Paul-Ferdinand Gachet (30 July 1828 – 9 January 1909) was a French physician most famous for treating the painter Vincent van Gogh during his last weeks in Auvers-sur-Oise. Gachet was a great supporter of artists and the Impressionist movement. He was an amateur painter, signing his works "Paul van Ryssel", referring to his birthplace: Rijsel is the Dutch name of Lille.
Jean Graton (10 August 1923 – 21 January 2021) was a French comic book author and cartoonist. Graton created the character Michel Vaillant and the eponymous series in 1957.
Maurice Rosy (17 November 1927 – 23 February 2013), was a Belgian comics writer who also worked as artistic director of Spirou magazine during its golden period.
Gilles Uriel Bernheim (French pronunciation: [ʒil y.ʁjɛl bɛʁ.nɛm]; born 30 May 1952) is a French-Israeli rabbi who was formerly the Chief Rabbi of France. Born in Aix-les-Bains, Savoie, in 1952, he was elected by the general assembly of the Central Consistory chief rabbi of France on 22 June 2008, for a seven-year mandate starting from 1 January 2009. Until then, he had been rabbi of synagogue de la Victoire, the main synagogue in Paris, since 1 May 1997. The Chief Rabbi of France was respected as a scholar not only in the Jewish community but in the wider academic world. However, he resigned as chief rabbi in April 2013 before his term had ended, amid revelations of plagiarism and deception about his academic credentials.
He succeeded chief rabbi Joseph Sitruk. He was very critical of the lifting of the excommunication of bishop Richard Williamson.The French Government appointed him Knight [Chevalier] in the Légion d'honneur, on 10 April 2009.
Henri Guaino (born 11 March 1957) is a French speechwriter and politician who served as the member of the National Assembly for the 3rd constituency of Yvelines from 2012 to 2017. A member of The Republicans (LR), he previously was a special advisor to President Nicolas Sarkozy from 2007 until his retirement from politics following the 2012 election.
Albert Kahn (3 March 1860 – 14 November 1940) was a French banker and philanthropist, known for initiating The Archives of the Planet, a vast photographical project. Spanning 22 years, it resulted in a collection of 72,000 colour photographs and 183,000 metres of film.
François Coty (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃swa kɔti]; born Joseph Marie François Spoturno, [ʒɔzɛf maʁi fʁɑ̃swa spɔtuʁno]; 3 May 1874 – 25 July 1934) was a French perfumer, businessman, newspaper publisher, politician and patron of the arts. He was the founder of the Coty perfume company, today a multinational. He is considered the founding father of the modern perfume industry.
In 1904, his first success, fragrance La Rose Jacqueminot launched his career. He soon started exporting perfumes from France, and by 1910 he had subsidiaries in Moscow, London and New York. During the 1917 Russian Revolution, his assets in Moscow, which consisted of stocks and funds were confiscated by the Soviet government, making him a lifelong enemy of Communism.
By the end of World War I, his financial success made him one of the richest men in France, allowing him to act as patron of the arts, collect works of art, historic homes and seek to play a political role.
In 1922, he gained control of daily newspaper Le Figaro. To check the growth of socialism and Communism in France, he founded two other daily papers in 1928.
In 1923 he was elected senator of Corsica, and was mayor of Ajaccio from 1931 to 1934.
Fearing the spread of communism, he subsidized various right-wing movements. In 1933, faced with a political class that he considered incapable, he published a reform of the State and founded his own movement Solidarité française, which became more radical after his death.
At the time of his death, at age 60, his fortune was greatly diminished as a result of his divorce, the high cost of running his press empire and the repercussions of the economic crisis of 1929.
Axel Bauer (born 7 April 1961) is a French singer, composer, guitarist, and actor, born in Paris. A figure of the French rock scene, he was discovered in 1983 with the song "Cargo". Several times awarded a gold record, he has sold three million records and performed nearly 700 concerts in France and Europe.
Yann Arthus-Bertrand (born 13 March 1946) is a French environmentalist, activist, journalist and photographer. He has also directed films about the impact of humans on the planet. He is especially well known for his book Earth from Above (1999) and his films Home (2009) and Human (2015). It is because of this commitment that Yann Arthus-Bertrand was designated Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Environment Programme on Earth Day (22 April 2009).
