This is a list of major political scandals in France.
- 1789: Réveillon riots - popular revolt from April 26- 28, in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Paris. Considered a precursor to the Storming of the Bastille and the French Revolution.
- 1797: XYZ Affair - a political and diplomatic episode involving confrontation with the United States that led to the Quasi-War.
- 1816: shipwreck of and search for the French frigate Méduse off the west coast of Africa
- 1847: Teste-Cubières corruption scandal, revealed in May 1847
- 1847: Charles de Choiseul-Praslin's suicide after having murdered his wife, daughter of Horace Sébastiani, minister of the July Monarchy
- 1880s: Georges Ernest Boulanger affair
- 1887: Schnaebele incident
- 1887: Wilson scandal, which led to the resignation of President Jules Grévy[1]
- 1890s: Panama scandals
- 1894: Dreyfus affair, treason conviction of Alfred Dreyfus, exposed by writer Émile Zola on 13 January 1898
- 1904: the Affair of the Cards, sometimes called the Affair of the Casseroles.
- 1928: Marthe Hanau affair
- 1930: Albert Oustric affair
- 1934: Stavisky Affair, embezzlement and political corruption
- 1949: the Generals Affair, a political-military scandal during the First Indochina War
- 1950: the Henri Martin Affair, a political-military scandal during the First Indochina War
- 1958: the ballets roses, a scandal most notably involving then President of the Senate, André Le Troquer, in which a group of girls aged 15 to 17 performed "ballets" that ended in orgies