Cockade of France

[2] The following day, 13 July, an opportunity arose to create a cockade of different colors when those bourgeois who hoped to limit revolutionary excesses established a citizen militia.

[3] It was decided that the militia should be given a distinctive badge in the form of a two-colored cockade in the ancient colors of Paris, blue and red.

[4] Louis XVI put it on his hat and – with some reluctance – approved the appointment of the revolutionary Jean Sylvain Bailly as mayor of Paris, and the formation of the National Guard led by Lafayette.

[10][11] The French practice inspired the adoption of a similar roundel (with colours reversed) by the British Royal Flying Corps, and of comparable insignia by other nations.

[14][15] It is likewise an attribute of Marianne, the national allegorical representation of France, who is conventionally depicted wearing a Phrygian cap, sometimes decorated with a tricolor cockade.

[16] The cockade appears on mayors' badges;[17] and on the sash worn by Miss France, as well as French-made "méduses" (jellyfish in English) plastic beach sandals.