- Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a French poet, novelist, playwright, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights campaigner, and perhaps the most influential exponent of the Romantic movement in France. In France, Hugo's literary reputation rests on his poetic and dramatic output. Among many volumes of poetry, "Les Contemplations" and "La Légende des siècles" stand particularly high in critical esteem, and Hugo is sometimes identified as the greatest French poet.
- Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Jean-Baptiste Colbert served as the French minister of finance from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. He was described by Mme de Sévigné as « Le Nord » as he was cold and unemotional. His relentless hard work and thriftiness made him an esteemed minister. He achieved a reputation for his work of improving the state of French manufacturing and bringing the economy back from the brink of bankruptcy.
- Jean Racine
Jean Racine (December 22, 1639 - April 21, 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the "big three" of 17th century France (along with Molière and Corneille). Racine was primarily a tragedian, though he did write one comedy.
- Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, also referred to as Bernard le Bouyer de Fontenelle (February 11, 1657-January 9, 1757) was a French author. Fontenelle was born in Rouen, France (then the capital of Normandy). He died in Paris, having very nearly attained the age of 100 years. His mother was the sister of the great French dramatists Pierre Corneille and Thomas Corneille. He was educated at the college of the Jesuits in Rouen, …
- Antoine Furetière
Antoine Furetière, French scholar and miscellaneous writer, was born in Paris. He first studied law, and practised for a time as an advocate, but eventually took orders and after various preferments became abbé of Chalivoy in the diocese of Bourges in 1662. In his leisure moments he devoted himself to letters, and in virtue of his satires--"Nouvelle Allégorique, …
- Alain Robbe-Grillet
Alain Robbe-Grillet (born August 18 1922) is a French writer and filmmaker, born in Brest, Finistère, France into a family of engineers and scientists. He was trained as an agricultural engineer. In 1944 the National Institute of Agronomy awarded him a diploma. Later, he worked as an agronomist in Martinique. Either at university or while in Martinique, he studied the diseases of banana trees. Husband of Catherine Robbe-Grillet (née Rstakian).
- Léopold Sédar Senghor
Léopold Sédar Senghor was a Senegalese poet, politician, and cultural theorist who served as the first president of Senegal (1960-1980). Senghor was the first African to sit as a member of the Académie française. He was also the founder of the political party called the Senegalese Democratic Bloc. He is regarded by many as one of the most important African intellectuals of the 20th Century.
- Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson (October 18, 1859-January 4, 1941) was a major French philosopher, influential in the first half of the 20th century.
- Valéry Giscard D'Estaing
Valéry Marie René Giscard d'Estaing is a French centre-right politician who was President of the French Republic from 1974 until 1981. His tenure as President was marked by a rupture with his predecessor on social issues—such as divorce, contraception, and abortion—and attempts to modernize the country and the office of the presidency, …
- Georges Duby
Georges Duby was a French historian specializing in the social and economic history of the Middle Ages. He ranks among the most influential medieval historians of the twentieth century and was one of France's most prominent public intellectuals from the 1970's until his death in 1996. Born in 1919 to a family of Provençal craftsmen living in Paris, Duby was initially educated in the field of historical geography before moving into history.
- Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville was a French political thinker and historian best known for his "Democracy in America" (appearing in two volumes: 1835 and 1840) and "The Old Regime and the Revolution" (1856). In both of these works, he explored the effects of the rising equality of social conditions on both the individual and the state in western societies.
- Alexandre Ribot
Alexandre-Félix-Joseph Ribot was a French politician, four times Prime Minister.
- Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, scientist, photographer and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water. He co-developed the aqua-lung, pioneered marine conservation and was a member of the Académie française. Cousteau was born in Saint-André-de-Cubzac, Gironde, to Daniel and Élisabeth Cousteau. He is generally known in France as "le commandant Cousteau" ("Commander Cousteau").
- Paul Claudel
Paul Claudel (August 6, 1868 - February 23, 1955) was a French poet, dramatist and diplomat, and the younger brother of the sculptor Camille Claudel. He was most famous for his verse dramas, which often convey his devout Catholic faith.
- Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker. His versatile, unconventional approach and enormous output brought him international acclaim.
- Charles Perrault
Charles Perrault was a French author who laid foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, and whose best known tales include "Le Petit Chaperon rouge" ("Little Red Riding Hood"), "La Belle au bois dormant" ("Sleeping Beauty"), "Le Chat botté" ("Puss in Boots"), "Cendrillon" ("Cinderella"), "Barbe Bleue" ("Bluebeard"), "Le Petit Poucet" ("Hop o' My Thumb"), …
- Jean Le Rond D'Alembert
Jean le Rond d'Alembert was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist and philosopher. He was also co-editor with Denis Diderot of the "Encyclopédie". D'Alembert's method for the wave equation is named after him.
- Alain Decaux
Alain Decaux was born July 23, 1925 in Lille, France. A historian by profession, he was elected to the Académie française on February 15 1979.
- Paul Valéry
Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry (October 30, 1871 – July 20, 1945) was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath. In addition to his fiction (poetry, drama and dialogues), he also wrote many essays and aphorisms on art, history, letters, music, and current events.
- Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur (December 27 1822 - September 28 1895) was a French chemist best known for his remarkable breakthroughs in microbiology. His experiments confirmed the germ theory of disease, also reducing mortality from puerperal fever (childbed), and he created the first vaccine for rabies. He is best known to the general public for showing how to stop milk and wine from going sour - this process came to be called "pasteurization".
- Georges Duhamel
Georges Duhamel, was a French author, born in Paris. Duhamel trained as a doctor, and during World War I was attached to the French army. In 1920, he published "Confession de minuit" (ISBN 2-7152-1793-5), the first of a series featuring the anti-hero Salavin. In 1935, he was elected as a member of the Académie française.
- Thierry Maulnier
Thierry Maulnier was a French journalist, essayist, dramatist, and literary critic.
- Jacques Soustelle
Jacques Soustelle was a French anthropologist specializing in Pre-Columbian civilizations. He became vice-director of the Musée de l'Homme in Paris in 1938. Soustelle was born in Montpellier. An anti-fascist, he joined the French resistance and Charles de Gaulle in London, coming to head the information and intelligence services. In 1945, he served first as Minister of Information, then of the Colonies.
- Henri Poincaré
Jules Henri Poincaré was one of France's greatest mathematicians and theoretical physicists, and a philosopher of science. Poincaré is often described as a polymath, and in mathematics as 'The Last Universalist', since he excelled in all fields of the discipline as it existed during his lifetime. As a mathematician and physicist, he made many original fundamental contributions to pure and applied mathematics, mathematical physics, and celestial mechanics.
- Edgar Faure
Edgar Faure (August 18, 1908 - March 30, 1988) was a French politician, essayist, historian, and memoirist.
- Adolphe Thiers
Louis Adolphe Thiers (Marseille, April 16, 1797-September 3 1877) was a French politician and historian. Thiers was a prime minister under King Louis-Philippe of France. Following the overthrow of the Second Empire he again came to prominence as the French leader who suppressed the revolutionary Paris Commune of 1871. From 1871 to 1873 he served initially as "Head of State" (effectively a provisional President of France), then provisional President.
- Michel Serres
Michel Serres is a French philosopher and author with an unusual career. Born the son of a barge man, Serres entered the Ecole Navale in 1949 and the École Normale Supérieure in 1952. He agregated in 1955 after having studied philosophy. He spent the next few years as a naval officer before finally receiving his doctorate in 1968 and began teaching in Paris. As a child, Serres witnessed firsthand the violence and devastation of war.
- Pierre Nora
Pierre Nora is a French historian. He was elected to the Académie française June 7, 2001.
- Raymond Poincaré
Raymond Poincaré was a French conservative statesman who served as Prime Minister of France on five separate occasions and as President of France from 1913 to 1920. Born in Bar-le-Duc, Département Meuse, France, the son of Nicolas Antoinin Hélène Poincaré, a distinguished civil servant and meteorologist. Educated at the University of Paris, Raymond was called to the Paris bar, and was for some time law editor of the "Voltaire".
- Émile Ollivier
Olivier Émile Ollivier was a French statesman. He was born at Marseille. His father, Demosthènes Ollivier (1799-1884), was a vehement opponent of the July Monarchy, and was returned by Marseille to the Constituent Assembly in 1848. His opposition to Louis Napoleon led to his banishment after the coup d'etat of December 1851, and he returned to France only in 1860.
- Fernand Braudel
Fernand Braudel (August 24 1902-November 27 1985) was a French historian. He revolutionized the 20th century study of his discipline by considering the effects of such outside disciplines as economics, anthropology, and geography on global history. He was a prominent member of the Annales School of historiography, who concentrated on meticulous historical analysis in the social sciences
- Marguerite Yourcenar
Marguerite Yourcenar was the pseudonym of French novelist Marguerite Cleenewerck de Crayencour (June 8, 1903 - December 17, 1987). She was the daughter of Michel de Crayencour and Ferdinande (Fernande) de Cartier de Marchienne. Marguerite Yourcenar was the first woman to be elected to the Académie Française, in 1980.
- Ernest Renan
Ernest Renan (February 28, 1823-October 12, 1892) was a Breton philosopher and writer. He mostly wrote about religion and politics.
- François Mauriac
François Mauriac was a French author, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. He is acknowledged to be one of the greatest Roman Catholic writers of the 20th century
- Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (December 23, 1804 - October 13, 1869) was a literary critic and one of the major figures of French literary history.
- Maurice Druon
Maurice Druon is a French novelist and member of Académie française. Maurice Druon was born in Paris. He is the nephew of the writer Joseph Kessel, with whom he wrote the "Chant des Partisans", which, with music composed by Anna Marly, was used as an anthem by the French Resistance during the Second World War. In 1948 he received the Prix Goncourt for his novel "Les grandes familles".
- Étienne Aignan
Étienne Aignan was a French translator, political writer, librettist and playwright born in Beaugency-sur-Loire. In 1814 he was made a member of the Académie française, replacing Bernardin de Saint-Pierre in Seat 27. Among his works are: *a verse translation of the Iliad, *translations of Pope, Goldsmith, and Elisa Hervey, *the play "La mort de Louis XVI: tragédie en trois actes" (Paris 1793) covering the trial and execution of King Louis XVI, …
- Georges Clemenceau
Georges Clemenceau (Mouilleron-en-Pareds (Vendée), 28 September 1841 - 24 November 1929) was a French statesman, physician and journalist. He led France during World War I and was one of the major voices behind the Treaty of Versailles.
- Jacqueline de Romilly
Jacqueline Worms de Romilly (born March 26, 1913) is a French philologist
- Marcel Pagnol
Marcel Pagnol (February 28, 1895 - April 18, 1974) was a French novelist, playwright, and filmmaker.