Vocation : Military : Military career

Pierre Chanal ([pjɛʁ ʃanal]; 18 November 1946 – 15 October 2003) was a French soldier and suspected serial killer. He was convicted of the rape and kidnapping of a young man, Balázs Falvay, whom he picked up hitchhiking in 1988. He received a ten-year sentence for the attack and was released in 1995 on probation. He was accused of murdering three of eight young men who disappeared in northeastern France between 1980 and 1987. One of his alleged victims was Trevor O'Keeffe. Chanal killed himself in prison in 2003 while on trial.

Lieutenant-General Henry Freydenberg (14 December 1876 – 20 August 1975) was a French army officer. He was born in Paris on 14 December 1876 of German descent family.In 1919 he was chief of staff to general d'Anselme during the French occupation of Odessa.
As a colonel in 1921 he commanded a groupe mobile (a brigade-sized mixed-arms force) in an operation that ended the 7-year Zaian War. He remained involved in post-war operations in the El Ksiba in April 1922. From 1924 to 1929 he served as French Commandant of Meknes in Morocco, transferring in 1929 to command the 1st Senegalese Colonial Division in Senegal. From 1931 to 1933 he was Commander in Chief of French West Africa and spent a short period without a posting before becoming, in 1933, General Officer Commanding Colonial Forces in France. He retired in 1938 but was recalled upon the outbreak of the Second World War and became commander of the Colonial Corps.On 5 June 1940, during the Battle of France, he took over command of the French Second Army from Charles Huntziger, who had transferred to command the Fourth Army Group and who signed the Armistice with Germany on 22 June. He subsequently retired from the army for the second, and last, time.

Pierre Paul Jeanpierre (14 March 1912 – 29 May 1958) was a soldier in the French Army, a French Resistance fighter and senior officer of the French Foreign Legion.
He served in the French Army and fought during World War II, the First Indochina War, the Suez Crisis and the Algerian War, where he was killed in action. Apart from a short time spent in the French resistance and as a deportee during World War II, he served with the Foreign Legion from 1936 onwards. Jeanpierre commanded the 1st Foreign Parachute Battalion, expanded into the 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment (1er REP) until his death during the Algerian War.

Bernard Saint-Hillier (29 December 1911 – 28 July 2004) was a French general.
Saint-Hillier graduated from Saint-Cyr in 1933 and was affected to the 11th Chasseurs alpins Battalion. In 1938, he joined the French Foreign Legion with the rank of captain. He sided with the Fighting French and took part in the East African Campaign with the 13th Foreign Legion Demi-Brigade.
In 1943, he was promoted to commandant, and to lieutenant-colonel in 1944. He took command of the 13th Foreign Legion Demi-Brigade on the 25 March 1945. From 1946, he was affected to the general staff of the Armed Forces, where he spent two years.
In 1951, he was promoted to colonel, and led the 18th paratrooper regiment, until he departed to Indochina in 1954. On his return, he studied at the Institut des hautes études de la défense nationale.
In 1958, Saint-Hillier was chief of the general staff in Constantine, Algeria. Promoted to general of brigade in 1959, he became chief of cabinet of the Minister of Defence. From 1960 to 1961, he commanded the 10th Parachute Division. He was French military representative to the European Allied command in 1962.
In 1965, he was promoted to general of division, and served as inspector of the staffs of the Army. Saint-Hillier was promoted to Général de corps d'armée in 1968, commanding the 3rd Military Region in Rennes, and sitting at the Conseil supérieur de la Guerre.
He retired in 1971.

Antoine-Guillaume Rampon (16 March 1759 - 2 March 1842) joined the French army as a private soldier and rose in rank to become a general officer during the French Revolutionary Wars. He fought in many battles under Napoleon Bonaparte in Italy and Egypt. In one celebrated battle, he rallied his troops to defend the key Monte Negino redoubt against the Austrians. He saw limited service during the Napoleonic Wars. His surname can be found among the names inscribed under the Arc de Triomphe.

Fernand Gambiez (27 February 1903 – 29 March 1989) was a French Army general and military historian who fought in World War II, the First Indochina War and the Algerian War. During the Algerian War, Gambiez was commander-in-chief of the French Army in Algeria.
Gambiez was born in Lille, graduated from Saint Cyr in 1925. He served with the Foreign Legion in Morocco before studying at the Superior War School in 1935. He was a captain in command of a company during the Battle of France. He trained and commanded a Choc battalion in 1943, taking part in the fighting to liberate Corsica in 1944. Gambiez served as chief of staff to the French commander-in-chief Henri Navarre during the First Indochina War, including the Battle of Dien Bien Phu where one of his sons died.
He was promoted to Général de corps d'armée in 1958, commander of the Oran Corps in 1959, Inspector General of the Infantry in 1960 and finally commander-in-chief of the French Army in Algeria in 1961. He was arrested by the rebellious generals during the Algiers putsch in April 1961.
He was the director of the French military history commission from 1969 to 1989. He was also elected member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques in 1974.

Valérie André (French pronunciation: [valeʁi ɑ̃dʁe] ; born 21 April 1922) is a veteran of the French Resistance, a neurosurgeon, an aviator and the first female member of the military to achieve the rank of General Officer, in 1976, as Physician General. In 1981, she was promoted to Inspector General of Medicine. A helicopter pilot, she is the first woman to have piloted a helicopter in a combat zone. She is also a founding member of the Académie de l'air et de l'espace.As a member of the military, she is not addressed as "Madame la Générale" (a term reserved for spouses of generals) but as "General".She started as a Medical Captain in Indochina in 1948, already a qualified parachutist and pilot, in addition to being an army surgeon. While in Indochina, she realized that the most difficult part of her duties was retrieving the wounded, who were often trapped in the jungle. She returned to France to learn how to pilot a helicopter, then flew one to Indochina. From 1952–1953, she piloted 129 helicopter missions into the jungle, rescuing 165 soldiers, and on two occasions completed parachute jumps to treat wounded soldiers who needed immediate surgery.One typical mission occurred on 11 December 1951, when casualties were in urgent need of evacuation from Tu Vu on the Black River. The only available helicopter, stationed near Saigon, was dismantled, flown to Hanoi by a Bristol Freighter and reassembled. Captain André then flew into Tu Vu despite heavy mist and anti-aircraft fire. There, she triaged the casualties, operated on the most pressing cases and then flew the urgent wounded back to Hanoi, two at a time. Later, she was put in command of a casualty evacuation flight.
She continued in Algeria as a Medical Commander in 1960, where she completed 365 war missions. She rose to the rank of Medical Lieutenant Colonel in 1965 then to Medical Colonel in 1970. She had a total of 3200 flight hours, and received 7 citations of the Croix de Guerre.
She has written two collections of memoirs : Ici, Ventilateur! Extraits d'un carnet de vol. (Calmann-Lévy, 1954) and Madame le général (Perrin, 1988).
She is one of eight women to hold the Grand-croix (Great Cross) rank in the Legion of Honour, with Germaine Tillion, Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz, Jacqueline de Romilly, Simone Rozès, Christiane Desroches Noblecourt, Yvette Farnoux and Gilberte Champion.
She is the aunt of politician André Santini.
She turned 100 on 21 April 2022.