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French Republican (CET)

EpochConfidence
22 September 1792 CE, +1:00:00High

Overview

The French Republican calendar was an observational solar calendar used during and after the French Revolution from 1793 to 1805.

It featured twelve months of 30 days each, broken into 3 weeks of 10 days. The remaining 5 or 6 days of each solar year were the Sansculottides, to be treated as national holidays at the end of the year.

The new year started on the Autumn Equinox, and years were written in Roman numerals with the era name of 'l'ère républicaine', or 'Republican Era', abbreviated here as 'RE'.

Info

MonthDaysApprox. Gregorian Dates
Vendémiaire30Sep 22 - Oct 21
Brumaire30Oct 22 - Nov 20
Frimaire30Nov 21 - Dec 20
Nivôse30Dec 21 - Jan 19
Pluviôse30Jan 20 - Feb 18
Ventôse30Feb 19 - Mar 20
Germinal30Mar 21 - Apr 19
Floréal30Apr 20 - May 19
Prairial30May 20 - Jun 18
Messidor30Jun 19 - Jul 18
Thermidor30Jul 19 - Aug 17
Fructidor30Aug 18 - Sep 16
Sansculottides5 or 6Sep 17 - Sep 21

Accuracy

This calendar depends on the accuracy of the equinox calculations, which are generally within a few minutes of accuracy and should only affect years where the equinox happens very close to midnight CET.

The French Republican calendar also had some issues with rules that contracticted each other, like a 4 year leap year rule conflicting with the date of the equinox. That rule has been ignored in favor of the equinox rule.

Source

All of the information on this calendar came from its Wikipedia article.