Quand débute la Réforme en France ?

31 October 1517 is traditionally taken as the starting point for the Reformation, even if the date is controversial. But the French Reformation has no easily identifiable starting date. This article explores the successive attempts at giving the process an origin. First, an overview of the historiography of the last forty years highlights that there is no consensual starting date and that Calvin does not even appear to be the uncontroversial father of the French Reformation. Next follows a survey of the commemorations of the beginning of the Reformation from the nineteenth century onwards. They were few and far between and essentially referenced Luther and the 95 Theses, but usually quite discreetly. Sermons preached on these occasions celebrate the French Reformation and Protestants more generally as a minority which remained steadfast in its faith in the face of persecution. Alongside these commemorative events, a broad literature blossomed intent on proving that there was no starting point to the French Reformation which instead descended from early Christianity through a long line of witnesses, such as the Vaudois and the Albigensians. This idea had initially emerged in the second half of the sixteenth century but was rejected a century later, it was however revived in the nineteenth century in a spirit of nationalist and regionalist revival. In the context of Franco-German rivalry, the theory gave rise to the claim that the Reformation in France was purely autochthonous and entirely independent from Luther. Nowadays, in the light of the impossibility of identifying a single clear origin for the French Reformation, emphasis is instead laid on significant moments in the history of French Protestantism