French biographers

Pierre_Daix

Pierre Georges Daix (24 May 1922 – 2 November 2014) was a French journalist, writer and art historian. He was a friend and biographer of Pablo Picasso.As a young man, Daix was an ardent Stalinist. He joined the French Communist Party at the age of 17 in 1939 when the Communist Party was banned for supporting the German-Soviet pact. In July 1940, he created a student club, the Centre laïque des auberges de la jeunesse (Claj), which served as a legal screen for the clandestine Union of Communist Students.When David Rousset (1912-1997) spoke out about Stalin's vast system of prison camps, Daix attacked him as a liar, denying that the GULAG system existed in the Soviet Union, in a 16 page article in Les Lettres Françaises, entitled "Pourquoi M. David Rousset a-t-il inventé les camps soviétiques?". Rousset brought libel charges against Daix and there was a public trial in France, which Rousset, who had told the truth about the camps, won in 1950. As a French communist, Daix continued his uncritical support for the Soviet Union for many years, though late in life he admitted he had been wrong.From 1980 to 1985, he was a journalist for Le Quotidien de Paris.

Frédéric_Jacques_Temple

Frédéric Jacques Temple (18 August 1921 – 5 August 2020) was a French poet and writer. His work includes poems (collected in 1989 in a "Personal Anthology"), novels, travel stories and essays.
He also realised translations of English, Thomas Hardy, D. H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, and Lawrence Durrell.

Élisabeth_Badinter

Élisabeth Badinter (née Bleustein-Blanchet; born 5 March 1944) is a French philosopher, author and historian.
She is best known for her philosophical treatises on feminism and women's role in society. She is an advocate of liberal feminism and women migrant workers' rights in France. Badinter is described as having a commitment to Enlightenment rationalism and universalism. She advocates for a "moderate feminism". A 2010 Marianne news magazine poll named her France's "most influential intellectual", primarily on the basis of her books on women's rights and motherhood.Badinter is the largest shareholder of Publicis Groupe, a multinational advertising and public relations company, and the chairwoman of its supervisory board. She received these shares in an inheritance from her father, Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, who founded the company. According to Forbes, she is one of the wealthiest French citizens with a fortune of around US$ 1.8 billion in 2012.

Pierre_Assouline

Pierre Assouline (born 17 April 1953) is a French writer and journalist. He was born in Casablanca, Morocco to a Jewish family. He has published several novels and biographies, and also contributes articles for the print media and broadcasts for radio.
As a biographer, he has covered a diverse and eclectic range of subjects, including:

Henri Cartier-Bresson, the legendary photographer
Marcel Dassault, the aeronautics pioneer
Gaston Gallimard, the publisher
Hergé, the creator of The Adventures of Tintin
Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, the art dealer
Georges Simenon, the detective novelist and creator of Inspector MaigretSeveral of these books have been translated into English and the Henri Cartier-Bresson biography has been translated into Chinese.
As a journalist, Assouline has worked for the leading French publications Lire and Le Nouvel Observateur. He also publishes a blog, "La république des livres".

WikipediaAssouline was the editor of La Révolution Wikipédia, a collection of essays by postgraduate journalism students under his supervision. Assouline contributed the preface.On 7 January 2007, Assouline published a blog post criticizing the Wikipedia entry on the Dreyfus Affair.