or 16 need parental consent to access social networking services,[23][24] and companies cannot collect the personal data from people under 13.[25][26]