Introducing the new diplomatic visits with France dataset, 1950–2020

Scholars have long argued that France maintains a significant degree of influence in global politics but have lacked systematic data to empirically test their theories. We seek to fill this lacuna by introducing novel data on leader visits conducted with France. Our data span from 1950 to 2020 and include both visits from French leaders as well as leader visits to France, amounting to more than 2600 visits in total. Additionally, we provide data on visits by French prime ministers. We argue that examining French diplomacy can enhance our understanding of international politics, especially regarding Africa and small Indo-Pacific island countries. We believe that our dataset will prove useful to scholars of major power diplomacy and global politics.