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Emblem of France. The current Emblem of France has been a symbol of France since 1953, although it does not have any legal status as an official coat of arms. It appears on the cover of French passports and was adopted originally by the French Foreign Ministry as a symbol for use by diplomatic and consular missions in 1912 using a design by the sculptor Jules-Clément Chaplain. Technically, it is an emblem rather than a coat of arms, since it does not follow heraldic rules. It consists of: a wide shield with, on the one end a lion-head and on the other an eagle-head, bearing a monogram "RF" standing for République Française (French Republic); a laurel branch symbolises victory of the Republic; an oak branch symbolises perennity or wisdom and the fasces, a symbol associated with justice.