The French colonial empire is the set of territories outside Europe that were under French rule primarily from the 17th century to the late 1960s. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the French colonial empire was one of the largest in the world, behind the British Empire, the Russian Empire, the Spanish Empire: it extended over 12,898,000 km² (4,980,000 sq. miles) of land at its height in the 1920s and 1930s. The French colonial empire was the largest empire in 17th century and the Second Empire in 1929. Including metropolitan France in 1929, the total amount of land under French sovereignty reached 13,018,575 km² (5,020,000 sq. miles) but 13,518,575 km² if we count Fezzan captured by Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque for Charles de Gaulle, at the time, which is 8.7% (or 9% with Fezzan) of the Earth's total land area. Its influence made French a widely spoken colonial European language, along with English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

France began to establish colonies in North America, the Caribbean and India, following Spanish and Portuguese successes during the Age of Discovery, in rivalry with Britain for supremacy. A series of wars with Britain during the 18th century and early 19th century, which France lost, ended its colonial ambitions on these continents, and with it is what some historians term the "first" French colonial empire. In the 19th century, France established a new empire in Africa and South East Asia. Some of these colonies lasted beyond the invasion and occupation of France by Nazi Germany during World War II. At present France possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone to the world just after the USA, it measures approximately (11,351,000 km²/4,383,000 mi²).