1997 deaths

Françoise Prévost (13 January 1930 – 30 November 1997) was a French actress, journalist and author. She was the daughter of writer Marcelle Auclair. She appeared in more than 70 films between 1949 and 1985.

Annie Violette Fratellini (14 November 1932 – 1 July 1997) was a French circus artist, singer, film actress and clown.

Paul Louis Marius Ricard (French pronunciation: [pɔl lwi maʁjys ʁikaʁ]; July 9, 1909 – November 7, 1997) was a French industrialist and creator of an eponymous pastis brand which merged in 1975 with its competitor Pernod to create Pernod Ricard. Ricard was also an environmentalist and the developer of two Mediterranean islands, as well as the builder of the Circuit Paul Ricard in Le Castellet.

Roger Gaston Louis Marche (5 March 1924 – 1 November 1997) was a French footballer who played as a defender. He was part of the France national team during the 1954 and 1958 World Cup tournaments. He was nicknamed Le Sanglier des Ardennes ("the Boar of the Ardenne") for the region from which he came.

François-Henri de Virieu, marquis de Virieu (18 December 1931 – 27 October 1997) was a French journalist and television presenter.

François Furet (French: [fʁɑ̃swa fyʁɛ]; 27 March 1927 – 12 July 1997) was a French historian and president of the Saint-Simon Foundation, best known for his books on the French Revolution. From 1985 to 1997, Furet was a professor of French history at the University of Chicago.
Furet was elected to the Académie française in March 1997, just three months before he died in July.

Jean Carlu (1900–1997) was a French graphic designer who specialised in posters. He was a member of a family of architects; his brother Jacques Carlu for example designed the Palais de Chaillot in Paris. He made posters during World War II to promote an increase in American production.

Pierre-Henri Teitgen (29 May 1908 – 6 April 1997) was a French lawyer, professor and politician. Teitgen was born in Rennes, Brittany. Taken POW in 1940, he played a major role in the French Resistance. Teitgen's father, Henri Teitgen (1882–1965), was a senior politician of the Popular Republican Movement.
A member of French Parliament from 1945 to 1958 for Ille-et-Vilaine, Pierre-Henri was president of the Popular Republican Movement (Christian Democratic Party) from 1952 to 1956. He was Minister of Information in 1944 (one of the founders of the daily Le Monde), Minister of Justice in 1945–1946 (in charge of the purges from government of the Vichy regime's followers and of Nazi collaborators), Minister of Defence in 1947–48 in Robert Schuman's government at the time of the insurrectional strikes. In May 1948, he attended the Congress of The Hague and worked closely with Robert Schuman in Schuman Declaration and the start of the European Community when he was Minister of Information and Civil service in 1949–1950. He was later Minister of Overseas in 1950. He was member of the Constitutional Committee in 1958. He was twice deputy prime minister in 1947–1948 and 1953–1954. He was member of the Consultative Constitutional Committee in 1958 but became a critic of de Gaulle's policies.He supported the Socialist Defferre in his attempt as candidate for presidency in 1965. In September 1976, he was appointed member of the European Court of Human Rights. He had helped to create the court some 27 years earlier, in 1949, outlining its powers and the rights it should protect in a report for the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe. Teitgen died in Paris in 1997.

Jean-Dominique Bauby (French: [ʒɑ̃ dɔminik bobi]; 23 April 1952 – 9 March 1997) was a French journalist, author and editor of the French fashion magazine Elle.

Roland Topor (7 January 1938 – 16 April 1997) was a French illustrator, cartoonist, comics artist, painter, novelist, playwright, film and TV writer, filmmaker and actor, who was known for the surreal nature of his work. He was of Polish-Jewish origin. His parents were Jewish émigrés from Warsaw, Poland. He spent the early years of his life in Savoy, where his family hid him from the Gestapo.