Who's who in France... (#1)

To understand a country you should know some people who are very well known by everyone in the country, even if their fame has not crossed the border. Here are some examples. See also 2008 men-women of the Year

Olivier Besancenot Paul Bocuse Jose Bové Daniel Cohn-Bendit Jean-François Copé Rachida Dati Bertrand Delanoe Gérard Depardieu Michel Drucker Alain Ducasse Carlos Ghosn

Johnny Hallyday Michel Houellebecq Nicolas Hulot Bernard Kouchner Arlette Laguiller Jack Lang Yannick Noah Jean Marie LePen Bernard-Henry Levy Jean Marie Messier

Abbé Pierre Bernard Pivot Patrick Poivre d'Arvor Tariq Ramadan Ségolène Royal Nicolas Sarkozy Bernard Tapie Simone Veil Zinedine Zidane

Historical : Simone de Beauvoir Coco Chanel Coluche Charles de Gaulle Jules Ferry Jean Jaurès Jean Monnet Jean Moulin

Living personalities
Olivier Besancenot (born 1974) is the spokesman of Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (L.C.R.) now N.A.P. (New Anti-capitalism Party), one of the two main Trotskyist organisations with L.O. (see Laguiller). A postman in Neuilly (the wealthiest suburb of Paris), he enjoys an excellent image in the medias (a wolf in sheep's clothing) and won more than 4 % of the vote in the 2007 presidential election with the motto : "Our lives are worth more than their profits". Read about some of his voters, the altermondialistes. Paul Bocuse (born 1926) : grounded in traditional regionl cooking, this great innovator has shaken up French cuisine ; a "classical" chef, he insists on the quality of products and spends a lot of time away from his (magnificient) restaurant near Lyon to promote French cuisine in Japan. Jose Bové (born 1960), a symbol of anti-globalization, is famous for having destroyed a new MacDonald's restaurant in a small town in France as a protest against the " malbouffe " (i.e. unhealthy way of eating) ; the leader of a Farmer's Association he was also sentenced to jail for the destruction of a field of genetically modified corn ; he lived in Berkeley as a child and speaks relatively good English . He made a very poor score in the 2007 presidential election. Read more about him and about some of his voters, the altermondialistes. Daniel Cohn-Bendit (born 1945) was one the leaders of the French student revolt in 1968 and by far the most charismatic. Totally bi-cultural, he is a German citizen and was expelled from France as such. In Germany, he became one of the leaders of "Die Grünen", then deputy mayor of Frankfurt. He is now an European deputy, the president of the Green and one of the most respected members of the Parliament. He is very popular in France and frequently invited on TV where, an excellent debater, he advocates for European issues. In 2009, he lead the French Greens for the elections to the European Parliament and made a brilliant score.He is the living example of what Europe can become. Jean-François Copé, age 45, is one of the handful of people who can say that their objective in life is to become president of France in 2017 without people cracking up when they hear it ; a typical example of the French elite, he graduated from ENA (of course), he has been elected mayor of Meaux, deputy and appointed member of the government as the Minister of Budget ; he is currently the leader of the Majority at the Chamber ; he is very intelligent, very charming, rather arrogant and overly ambitious. Rachida Dati (born 1966), the daughter of an Algerian worker, made her way up to the level of Minister of Justice, the fourth most prestigious position in the government of Sarkozy. She is a hard worker and a brilliant example of the new France where		Jack Lang (born 1935) was President François Mitterrand's flamboyant Minister of Culture in the 1980-90s ; among his most famous achievements are the Fête de la Musique (every year in June since 1982), the building of many major new monuments in Paris (including the new Opera House, the Grande Arche, the Louvre Pyramid,...). Jean Marie Le Pen (born 1930) is the incarnation of the ugly racist and xenophobic France ; the President of the Front National, the extreme right party, he has fought for decades to keep immigrants away from the country with little success until in 2002, thanks to the division of the right wing parties and the stupidity of the left, he came second in the first round of the presidential elections with almost 17% of the votes ; in the second round, he lost to Chirac with only 20% ; he is " famous " for having declared in a interview that " the gas chambers are only a detail in the history of WW2 ". Bernard-Henry Levy (born 1948) is a typical example of French "intellectuels" ; once a "new philosopher" with a couple of rather brilliant books ("la barbarie à visage humain), he is now somewhere between a writer and a show-biz hero, with his wife, the glamourous actress Arielle Dombasle. In 2005, his book "American Vertigo" was quite controversial. Jean Marie Messier (born 1954) illustrates the worst aspects of the French society. A graduate of the most prestigious Grandes Ecoles (X & ENA), he spent a few years as a junior member of a Cabinet then as "associé" in a leading investment bank (Lazard) and at age 40, without haver ever been anything else than the boss, he was appointed CEO of Compagnie Générale des Eaux (the world leader of the water industry). Arrogant and megalomaniac, it took him only five years to take it almost to bankrupcy and Vivendi (the new name) only escaped it after selling, at a loss, almost all the companies he had taken over, including Universal Studios and his $17m apartment on Central Park. A French Enron (without fraud). Today, JMM still fights over his golden parachute and considers that nobody really undestood his superior intelligence.
the most talented children of immigrants from North and West Africa can become members of the government (like her two women colleagues Rama Yade and Fadela Amara of Senegalese and Algerian origin). More about women in political life.  credit Bertrand Delanoe (born 1948) is the mayor of Paris ; a socialist, he has developed a (so far rather successful) policy to develop public transport and community facilities such as kindergarten (including one in the 10,000 sq feet former official mayor's apartment in the city hall). He is openly gay. Gérard Depardieu (born 1948) is the most famous (and best paid) French actor, the star of many films, some good and others bad, but he always brings to a film the power of his overwhelming personality. He drinks too much and talks too much and some of the interviews he has given were ridiculous but he is really a star and a great actor. Michel Drucker (born 1948) has been for decades the host of the most popular Sunday afternoon program on TV; he is considered by most French women the best possible son-in-law ; his two brothers were very successful in science and business and I love the story of his mother saying to the President of France, the day he was awarded the Legion of Honour in the Elysée Palace :"I'm happy because now, he'll be stimulated to do something with his life" Alain Ducasse (born 1955) is the most illustrious French chef and the first one who ever had more than 3 stars, since he runs three restaurants totalling 7 stars, one in Monaco, one in Paris and one in New York ; his cooking is extremely creative, with the adaptation to traditional French cooking of new foreign tastes, often Asian. Read more about him. Carlos Ghosn (born 1954) is a success story in French corporate life ; a multicultural personality (French, Lebanese, Brazilian), a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique, he was a very successful CEO of Nissan, which made him very popular in Japan ; he is now the CEO of Renault.		Yannick Noah (born 1960) is a success-story of multi - ethnic France ; the son of a mother from Brittany and a father from Cameroon, he became a tennis champion (World #3 in 1983, he won the Davis Cup, the French Open, etc..) but above all he is one of the people the French love the most (#1 in 2005) because of his personnality, gentleness, thoughtfulness and charm. He is now a very successful singer with a very colorful music. Bernard Pivot (born 1942) is one of the most popular TV stars with his programs about culture or language. For 20 years, he had a Friday-evening program on literature (" Apostrophe ") that everybody in France commented during the week end. His dictation championship is the French equivalent of the Super-Bowl. Now he has another very popular program on the French language, inviting authors and linguists and defendin "francophonie". In 2004, he launched a campaign to protect " endangered words ", i.e. old fashioned words which are not used anymore and are pushed out of dictionnaries. His campaign " Adopt A Word " was to obtain from well-known writers a commitment to use one of them in their next book ! Patrick Poivre d'Arvor (born 1946) has been the favorite French anchorman for more than 25 years and is also a successful author of more than 30 books ; he was the most familiar face of the French TV screen until his dismissal in 2008. Tariq Ramadan (born 1958) is the socially acceptable face of fundamentalist Islam. Urbane, good looking, excellent on talk shows, he is invited to talk whenever the subject " Is Islam a threat ? " is raised. Always soft and reassuring, he rarely loses his self-control. However, he did the day he was asked the question : " According to the Koran, the adulterous wife must be lapidated : what do you think of that ? ". His answer was : " Thank you for asking this question. I think there should be a moratorium on lapidation. " Did you get that ? He did not say " I am against it ", he said " we should try to find a better solution ". Which one : replace lapidation by stabbing ? by lethal injection ? Ségolène Royal (born 1954) represents a new kind of French politician. The Socialist president of a small region (Poitou), she is an articulate woman of great poise ; she talks calmly about things other politicians never mention (raising children, etc...). Although she is not a weak person and belongs to the typically French political class (ENA) she represents something new in French politics and voters on both sides acknowledge it. She is the only Socialist leader who dares saying something nice about Tony Blair and something tough about crime. She ran for President in 2007 and it was the first time a major party chose a woman as its candidate. In addition to that, she is very pretty.... See her portrait and read about French women in politics.
Johnny Hallyday (born 1943) is still among the most popular singers in France ; a rock star, he is one of the few French singers who can fill a 80,000-seat stadium several days in a row with his spectacular performances ; even though many people mock his unsophisticated way of talking and his look of an aging rocker, everybody likes him as a person and follows with indulgence his (many) successive marriages with younger and younger girls. Michel Houellebecq (born 1958) is a brilliant and controversial writer. A sort of a prophet, he has been called the first French writer of the XXIrst Century, with his very iconoclastic perception of the world, often very graphic. Nicolas Hulot (born 1955) is a very popular TV producer of programs about ecology with his TV show "Ushuaïa" ; his Foundation Nicolas Hulot is very influential and he plays a significant political role by demanding politicians to include ecological concerns in their programs. More about environment. Bernard Kouchner (born 1939) is a very popular figure in France ; one of the founders of Medecins Sans Frontières (doctors without borders, the " French Doctors ") he has been successful in his successive roles as a leader of the students in the 1968 riots and later in radical students' movements, a minister of Health in the socialist governments of Mitterrand, and the representative of UN in Kosovo. Now he has been appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs by Nicholas Sarkozy, who also appointed to his cabinet other members of the Socialist Party, although his strong majority does not require it. The Socialist Party is very upset and has ousted Kouchner (anything bipartisan is considered betrayal in France). Arlette Laguiller (born 1940) is the spokeswoman of Lutte Ouvrière (L.O.), one of the two major Trotskyist organizations in France (see Besancenot) ; since 1974, she has been candidate in every presidential election in France and her scores are far from negligible (around 5%) ; although L.O. has many aspects of a sect and would maybe behave like the Red Khmers if ever in power, she is popular and many people, who would not consider voting for her, think that among politicians, she is the only one sincere ; read about the strange phenomenon of Trotskyism in France.		Nicolas Sarkozy (born 1955) was the rising star of the French political life on the Right wing. The son of a Hungarian immigrant, he is rather different from the traditional French political leaders and clearly makes them look outdated : he is a lawyer (and not a civil servant), he is outspoken, ambitious, pragmatic, hyper-active and direct. He managed to put himself in the role of the leader of the French center-right political life and was brilliantly elected president on May 6, 2007. Bernard Tapie (born 1940) was a business wonder-man in the 1960s ; he became very rich by taking over bankrupt companies, was the president of the Olympique de Marseille, the best football team in France, and even briefly a minister of Urban Affairs in a socialist cabinet ; he lost all his money in two years and two or three lawsuits ; then he became a TV presenter and an actor ; a charming character, he is still popular and is famous for having declared in court " it is true that I lied, but it was in good faith ". Simone Veil (born 1928) was the Minister of Justice who passed the law legalizing abortion in 1976, amidst a huge controversy where she demonstrated impressive political courage and moral strength against her extreme-right opponents ; she survived Auschwitz, where she had been deported with her family. Zinedine Zidane (born 1972) is the most famous football player in the French team and the hero of the World Cup, won by France in 1998 ; a very gentle and poised man, he speaks with this typical chanting accent from Marseille ; a hero and a living example for the whole community of "beurs" (French of Algerian origin) ; he always ranks among the most-loved French personalities.       Please email me if you had a question to ask or a suggestion for another mini-bio (also see the section " most popular French personalities "). Other names suggested by visitors include : Pierre Boulez, Jean-Marie Le Clezio, etc...
Personalities of the recent past		2008 men-women of the Year
Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) : for better and for worse, she set the agenda for the feminist movement with he book "The Second Sex" Coco Chanel (1894-1971) : the ultimate arbiter of "chic", she released women from the ryranny of fashion, combining style and comfort "luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury" Coluche (Michel Colucci) (1944-1986) : an extremely popular comedian, in the French traditional graphic, often Rabelaisian and even often scatological style ; he founded the "Restaurants du Coeur" which distributes meals to the poor (60 million meals last year with 40,000 volunteers)  Abbé Pierre (1912-2007) was the most loved French personality; a priest in the Resistance, his entire life had been devoted to the poor and he became famous in the early 1950s by launching a huge campaign to find shelter for the thousands of homeless people in post-war France ; he founded the Compagnons d'Emmaüs, an association which gives a job (collecting abandoned furniture and clothes) and a place to sleep to the poorest ; these Maisons d'Emmaüs are a network of thriftshops all over the country ; Abbé Pierre was a living icon, considered a saint by most people. Read about the emotion in France when he died. Other names suggested by visitors include : Yves Saint-Laurent, Soeur Emmanuelle, etc...		2008 was a difficult year indeed. The French mood was not very high. As usual, articles such as "Is the French culture dead or dying?" flourished. But the situation of the country was not so bad and there were French winners. If you haven't heard of them, it's because the US press doesn't do its job and mentions only American winners! It was sort of refreshing to read an article like " The French of the Year 2008 " (le Figaro, 20/12/2008) which listed : Jean-Marie Le Clezio, Nobel Prize 2008 (literature), for a very personal and open-to-the-world body of work Luc Montagnier and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, Nobel Prizes 2008 (medicine) for the discovery of HIV Marion Cotillard, Oscar for Best Actress 2008 for " La Môme " Jean Nouvel, Pritzker Prize 2008 (architecture) for his work Alain Bernard, 3 medals at the Beijung Olympic Games (swimming) Sebastien Loeb and Daniel Elena, five times World Champion (car rallies) Joel Robuchon, 24 Michelin Stars in all (chef) Laurent Cantet, Gold Palm at the Cannes Festival (film-maker) for his movie " Entre les murs " Other winners listed in the article include : - actors and actresses : Mathieu Amalric, Dany Boon - Film-maker : Guillaume Canet - singers : Roberto Alagna, Carla Bruni, Nathalie Dessay (Laurence Olivier Award) - musician : Justice, Pedro Winter - sportsmen and sportswomen : Julien Absalon (Gold Medal), Coralie Balmy (World Champion), Mike Di Meglio (World Champion), Jean-Baptiste Grange (World Champion), Amaury Leveaux (World Champion), Loïc Peyron, Franck Ribéry, Jo-Wilfrid Tsonga - writers : Muriel Barbery, Yasmina Reza, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt - cooks and sommeliers : Enrico Bernardo, Stephane Derenoncourt - businessmen : Pierre Gadoneix, Maurice Levy (2008 Anti-Defamation League Award) - scientists : Claude Lorius (Japanese Blue Planet Award), Brigitte Senut (Joliot-Curie Award 2008), Joseph Sifakis (Turing Prize), Jean Weissenbach (Gold Medal CNRS)
To related pages : headlines in the French media, historical heroes (#2), schools named after famous people, etc...

To table of contents To top of the page Back to home page	Harriet Welty Rochefort writes articles and books about France and the French. Order her books : "French Toast, An American in Paris Celebrates The Maddening Mysteries of the French", St.Martin's Press, New York, 1999 "French Fried, The Culinary Capers of An American in Paris", St.Martin's Press, New York, 2001 More on Harriet's books (excerpts, upcoming events, testimonials, etc..)
To email me	If you like this site, please bookmark it or create a link!