This chapter explores what was distinctive about the French response to Ibsen. It discusses key points and examples that illustrate Ibsen’s complex relationship to France and French history, politics, and culture, and how Ibsen and French culture have subtly influenced one another for nearly 150 years. To Ibsen, France stood for revolutionary idealism. The chapter gives an overview of Ibsen’s breakthrough in France in a succession of modes, from realist to naturalist to symbolist, and discusses the theatrical and cultural contexts that shaped the translations, productions and reception of his plays. Examples of specific productions reveal there was another side to the French Ibsen, as he was often adapted to the boulevard theatres in ways that radically altered the plays, for instance by dampening their feminism.