List of ambassadors of France to Japan

The list of ambassadors of France to Japan began developing in the same year that the American Commodore Perry "opened" Japan's doors to the West.

French Ambassador to Japan
Incumbent Philippe Setton [ja] since 2020
Inaugural holder	Jean Daridan
Formation	1961 5th Republic

Franco-Japanese diplomatic relations were initially established during the Second Empire of French history and the Edo period of Japanese history.

List of heads of mission

Ambassadors of the Second Empire

Head of mission	Tenure  begins	Tenure  ends	French Head of State	Japanese emperor
Jean-Baptiste Louis Gros[1]	1858	1858	Napoleon III	Kōmei
Charles de Chassiron	1858	1859
Gustave Duchesne de Bellecourt[2]	1859	1863
Léon Roches[3]	1863	1868
Maxime Outrey	1868	1871		Meiji

Ambassadors of the Third Republic

Head of mission	Tenure  begins	Tenure  ends	French Head of State	Japanese emperor
Paul Louis de Turenne	1871	1872	Adolphe Thiers	Meiji
	1872	1890	Patrice Mac-Mahon Jules Grévy
Joseph Adam Sienkiewicz	1890	1892	Sadi Carnot
Jules Harmand[4]	1894	1905	Jean Casimir-Perier Félix Faure Émile Loubet
Gaston Raindre	1905	1909	Armand Fallières
Auguste Gérard	1909	1914		Taishō
Eugène Regnault	1914	1918	Raymond Poincaré
Roger Maugras (chargé d'affaires)	1918	1919
Edmond Bapst	1919	1921	Paul Deschanel Alexandre Millerand Gaston Doumergue Paul Doumer
Paul Claudel	1921	1927
Robert de Billy	1927	1929		Shōwa
Alfred de Martel	1929	1933
Fernand Pila	1935	1936	Albert Lebrun Henri Pétain
Charles Arsène-Henry [fr]	1937	1943

Ambassadors of the Fourth Republic

Head of mission	Tenure  begins	Tenure  ends	French Head of State	Japanese emperor
Zinovi Pechkoff[5]	1946	1950	Vincent Auriol	Shōwa
Maurice Dejean[6]	1950	1953
Daniel Lévi	1953	1956
Armand Bérard	1956	1959	René Coty

Ambassadors of the Fifth Republic

Head of mission	Tenure  begins	Tenure  ends	French Head of State	Japanese emperor
Jean Daridan	1959	1961	Charles de Gaulle	Shōwa
Étienne Dennery	1961	1964
François Missoffe	1964	1966
Louis de Guiringaud	1966	1972	Georges Pompidou
François Lefebvre de Laboulaye	1972	1975	Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
Jean-Pierre Brunet	1975	1977
Louis Dauge	1977	1979
Xavier Daufresne de la Chevalerie	1979	1982	François Mitterrand
André Ross	1982	1985
Gilbert Pérol	1985	1987
Bernard Dorin	1987	1991		Akihito
Loïc Hennekinne	1991	1993
Jean-Bernard Ouvrieu	1993	1998	Jacques Chirac
Maurice Gourdault-Montagne	1998	2002
Bernard Faubournet de Montferrand[7]	2002	2006
Gildas Le Lidec[8]	2006	2007
Philippe Faure[9]	2007	2011	Nicolas Sarkozy
Christian Masset	2011	2014	Francois Hollande
Thierry Dana	2014	2017
Laurent Pic	2017	2020	Emmanuel Macron
Philippe Setton [ja]	2020			Naruhito

See also

• Treaty of Amity and Commerce between France and Japan