Grand Officers of the Legion of Honour

Jean Lacouture (9 June 1921 – 16 July 2015) was a journalist, historian and author. He was particularly famous for his biographies.

Jean-Philippe Lauer (7 May 1902 – 15 May 2001), was a French architect and Egyptologist. He was considered to be the foremost expert on pyramid construction techniques and methods.

Jean-Louis Charles Garnier (pronounced [ʃaʁl ɡaʁnje]; 6 November 1825 – 3 August 1898) was a French architect, perhaps best known as the architect of the Palais Garnier and the Opéra de Monte-Carlo.

Philippe Morillon (French pronunciation: [filip mɔʁijɔ̃]; born 24 October 1935) is a former French general and was a Member of the European Parliament until 2009. He was elected on the Union for French Democracy ticket with the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group. On 23 July 2004 he was elected Chair of the Committee on Fisheries.
Before turning to politics he was an army General, and commanded the United Nations Forces in Bosnia (1992-1993). In Srebrenica, Bosniak survivors fled into three eastern enclaves where the Bosnian republican army had resisted: Goražde, Žepa and Srebrenica, their populations swelled by displaced deportees, cowering, bombarded relentlessly and largely cut off from supplies of food and medicine. The population of Srebrenica swelled from 9,000 to 70,000, and by March 1993 the situation was sufficiently horrific that Philippe Morillon led a convoy into the battered pocket and, appalled, promised: “You are now under the protection of the UN forces. I will never abandon you.” The UN duly proclaimed Srebrenica as one of six “safe areas” to be defended by the United Nations Protection Force (our emphasis), or Unprofor. In July 1995, 8000 Bosnian men and boys were massacred in Srebrenica.After Bosnia, Morillon commanded the Rapid Reaction Force, after which he retired with the rank of général de corps d'armée. He is a Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur.
In September 2010, Morillon was denied access to Srebrenica Genocide memorial by Bosniak women who believed that he had allowed the Srebrenica massacre.

Alain Decaux (23 July 1925 − 27 March 2016) was a French historian. He was elected to the Académie française on 15 February 1979.
In 2005, he was, with others authors as Frédéric Beigbeder, Mohamed Kacimi, Richard Millet and Jean-Pierre Thiollet, among the Beirut Book Fair's main guests in the Beirut International Exhibition & Leisure Center, commonly (BIEL).

Jacqueline Auriol (French pronunciation: [ʒaklin oʁjɔl]; 5 November 1917, Challans, Vendée – 11 February 2000) was a French aviator who set several world speed records.

René Huyghe (3 May 1906 – 5 February 1997) was a French writer on the history, psychology and philosophy of art. He was also a curator at the Louvre's department of paintings (from 1930), a professor at the Collège de France and from 1960 a member of the Académie Française. He was the father of the writer François-Bernard Huyghe.

Count Alexandre de Marenches (7 June 1921 – 2 June 1995) was a French military officer, a director of the SDECE French external intelligence services (6 November 1970 – 12 June 1981), special advisor to US President Ronald Reagan, and a member of the Academy of Morocco.

Pierre Mazeaud (French pronunciation: [pjɛʁ mazo]; born 24 August 1929) is a French jurist, politician and alpinist.
In February 2004, he was appointed president of the Constitutional Council of France by President of France Jacques Chirac, replacing Yves Guéna, until he was succeeded by Jean-Louis Debré in February 2007. He had been a member of the council since February 1998.Pierre Mazeaud has a doctorate in law from the University of Paris (on marriage and the condition of the married woman in ancient Rome).
From 1961 to 1964, he was a member of the judiciary. In 1976, he became a counsellor in the Council of State, a position from which he retired on 25 August 1995. During the 1970s, he held subordinate governmental positions regarding sports. As a university student, Mazeaud was an active member of the Anarchist Federation. In the 1960's he entered electoral politics as a Gaullist.
Pierre Mazeaud's main hobby is alpinism, which he practiced at high level. On 11 July 1961, Mazeaud and other fellow climbers almost died in the Mont Blanc massif due to an unexpected storm.On 15 October 1978 he became the first Frenchman to climb Mount Everest together with Jean Afanassieff, Nicolas Jaeger and Kurt Diemberger (from Austria).

Louis Leprince-Ringuet (27 March 1901, in Alès – 23 December 2000, in Paris) was a French physicist, telecommunications engineer, essayist and historian of science.Leprince-Ringuet advocated strongly for the creation of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and remained its indefatigable supporter. He was vice chair (1956–69) and chair (1964–66) of CERN’s scientific policy committee. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society.He is known for early discovery of the kaon. He also coined the term hyperon in 1953.