Which is more aggressive, the French Defense or Caro Kann...?!

I've been playing the French Defense against e4 for a few years now. I find it rich in ideas, counterattacking chances, and flexible enough not to get too bored of. Haven't tried playing the Caro Kann yet, as I'm a creature of habit I guess. I enjoy the initiative and counterattacking. 

So, do y'all consider the French Def or Caro Kann more aggressive than the other? 

And please, don't say Sicilian Defense...  lol

French lol.

The French for obvious reasons.

In both lines, Black has a Bad Bishop.  In the French, it is bad and inactive, playing mostly a defensive THOUGH VITAL role of covering the e-pawn.

In the Caro-Kann, Black spends time to get the Bishop outside the pawn chain, moves it again to g6 when the Knight attacks it, moves it again to h7 when the White h-pawn gains a tempo on it, and then proceeds to initiate the trade on d3.  The initiator of any trade always loses a tempo.

In addition, in return for this, Black has to spend 2 moves to get the c-pawn to c5 to pressure White's center.

So Black spends 4 moves with his Bishop just to trade it off and 2 moves with his pwn to attack d4.  Compare this to the French which often sees the Bishop sit on c8 and sometimes goes to d7 and c7-c5 is played in 1 move.  Black gets 4 or 5 tempi in return for allowing White to keep his best minor piece, the Light Squared Bishop.

Clearly the French is a more aggressive defense.  The French is like blitzing 4 while the Caro-Kann is the "prevent" defense.  Not saying the Caro is unsound, but if you are spending all of this time just to remove White's best minor piece and your worst one, you will not be in position to break open the center and start trying to play aggressively against White.  You have to be willing to grind out a defensive game and the way Black wins in these Caro-Kann lines is by having the better endgame position, not by trying to blow the White King off the board.

Barring an egregious blunder by White, Black does not win Caro-Kann games in 25 moves.  I have won many French games in 30 moves or less as Black, especially in the Winawer and McCutchen.

Both have solid, positional and sharp lines, but overall the French is more aggressive.

French, agreed.

That being said, you probably won't go for an early mating attack with the French, but it does give black a lot of dynamic counterplay on the queenside.

I would have said the Caro Kann. 

The Caro avoids the problem bishop of the French and the old main line has quick counterplay opportunities out of the box with queen movement and white's weakened h-pawn (which can lead to queenside castling). They're both tame of course, but the French is less aggressive if you ask me.  

French for sure.  The exchange line is boring, but otherwise it's fun and has a lot of counterattacking ideas.  The Caro Kann is a rock of an opening, but when I play against it as White, I'm rarely worried about Black being aggressive (successfully) with it.

When are you worried about black being aggressive in the French? 

The Morozevich line can be quite sharp. The poisoned pawn Winawer is also quite dangerous.

Ah now come on, white has no obligation to play either of those, nd2 is minor line.

Nd2 is the Tarrasch, not the Winawer. Either way, it still shows that there are some sharp lines of the French defense.

i think over all french is better then caro def 

I play Caro Kann for almost a decade now. Rarely play French at all. Caro Kann is a bit slower, but it gives me a solid pawn chain for the endgame so I can easily just exchange pieces. No need to risk anything at all. In my experience, French is more active but I'm not in a hurry

I'm never worried about black being aggro in the caro-kann.

French is definitely more aggressive out of those two openings.

However the French and Caro-Kann are drawish openings, and the drawing masters (like Smyslov and Petrosian) loved to play these openings because they were/are equal, simple and most likely will give you a draw because they are rock solid.

Moreover neither the French nor the Caro are naturally aggressive openings, sure the French has counter-play but it is not aggressive. If you want to play more "aggressive" openings you need to play Sicilian or Alkehine's defense or something along those lines. Otherwise you will have equal games for to maintain the equilibrium and there is not much "aggressive" lines. (Unless of course you are some attacking manic in quiet lines in which is horrifically hard to do, because it is just not meant to do, but occasionally some players can do it; like Karpov in such quiet lines at times.)

Also aggressive is subjective, what one might call aggressive may be not and to another it may be so, it just depends on your game. For me personally I like to play in both "aggressive", balanced and sometimes passive positions, I am an all-rounder, as long as I have a good aim of what to do, I’m good.

But for the French and Caro it is not necessarily something I would play for aggression or for the win, they are rock solid openings that you play for draws and occasionally can win if someone plays to win in these positions that are rock solid.(Because that is how they lose). 

Hopefully this was helpful to the OP or someone in this forum. 

Agree with all saying the French is more aggressive, and in my experience it seems to be a generally more solid defense in general as compared to the Caro-Kann.  Most of the C-K players I encountered back when I was an 1. e4 player (I play the Reti these days) were always looking to lock up the board and play defense, and rarely with any success.  The French Defense players I encountered, at least those who understood the importance of targeting the d4 square, achieved far more counterplay for the same weakness (the aforementioned bad light-square bishop).

Even the French Defense is too passive for my taste, though, so I only use it on occasion as a change-of-pace defense.

It's true that people that play the Caro-Kann and the French generally like closed positions, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're just playing defense. When Karpov played the Caro-Kann he certainly wasn't just playing defense.

Petroff 😎

The French Defense is the most passive defense, so of course the Caro-Kann is the more aggressive defense. French Defense players are in for 80-move long positional games.