Étienne Vincent Borne (January 22, 1907 – June 14, 1993) was born in Manduel (Gard). He was a professor of philosophy Hypokhâgne at Lycée Henri-IV in Paris. Étienne Borne founded the Mouvement republicain populaire (MRP), and the French Christian Democratic Party. He was a columnist in the newspaper La Croix.
Jacques Derrida was one of his students.
Jean-Michel Gaillard (May 16, 1946, Pont-Sant-Esprit in Gard, France – July 19, 2005, Paris) was a high-ranking French official. He was, most notably, director general of Antenne 2 (now France 2), from 1989 to 1991.
He was a student of the École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud, where he received a doctorate in history. As a politician he was a militant socialist, aligned with the likes of François Hollande and Ségolène Royal. He was father to two girls.
Before his death from cancer at the age of 59, he was counsel for the Academy of Television Arts. During the presidency of François Mitterrand, he worked as a senior advisor at the Élysée Palace. As a television script writer he co-wrote the television film Leclerc, a Dream of Indochina with Nicolas Sarkozy, which debuted on France 3 in 2003.
He wrote many works, including a biography of Jules Ferry, published in 1989.
René Grousset (5 September 1885 – 12 September 1952) was a French historian, curator of both the Cernuschi and Guimet Museums in Paris, and a member of the prestigious Académie française. He wrote several major works on Asiatic and Oriental civilizations, with his two most important works being Histoire des croisades et du royaume franc de Jérusalem (1934–1936) and The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia (1939), both of which were considered standard references on the subject.