Michel Jean-Pierre Debré (French pronunciation: [miʃɛl dəbʁe]; 15 January 1912 – 2 August 1996) was the first Prime Minister of the French Fifth Republic. He is considered the "father" of the current Constitution of France. He served under President Charles de Gaulle from 1959 to 1962. In terms of political personality, Debré was intense and immovable and had a tendency to rhetorical extremism.
Louis Pierre Althusser (UK: , US: ; French: [altysɛʁ]; 16 October 1918 – 22 October 1990) was a French Marxist philosopher who studied at the École normale supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy.
Althusser was a long-time member and sometimes a strong critic of the French Communist Party (Parti communiste français, PCF). His arguments and theses were set against the threats that he saw attacking the theoretical foundations of Marxism. These included both the influence of empiricism on Marxist theory, and humanist and reformist socialist orientations which manifested as divisions in the European communist parties, as well as the problem of the cult of personality and of ideology. Althusser is commonly referred to as a structural Marxist, although his relationship to other schools of French structuralism is not a simple affiliation and he was critical of many aspects of structuralism. He later described himself as a social anarchist.Althusser's life was marked by periods of intense mental illness. In 1980, he killed his wife, the sociologist Hélène Rytmann, by strangling her. He was declared unfit to stand trial due to insanity and committed to a psychiatric hospital for three years. He did little further academic work, dying in 1990.
Jacques Renouvin (6 October 1905 – 24 January 1944) was a royalist militant in France during the Second World War and hero of the French resistance.
Born in Paris, Renouvin studied law and initially became a lawyer. He initially supported Action française, but left after the 6 February 1934 crisis. In November 1938 after the Munich agreement, he garnered attention by publicly slapping Pierre-Étienne Flandin, who had sent a congratulatory telegram to Adolf Hitler. Renouvin was mobilised in 1939, and he was a volunteer for the corps francs. He fought a brilliant campaign, being wounded and taken prisoner. He escaped from the hospital to which he had been brought.
After demobilisation, he moved to the free zone in late 1940, and joined the underground movement Liberté created by a small group of Christian democrat teachers. Specifically responsible for propaganda, he organised youth commandos in pursuit of this. After the merger between Liberté and Les Petites Ailes which gave rise to Combat, Henri Frenay put Renouvin in charge of organising Groupes francs throughout the free zone. This position made him one of the most wanted resistance members by all the police.
Renouvin was arrested on the 29 January 1943 by the Gestapo at Brive-la-Gaillarde railway station, along with Mireille Tronchon whom he had married while in hiding. He was transferred to Fresnes Prison and tortured for several months before being deported to Germany on the 29 August 1943. Interned in Mauthausen concentration camp, he died of exhaustion on 24 January 1944.
He had a son, Bertrand Renouvin, from his marriage to Mireille Tronchon; Bertrand was born on 15 June 1943 while his mother was still being held in La Santé prison.
A 20 centimes postage stamp was issued in 1961 in Renouvin's memory.
Pierre Armand Gaston Billotte (8 March 1906 – 29 June 1992) was a French Army officer and politician. He was the son of General Gaston Billotte, who commanded parts of the French Army at the start of World War II. Pierre Billotte was himself notable for his combat actions during the Battle of France.
Gabriel-Marie Garrone (12 October 1901 in Aix-les-Bains, Savoie, France – 15 January 1994 in Rome, Italy) was a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and a Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education.
Gabriel-Marie Garrone was born in Aix-les-Bains, France. He entered the seminary and was educated at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and later, at the Pontifical French Seminary also in Rome.
Georges Soulès (11 November 1907 – 26 August 1986), known by his pen name Raymond Abellio, was a French writer.
Alain de Boissieu Déan de Luigné (French pronunciation: [alɛ̃ də bwasjø]; 5 July 1915 – 5 April 2006) was a French general who served in the Free French Forces during World War II, later becoming Army chief of staff (1971–1975). He was the son-in-law of General Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French and postwar President of France.
Roger Garaudy (French: [ʁɔʒe gaʁodi]; 17 July 1913 – 13 June 2012) was a French philosopher, French resistance fighter and a communist author. He converted to Islam in 1982. In 1998, he was convicted and fined for Holocaust denial under French law for claiming that the death of six million Jews was a "myth".
Father René Laurentin (French pronunciation: [ʁəne loʁɑ̃tɛ̃]; October 19, 1917 – September 10, 2017) was a French theologian. He is widely recognized as "one of the world’s foremost students" of Mariology and is the author of numerous books and scholarly articles on topics including Marian apparitions such as Lourdes and Medjugorje; visionaries and mystics including Bernadette Soubirous, Thérèse de Lisieux, Catherine Labouré, and Yvonne Aimée de Malestroit; as well as biblical exegesis, theology, and Vatican II.
Georges Thierry d'Argenlieu, in religion Father Louis of the Trinity, OCD (7 August 1889 – 7 September 1964), was a Discalced Carmelite friar and priest, who was also a diplomat and French Navy officer and admiral; he became one of the major personalities of the Forces navales françaises libres. He was the chancellor of the Ordre de la Libération.