Famous French People
Read the bios below and think about who you would like to choose for your project.
Pick a first choice and a second choice, because each person in the class must
choose someone different. You may also choose someone who is not on this list.
Albert Camus:
He was born in Mondovi, French Algeria, in 1913, and he died in a car accident in
Villeblevin, France, in 1960. He was a French journalist, novelist, essayist,
philosopher and playwright who is considered an important representative of
existentialism.
Alexandre Dumas (Father and son):
Alexandre Dumas, father, was born in Villers-Cotterêts, France, in 1802 and died in
Puys, France, in 1870. His birth name was Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie. This
playwright and novelist is one of the most widely French authors in the world,
famous for his historical and adventure novels such as “The three musketeers”, “The
count of Monte Cristo”, and others.
Armand Peugeot:
Born in Hérimoncourt, Montbéliard, France in 1849, he was a French industrialist and
pioneer of the automobile industry who created the famous car manufacturing
company Peugeot. In 1913, when Peugeot was the largest car manufacturer in
France, he left his work at the firm. He died in Paris in 1915.
André Citroën:
André-Gustave Citroën was born in Paris in 1878 and died in the same city in 1935.
He was a French engineer and entrepreneur who founded the car manufacturer
Citroën in 1919.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery:
Born as Antoine Jean-Baptiste Marie Roger de Saint-Exupéry in Lyon, France, in
1900, he was a French aviator and writer best known for his famous books “Le petit
prince” (The little prince) (1943), “Vol de nuit” (Night flight) (1931) and “Terre des
hommes” (Wind, sand and stars) (1939).
Audrey Tautou:
Audrey Justine Tautou was born in Beaumont, France, in 1976. The most famous
character that this film actress has interpreted is Amélie Poulain in the FrenchGerman production “Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain” (“Amélie”) (2001), by the
French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
Bob Sinclar:
Born as Christophe Le Friant in Douarnenez, France, in 1969, Bob Sinclair is a French
musician, record producer, electronic music DJ and remixer who became
internationally famous with the successful singles “Love generation”, which was one
of the official anthems for the 2006 Berlin World Cup, and “World hold on”.
Brigitte Bardot
The legendary French actress former fashion model, singer and animal welfare/rights
activist caused quite a sensation worldwide! She is one of the best examples of
female sensuality in the 1960s and was named in 2007 among Empire’s 100 Sexiest
Film Stars.
Claude Monet:
Claude Oscar Monet was born in Paris in 1840 and died in Giverny in 1926. He was a
famous French painter, one of the founders and of the most relevant and pure
figures of Impressionism, term that comes from the title of one of his paintings,
“Impression, Soleil levant” (Impression, Sunrise).
Claude Lévi-Strauss:
He was born in Brussels, Belgium, in 1908 and died in Paris in 2009. Known as “the
father of modern anthropology”, he was considered one of the most important
French ethnologist and anthropologists, as well as the founder and one of the main
figures of the structuralism.
Charles Baudelaire:
Charles Pierre Baudelaire was a French poet, translator and arts critic; he was born
in Paris in 1821 and died in the same city in 1867. Known as a poète maudit
(accursed poet) for the evil vision and the decadence that characterize his works and
for his abuses of alcohol and drugs, he was the poet that had the most influence on
French symbolism, and his works are considered classics of French literature.
Christian Dior:
He was born in Granville, Manche, France in 1905 and died in Montecatini, Italy, in
1957. He was one of the most famous fashion designers of all times and the founder
of one of the world’s most representative fashion houses and luxury brands during
the 20th and 21st Centuries.
Coco Chanel
Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel was a pioneering fashion designer, a leader in
taste, whose revolutionary philosophy, modernist framework for women's fashions,
menswear-inspired designs and distinctive "haute bohemian" made her one of the
most famous women entrepreneurs of the 20th century.
Daft Punk:
Daft Punk is a French electronic music duo that was born in 1993 and consists of the
French musicians Thomas Bangalter (born in 1975) and Guy-Manuel de HomemChristo (born in 1974). The group has a style that mixes electronic music with rock,
funk, techno and synth, and has played an important role in the house movement in
France, especially since the late 1990s.
Édouard Manet:
He was born in Paris in 1832 and died in the same city in 1883. He was a famous
and controversial French painter, and one of the most important figures of the
transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Édith Piaf
Edith Piaf is almost universally regarded as one of France's greatest popular singers.
Émile Zola:
He was born in Paris in 1840 and died in the same city in 1902. He was a French
journalist, novelist and playwright, and the most important representative of
naturalism.
Eugène Delacroix
He is considered the foremost painter of the Romantic movement in France and the
leader of the French Romantic school.
Flora Tristan:
Her full name was Flore-Celestine -Therèse-Henriette Tristan-Moscoso; she was born
in Paris in 1803 and died in Bordeaux in 1844. She was a French feminist and
socialist thinker, activist and writer of Peruvian origins, and one of the founders of
modern feminism.
Gérard Depardieu:
Born in Châteauroux, France, in 1948, Gérard Xavier Marcel Depardieu is one of the
most famous and influential French actors of all times.
Gustave Flaubert:
Gustave Flaubert was born in Rouen, France, in 1821 and died in the same city in
1880. He was a French writer who is currently considered one of the best western
novelists of all times and an essential figure in the literature of the 19th Century.
Honoré de Balzac:
Born in Tours, France, in 1799, this writer and playwright has been catalogued as the
most important French novelist of the first half of the 19th Century and as one of the
founders and main representatives of realism in European literature along with
Gustave Flaubert.
Hubert de Givenchy:
Born in Beauvais, France, in 1927, Count Hubert James Marcel Taffin de Givenchy is
the famous fashion designer, founder of The House of Givenchy.
Henri Matisse:
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse was born in France in 1869 and died Nice, France, in
1954. He was a French painter, draftsman and sculptor who is considered one of the
greatest artist of the 20th Century and one of the most important figures of modern
art.
Jacques Derrida:
He was born in Algeria in 1930 and died in Paris in 2004. He was a controversial
French thinker and philosopher, the founder of deconstruction, and is considered one
of the most important and influential contemporary thinkers.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet:
Born in Roanne, Loire, France, in 1953, he is a famous French screenwriter and film
director, best known internationally for his romantic comedy “Le fabuleux destin
d’Amélie Poulain” (Amélie) (2001), which was nominated for five Academy Awards
and several other film industry awards.
Jean-Paul Gaultier:
Born in France in 1952, he is a famous French haute couture fashion designer who
created his own fashion brand, Jean Paul Gaultier, and his own line of perfumes, and
who’s known to be the “enfant terrible” (bad boy) of the French fashion world.
Jean Reno:
Born in Casablanca, French Morocco, in 1948, and a son of Spanish parents, this
famous French film, television and theatre actor’s birth name is Juan Moreno y
Herrera-Jiménez. He started acting in France, but he’s been a part of both French
and English speaking movies. Some of his best known American film performances
have been in films such as “Godzilla”, “The Da Vinci code”, “The pink panther”,
Mission: Impossible and Ronin.
Jean Paul Sartre:
His birth name was Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre; he was born in Paris in 1905
and died in the same city in 1980. He was a French philosopher, playwright, political
activist, screenwriter, critic, novelist and one of the main representatives of
existentialism, Marxist humanism and French philosophy.
Juliette Binoche:
Juliette Binoche was born in Paris in 1964. As one of the most famous French
actresses in the past years, Binoche has been a part of more than forty French and
American films.
Jules Verne:
Jules Gabriel Verne was born in Nantes, France, in 1828 and died in Amiens, France,
in 1905. This French novelist is considered the “Father of science fiction” along with
H. G. Wells.
Gaston Leroux:
Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux was born in Paris in 1868 and died in Nice, France, in
1927. He was a French journalist and author who became famous for his adventure
and crime novels, and who made great contributions to French detective fiction.
Some of his most representative works are “Le fantôme de l’opéra” (The phantom of
the opera) in 1910, “Le mystère de la chambre jaune” (The mystery of the yellow
room) in 1907 and “Le parfum de la dame en noir” (The perfume of the lady in
black) in 1908.
Louis Vuitton
One of the world's best-known French brands, Louis Vuitton, is often associated with
the birth of modern luxury.
Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur was a world-renowned French chemist and microbiologist whose work
with germs and microorganisms opened up whole new fields of scientific inquiry.
Luc Besson:
Born in Paris in 1959, Luc Besson is a famous French screenwriter, film director and
producer who has worked in over fifty films and received several French and
international movie awards.
Manu Chao:
José-Manuel Thomas Arthur Chao was born in Paris in 1991 and is a famous French
folk singer and songwriter who sings in French, English, Spanish, Portuguese and
Arabic, sometimes changing the language in the same song. Although he has one of
the highest sales volumes as an artist, he’s not very famous in the English-speaking
countries.
Marcel Proust:
His full name was Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust; he was born in
Auteuil, France, in 1871 and died in Paris in 1922. He was a French critic, essayist
and novelist who has been catalogued as one of the greatest authors of the 20th
Century.
Marguerite Yourcenar:
Marguerite Cleenewerck de Crayencour was born in Brussels, Belgium, in 1903, was
educated in France and died in Mount Desert Island, United States, in 1987. She was
a French-Belgian poet, novelist, essayist and translator, and one of the most
respected French authors of all times. She was the first woman to become part of
the French Academy (1980).
Marcel Renault:
Born in France in 1872, he was a French industrialist and racing car driver, brother of
Louis and Fernand Renault, whit whom he founded the car manufacturing company
Renault in 1899. He died in 1903 after a car accident during the Paris-Madrid race.
Marie Curie
Madam Curie was not only the first woman to win the Nobel prize, but she won two
Nobel prizes: in Physics 1903 and Chemistry 1911.
Maurice Allais:
Born in Paris in 1911, Maurice Félix Charles Allais is a French physician and
economist who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1988 for “his
pioneering contributions to the theory of markets and efficient utilization of
resources."
Montesquieu:
Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu was born in
Gironde, France, in 1689 and died in Paris in 1755. He was a French chronicler and
political thinker, and is considered one of the most important and influential
essayists and philosophers of all times, especially for his articulation of the theory of
separation of powers, which is one of the foundations of the constitutions of many of
today’s nations worldwide. He lived during the Era of the Enlightenment.
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte was an exceptional military and political leader who had a
considerable impact on European history. He was a general during the French
Revolution, the ruler of France as First Consul of the French Republic and Emperor of
the First French Empire. Napoleon’s rule was one of the most influential periods in all
of history; moreover, his code of laws became the basis for the French law.
Rene Descartes
"I think, therefore I am" (Cogito ergo sum)
He was a highly influential French philosopher mathematician, scientist, writer of the
17th century. Descartes is considered the “Father of Modern Philosophy.”
Roland Garros:
Born in Saint-Denis, Réunion, France in 1888, he was a French pioneer of the
aviation who worked as a pilot during World War I. He became famous for being the
first pilot to cross the Mediterranean Sea in non-stop flight.
Olivier Martinez:
Son of a Spanish father, this French actor was born in Paris in 1966 and started
acting in 1990 in France, after which he rapidly gained international fame for his
performance in different American films such as “Unfaithful” (2002), with Diane Lane
and Richard Gere, and “S.W.A.T.” (2003), with Samuel L. Jackson, Colin Farrell and
Michelle Rodriguez.
Victor Hugo:
Victor-Marie Hugo was born in Besançon, France, in 1802 and died in Paris in 1885.
This French poet, writer, human rights activist, playwright, essayist, artist and
statesman is considered by many as the greatest French poet and the most
important author of the Romanticism in France.
Voltaire:
His real name was François Marie Arouet; he was born in Paris in 1694 and died in
the same city in 1778. He was a controversial French philosopher, poet, essayist,
writer and playwright, and one of the most important representatives of the French
Enlightenment along with other authors such as John Locke, Montesquieu and JeanJacques Rousseau.
Yves Saint-Laurent:
Yves Henri Donat Mathieu-Saint-Laurent was born in Oran, French Algeria, in 1936,
and died in Paris in 2008. He was a French fashion designer and entrepreneur,
founder of the haute couture brand Yves Saint-Laurent, who’s been recognized as
one of the most representative figures of French fashion in the 20th Century.
http://daytranslations.com/Famous_french_people.aspx