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The French flag seem to represent the colors of Paris as used on the day of the storming of the Bastille, mixed with the Royal white. It is thought that the Marquis de Lafayette was responsible for inventing the red, white and blue cockade which soon became compulsory for Revolutionaries in 1789.
The flag was created in 1790 but with the colours the reverse of what they are today, i.e. with red at the hoist, and revised in 1794 to the modern form, when the French convention adopted the colors. The 1790 flag existed only as part of the jack and ensign of the navy.
The flag went out of use with Napoléon I's defeat at Waterloo, but was brought back in 1830 (again by Lafayette) and has remained in use ever since.
Napoléon I standardized first in 1804 to a white field chape-chausse of red and blue, and in 1812 to the modern French flag. In 1804 took place the distribution of new flags to the regiments, and it is at that time that the near-religious rituals surrounding regimental flags were adopted.

Although significances have been attached to the colours, some people believe that they are all spurious and invented after the fact. The red and blue of Paris were the livery colours of the coat of arms and natural ones for use by the militia.

Blue is the color of Saint Martin, a rich Gallo-Roman officer who ripped his blue coat with his sword to give one half of it to a poor who was begging him in the snow. This is the symbol of care, of the duty that the rich had to help the poor. Equality.
White is the color of the Virgin Mary, to whom the Kingdom of France was consecrated by Louis XIII in the 17th century; it is also the color of Joan of Arc, under whose banner the English were finally driven out of the Kingdom (15th century). It became logically the color of Royalty. The King's vessels carried plain white flags at sea. Liberty.
Red is the color of Saint Denis, the saint patron of Paris. The original oriflamme (war banner) of the Kings was the red oriflamme of Saint Denis. Brotherhood.

Another piece of trivia you could not have gone to bed without.