French engineer stubs

Charles-Joseph Pigeon (29 March 1838 – 18 March 1915) was born in Le Mesnil-Lieubray in Normandy in France.
He started as a salesman in Le Bon Marché in Paris, where he became a close friend of Ernest Cognacq, subsequently the founder of the Samaritaine department store.
Pigeon became a dealer in cycle lamps and other lamps. His invention and manufacture of the Pigeon lamp, a non-exploding gasoline lamp, in 1884 (exhibited at the Exposition universelle de 1900), made him famous and wealthy.

After his death he remains noted for his family grave in Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris, which he commissioned in 1905 to hold up to 18 family members. The main feature is a life-sized bronze sculpture of Pigeon (notebook and pencil in hand) and his wife lying on a bed, overlooked by an angel, which had been illuminated by a lamp for many years by his custodians.

Pierre-Émile Martin (French: [pjɛʁ emil maʁtɛ̃]; 18 August 1824, Bourges, Cher – 23 May 1915, Fourchambault) was a French industrial engineer. He applied the principle of recovery of the hot gas in an open hearth furnace, a process invented by Carl Wilhelm Siemens.
In 1865, based on the Siemens process, he implemented the process which bears his name for producing steel in a hearth by remelting scrap steel with the addition of cast iron for the dilution of impurities.
His work earned him the award of the Bessemer Gold Medal of the Iron and Steel Institute in 1915 and of the French nation (knight in 1878 then Officer of the Legion of Honour in 1910).

Alphonse Loubat (15 June 1799 – 10 September 1866) was a French inventor who developed improvements in tram and rail equipment, and helped develop tram lines in New York City and Paris.
Loubat was born in Sainte-Livrade-sur-Lot. He went to New York City in 1827 where he helped develop that city's first tramway in 1832. He returned to France and in 1852 developed the grooved rail, which greatly facilitated street railways and tramlines. Besides he planted wine in Brooklin and wrote on wine.He died in Ville-d'Avray. Joseph Florimond Loubat was his son.

René Lorin (24 March 1877 – 16 January 1933) was a French aerospace engineer and inventor of the ramjet.In 1908 Lorin patented, FR390256, the first subsonic ramjet design. He published the principles of a ramjet in articles in the journal L'Aérophile from 1908 to 1913, expressing the idea that the exhaust from internal combustion engines could be directed into nozzles to create jet propulsion. He could not test this invention since there was no way at the time for an aircraft to go fast enough for a ramjet to function properly.When René Leduc applied for a patent on a ramjet design in 1933, FR705648, he discovered Lorin's publications and tried to contact him, only to learn that he had recently died. Leduc thereafter paid homage to Lorin's work.René Lorin is a graduate of the École Centrale Paris.

Raoul Grimoin-Sanson (1860–1941) was an inventor in the field of early cinema. He was born in Elbeuf, as Raoul Grimoin; he added the surname Sanson later. He had an early interest in stage magic as well as photography.
In the 1890s, Grimoin-Sanson began experiments in moving pictures, and desired to project films, like those from Thomas Edison's kinetoscope, on screen. In 1896, he invented a crude camera/projector combination called the Phototachygraphe. In 1897, he patented the Cinéorama, a panoramic film projection system involving ten synchronized projectors. The Cinéorama was demonstrated at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris, but problems with heat from the projectors caused it to be shut down. Despite the failure of his Cinéorama company and of later film work, in the 1920s Grimoin-Sanson would attempt to claim to be one of the major pioneers of film, alongside Marey and the Lumières.

Georges Leclanché (9 October 1839 – 14 September 1882) was a French electrical engineer chiefly remembered for his invention of the Leclanché cell, one of the first modern electrical batteries and the forerunner of the modern dry cell battery.

Charles Brun (22 November 1821, Toulon – 13 January 1897, Paris) was a 1st class engineer of the French Navy stationed at Rochefort, France.
He was famously involved in building the submarine Plongeur, which had been designed by Simon Bourgeois, in 1862.
Charles Brun later became:

Director of Naval constructions
Member of Parliament for Var (1871–76)
Senator for Var (1876–89)
Minister of Marine and the Colonies from 1883

Charles Tellier (29 June 1828 – 19 October 1913) was a French engineer, born in Amiens. He early made a study of motors and compressed air. In 1868, he began experiments in refrigeration, which resulted ultimately in the refrigerating plant, as used on ocean vessels, to preserve meats and other perishable food. In 1911, Tellier was awarded the Joest prize by the French Institute and, in 1912, he was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. He wrote Histoire d'une invention moderne, le frigorifique (1910).
Tellier died impoverished in Paris. Dimethyl ether was the first refrigerant, in 1876, Charles Tellier bought the ex-Elder-Dempster a 690 tons cargo ship Eboe and fitted a Methyl-ether refrigerating plant of his design. The ship was renamed Le Frigorifique and successfully imported a cargo of refrigerated meat from Argentina. However the machinery could be improved and in 1877 another refrigerated ship called Paraguay with a refrigerating plant improved by Ferdinand Carré was put into service on the South American run.

Jean Daninos (2 December 1906 – 13 October 2001) was a Greek-French constructor of luxury cars Facel Vega, born in Paris.
The brother of the Pierre Daninos, Jean Daninos had founded the company FACEL (Forges et Ateliers des Constructions d'Eure-et-Loir, forge and construction workshop for the department of Eure-et-Loir) in 1939 with hopes of one day designing and manufacturing his own automobile. An engineer, he had previously collaborated with Citroën on the Traction Avant and had worked in the aviation field.
The FACEL company produced the bodies of custom cars like the Panhard Dyna cabriolet and the Ford Comète.He had also a long time business partnership with Henri Théodore Pigozzi CEO of Simca. All the stylish Aronde sports derivatives (coupes and convertibles called PLein Ciel and Océane, targeted for well to do women customers ) were manufactured by Facel.
However Pigozzi and Simca chose cheaper and more trendy Carrozeria Bertone for the later the Simca 1000 derivatives (Simca 1200S) and ended the Simca partnership. The first Facel Vega model, designed by Daninos himself, debuted in 1954, equipped with a Chrysler engine. Daninos counted among his clients celebrities including (Tony Curtis, Ava Gardner) and racing drivers (Stirling Moss, Maurice Trintignant). Several sports car models followed until the company's demise in the mid-1960s. During ten years of production, FACEL had manufactured 3,000 automobiles.
Daninos died in Cannes at age 94 from cancer. He was buried with his relatives in Jouy-en-Josas.

Jean-Yves Le Gall (born 30 April 1959) is an engineering graduate from the École supérieure d'optique (1981) and holds a doctorate in engineering from the University of Paris-Sud (1983). He began his career in 1981 as a researcher at the Astronomy Laboratory, French National Scientific Research Center, where he worked on the European scientific satellites project Hipparcos and ISO. In 1985 he joined the Department of Industry and was assigned to the Space Office where he was particularly in charge of relations with the space industry.The Minister for the Postal Service, Telecommunications and Space appointed Le Gall as advisor for space affairs in 1985. In this position, he participated in the definition of CNES and ESA programs. In 1993, he joined Novespace, a subsidiary of CNES, of which he was Managing Director. Le Gall was appointed as CNES Deputy Managing Director in 1996. In this function, he was the French Representative to the ESA. In 1998, he was appointed as Chairman and CEO of Starsem.In 2001, he joined Arianespace as COO. Since 2002 till April 2013 he worked as an Arianespace CEO, was succeeded by Stéphane Israël. Since 2013 Jean-Yves Le Gall is a president of CNES.