The nations of France and Mexico established diplomatic relations in 1830. Initially, relations between both nations were unstable as a result of France's first and second interventions in Mexico. During World War II Mexico did not recognize Vichy France, instead it maintained diplomatic relations with the French government in exile in London. Diplomatic relations were restored between both nations at the end of the war in 1945 and have continued unabated since.[1]
In 1821, soon after obtaining independence from the Spanish Empire, Emperor Agustín de Iturbide of Mexico sent his foreign minister to the court of King Louis XVIII of France to ask for recognition of the newly independent nation; however, King Louis XVIII refused to recognize Mexico because of its alliance with Spain.[1] On 26 November 1826, France proposed resolving the problem of recognition by establishing trade relations with a Mexican company, thus establishing unofficial relations with Mexico.[1] It was not until September 1830 that France recognized and established diplomatic relations with Mexico, following the July Revolution, the forced abdication of King Charles X of France, and the removal of the House of Bourbon from power. That same year, both nations opened resident diplomatic legations in each country's capital, respectively.[1]
During the early years of their diplomatic relations, Mexico and France were not always on friendly terms, particularly with the beginning of the Pastry War (November 1838 - March 1839), known also as the First French intervention in Mexico; where France invaded Mexico in order to collect re-compensation for property damaged and or looted by Mexican forces. During the war, France (with the assistance of the United States) blockaded Mexican ports thus crippling the economy. Three months later, Mexico agreed to pay France 600,000 pesos in compensation.[2]
For several years, Mexican rebels under President Benito Juárez and with additional support from the United States fought against French and royalist troops.[1] Once the Union won the American Civil War in 1865, the U.S. allowed supporters of President Juárez to openly purchase weapons and ammunition and issued stronger warnings to Paris. The United States sent general William Tecumseh Sherman with 50,000 combat veterans to the Mexican border to emphasize that time had run out on the French intervention. Napoleon III had no choice but to withdraw his outnumbered army in disgrace. Emperor Maximilian refused exile and was executed by the Mexican government in 1867 in Querétaro thus ending the Second Mexican Empire.[3]
The events of the 1860 are commemorated in both France and Mexico to this day. In Mexico, Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Mexicans' victory over the French troops at the Battle of Puebla (5 May 1862). Another defeat of the French – the destruction of the small, but heroic, French Foreign Legion force at the Battle of Camarón (30 April 1863) – is annually commemorated by the French Foreign Legion as the "Camerone Day".
In 1911, Mexican President Porfirio Díaz, a former general who fought against the French during the Second French Intervention in Mexico and a Francophile, left Mexico for exile in Paris where he died in 1915 and is buried at the Montparnasse Cemetery.
In December 1926, the Mexican government purchased property on Avenue du Président-Wilson and on Rue de Longchamp which are now the current Residence and embassy of Mexico in Paris.[1] In 1940, during World War II, Mexico opened a consulate in Marseille to represent Mexico in Vichy France and was led by Gilberto Bosques Saldívar.[4] As consul, Bosques Saldívar issued approximately 40,000 visas to Jews and Spanish Republicans fleeing to Mexico. In 1943, Bosques, his family, and 40 consular staff members were arrested by the Gestapo and detained in a "hotel-prison" in Germany for a year before being released in 1944.[4]
In 1942, Mexico severed diplomatic relations with the government of Vichy France and instead maintained diplomatic relations with the French government in exile (also known as Free France) led by General Charles de Gaulle in London.[1] Full diplomatic relations were restored between both nations at the end of the war in Europe in 1945.
21st century
In December 2005, a French citizen called Florence Cassez was arrested in Mexico and charged with kidnapping, organized crime and possession of firearms. She was found guilty by a Mexican court and sentenced to 60 years imprisonment. Cassez always maintained her innocence which began a diplomatic dispute between Mexico and France. At the time, President Nicolas Sarkozy asked the Mexican government to allow Cassez to serve her sentence in France, however the requests were denied.[5]
In 2009, Mexico cancelled its participation of 2011 "The Year of Mexico in France" (350 events, films, and symposium planned) as the French president Sarkozy declared that this year-long event was going to be dedicated to Cassez, and each individual event would have some sort of remembrance of the Frenchwoman.[6] In January 2013, the Mexican Supreme Court ordered her release and Cassez was flown immediately back to France. Since her release, France pledged to assist Mexico in creating a Gendarmerie in Mexico at the request of President Enrique Peña Nieto.[7]
On 6 July 2017, Presidents Enrique Peña Nieto and French President Emmanuel Macron met in Paris, before the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany. During their meeting, the leaders exchanged their views on trade, multilateralism, the fight against terrorism and climate change.
In July 2021, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard paid a visit to France and met with his counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian and with President Emmanuel Macron. During the visit, both nations discussed the current COVID-19 pandemic and both nations signed a declaration of intent on strengthening cooperation against the illicit trafficking of cultural property, in order to identify mechanisms to protect and curb the traffic and pillage of cultural property illegally extracted from Mexico and subsequently marketed.[8]
President Enrique Peña Nieto (July and November 2015, July and December 2017)
Bilateral agreements
Both nations have signed several bilateral agreements such as an Agreement on Favorable Nation (1827); Agreement on Friendship, Commerce and Navigation (1886); Agreement on Copyright Protection (1950); Trade Agreement (1951); Agreement on Air Transportation (1952); Agreement on Scientific and Technical Cooperation (1965); Agreement on Economic Cooperation (1981); Agreement of Cooperation between Pemex and Total S.A. (1981); Franco-Mexican Declaration on Political Violence in El Salvador (1981); Agreement on work and holiday visas (2011); Agreement on Cooperation in the peaceful uses of Nuclear Energy (2015); Agreement on Social Security (2015); Agreement on Mutual Academic Recognition (2015); Aeronautical Agreement (2015) and an Agreement of Cooperation between French and Mexican Universities (2015).[9]
Tourism and Transportation
In 2022, 258,000 French citizens visited Mexico for tourism.[10] That same year, 500,000 Mexican citizens visited France for tourism.[11] There are direct flights between France and Mexico with the following airlines: Aeroméxico, Air Caraïbes and Air France; with direct flights available from Cancún and Mexico City international airports to Paris.
Border disputes
France and Mexico do not presently share a land border, although in the 18th-century French Louisiana did border New Spain.
The closest land to the French Pacific Clipperton Island is Mexico, and the two countries disputed the island's ownership for several decades, until international arbitration finally awarded it to France in 1931.
Trade relations
In 1997, Mexico signed a Free Trade Agreement with the European Union (which includes France). In 2023, two-way trade between France and Mexico amounted to US$5.6 billion.[12] France's main exports to Mexico include: medicine, vaccinations, automobile parts, helicopters, airplanes, perfumes, make-up and electrical equipment. Mexico's main export product to France include: telephones, petroleum based products, computers, medical devices, turbines, cables and automobile parts.[12] Over 550 French companies operate in Mexico and several Mexican multinational companies operate in France.
Resident diplomatic missions
France has an embassy and a consulate-general in Mexico City and a consulate-general in Monterrey.[13]
Mexico has an embassy and a consulate-general in Paris and a liaison office in Strasbourg.[14]
Bancroft, Frederic. "The French in Mexico and the Monroe doctrine." Political science quarterly 11.1 (1896): 30–43. in JSTOR
Barker, Nancy Nichols. The French Experience in Mexico, 1821-1861: A History of Constant Misunderstanding (1979), relations leading up to the French invasion. online
Barker, Nancy Nichols. "The Factor of 'Race' in the French Experience in Mexico, 1821–1861" Hispanic American Historical Review, 59#1 (1979), 64–80.
Blumberg, Arnold. "The diplomacy of the Mexican Empire, 1863-1867." Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 61.8 (1971): 1–152.
Case, Lynn M. French Opinion on War and Diplomacy during the Second Empire (1954)
Cunningham, Michele. Mexico and the Foreign Policy of Napoleon III (2001) online PhD version
Dabbs, Jack Autrey. The French army in Mexico, 1861-1867: a study in military government (Hague, Mouton, 1963).
Greenfield, Jerome. "The Mexican Expedition of 1862–1867 and the End of the French Second Empire." Historical Journal 63.3 (2020): 660-685. online
Hanna, Kathryn Abbey. "The Roles of the South in the French Intervention in Mexico." Journal of Southern History 20.1 (1954): 3-21.
Hanna, Alfred J. Napoleon III and Mexico; American triumph over monarchy (1971) online free to borrow
Ibsen, Kristine. Maximilian, Mexico, and the Invention of Empire (Vanderbilt UP, 2010).
Kelly, Patrick J. "The North American Crisis of the 1860s." The Journal of the Civil War Era 2.3 (2012): 337–368.
Mahoney, Harry Thayer, and Marjorie Locke Mahoney. Mexico and the Confederacy, 1860-1867. (1998).
Martin, Percy F. Maximilian in Mexico; the story of the French intervention (1861-1867) (1914) online
Ridley, Jasper. Maximilian and Juárez (1992). online
de la Rosa, Miquel. "Mexico and French Visions of the Empire’s ‘Greatest Thought’." in French Liberalism and Imperialism in the Age of Napoleon III (Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2022) pp. 137-184.
Scholes, Walter Vinton. Mexican politics during the Juárez regime, 1855-1872 (1969).
Shawcross, Edward. France, Mexico and Informal Empire in Latin America, 1820-1867: Equilibrium in the New World (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) online review
Maximilian I was an Austrian archduke who became emperor of the Second Mexican Empire from 10 April 1864 until his execution by the Mexican Republic on 19 June 1867.
The Second Mexican Empire, officially the Mexican Empire, was a constitutional monarchy established in Mexico by Mexican monarchists in conjunction with the Second French Empire. The period is sometimes referred to as the Second French intervention in Mexico. French Emperor Napoleon III, with the support of the Mexican conservatives, clergy, and nobility, established a monarchist ally in the Americas intended as a restraint upon the growing power of the United States. It has been viewed as both an independent Mexican monarchy and as a client state of France. Invited to become emperor of Mexico by Mexican monarchists who had lost a bloody civil war against Mexican liberals was Austrian Archduke Maximilian, of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, who had ancestral links to rulers of colonial Mexico. His ascension to the throne was then ratified through a fraudulent referendum. Maximilian's wife and empress consort of Mexico was the Belgian princess Charlotte of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, known in Mexico as "Carlota".
The second French intervention in Mexico, also known as the Second Franco-Mexican War (1861–1867), was a military invasion of the Republic of Mexico by the French Empire of Napoleon III, purportedly to force the collection of Mexican debts in conjunction with Great Britain and Spain. Mexican conservatives supported the invasion, since they had been defeated by the liberal government of Benito Juárez in a three-year civil war. Defeated on the battlefield, conservatives sought the aid of France to effect regime change and establish a monarchy in Mexico, a plan that meshed with Napoleon III's plans to re-establish the presence of the French Empire in the Americas. Although the French invasion displaced Juárez's Republican government from the Mexican capital and the monarchy of Archduke Maximilian was established, the Second Mexican Empire collapsed within a few years. Material aid from the United States, whose four-year civil war ended in 1865, invigorated the Republican fight against the regime of Maximilian, and the 1866 decision of Napoleon III to withdraw military support for Maximilian's regime accelerated the monarchy's collapse. Maximilian and two Mexican generals were executed by firing squad on 19 June 1867, ending this period of Mexican history.
The nations of Mexico and Romania first established contact in 1880, however, diplomatic relations between both nations were officially established in 1935. Relations were severed during World War II and re-established in 1973 and have continued unabated since.
The nations of Chile and Mexico established diplomatic relations in 1831, however, relations were severed in 1974 in the aftermath of the 1973 Chilean coup d'état. Diplomatic relations were re-established in 1990 and have continued unabated since.
Mexico–Turkey relations are foreign relations between Mexico and Turkey. Both nations are members of the OECD and the United Nations.
The nations of Austria and Mexico established diplomatic relations in 1842. Relations were strengthened in 1864 when Archduke Maximilian of Austria became Emperor of Mexico, however, after his execution, diplomatic relations were severed until 1901. Diplomatic relations were once again disrupted in 1938 during the Anschluss and relations were fully restored after World War II.
Foreign relations between Belgium and Mexico commenced in 1836, when Belgium—itself newly independent—recognized the independence of Mexico. In 1919, the Belgian Chamber of Commerce of Mexico was established. Both nations are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the United Nations.
Ties between Mexico and Spain date back to the Spanish conquest of Mexico in 1519 and subsequent Spanish colonialism in the country which lasted until the end of the Mexican War of Independence in 1821. Formal diplomatic relations between both nations commenced in 1836 and were severed with the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War in 1939. Diplomatic relations were re-established in 1977 and have continued unabated since.
The nations of Brazil and Mexico established diplomatic relations in 1825. Together, Brazil and Mexico account as the most populous nations in Latin America and both nations have the largest global emerging economies and are considered to be regional powers. Both countries are members of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, G-20 major economies, Latin American Integration Association, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States and the United Nations.
Mexico–United Kingdom relations are the bilateral relations between Mexico and the United Kingdom. Both nations are members of the G-20 major economies, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the United Nations.
Hungary–Mexico relations are the foreign relations between Hungary and Mexico. Relations date back to the short reign of the Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico from 1864 to 1867. Diplomatic relations with Austria-Hungary were established in 1901, but were suspended between 1941 and 1974. They were re-established on 14 May 1974. Both nations are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the United Nations.
France–Haiti relations are foreign relations between France and Haiti. Both nations are members of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, United Nations, and the World Trade Organization.
The nations of Egypt and Mexico established diplomatic relations in 1958, however, the two states interacted non-officially before then. As early as 1861 Egyptian soldiers joined French Emperor Napoleon III invasion of Mexico. In the early 20th century, Mexico opened a consulate on the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria. Since Egypt's independence in 1960, both nations have maintained a warm relationship based on cultural exchanges, tourism and trade.
The nations of Mexico and Poland first established formal diplomatic relations in 1928, however, the two states interacted non-officially before then. As early as 1519, King Sigismund I of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth became aware of Mexico from messages with his envoy in Spain, Jan Dantyszek, who corresponded with Hernán Cortés during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. Several Polish migrants began to migrate to New Spain. The first waves of Polish migrants to Mexico commenced in 1830 as well as the beginning of the 20th century due to various circumstances affecting Poland at the time such as insurrections, partitions and the two World Wars.
Mexico–Netherlands relations are the diplomatic relations between Mexico and the Netherlands. Both nations are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the United Nations.
José María Gutiérrez de Estrada, was a Mexican conservative diplomat, minister, and senator. He came from the state of Yucatan, where his brother, Joaquín Gutiérrez de Estrada, also a conservative politician, would go on to become governor.
France–Peru relations are the diplomatic relations between the French Republic and the Republic of Peru. Both nations are members of the United Nations and the World Trade Organization.
The Embassy of Mexico in Austria, based out of Vienna, is the primary diplomatic mission from the United Mexican States to the Republic of Austria. It is also accredited to the Slovak Republic, the Republic of Slovenia and the United Nations Office at Vienna.
Monarchism in Mexico is the political ideology that defends the establishment, restoration, and preservation of a monarchical form of government in Mexico. Monarchism was a recurring factor in the decades during and after Mexico's struggle for independence.
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