2009 deaths

Giulio Bosetti (26 December 1930 – 24 December 2009) was an Italian actor and director.

Gilda Galán (January 16, 1917 – June 21, 2009) was a Puerto Rican actress, comedian, writer, composer, scriptwriter and poet. The veteran actress, whose career spanned decades, enjoyed one of the longest careers in the history of the Puerto Rican entertainment industry.

Louis-Paul-Armand Simonneaux (19 January 1916 – 22 January 2009) was a French prelate of the Roman Catholic Church and was one of the oldest living bishops and one of oldest French bishops at the time of his death.

Michel Mondésert (5 December 1916 – 16 April 2009) was a French prelate of the Roman Catholic Church.
Mondésert was born in Villefranche-sur-Saône, Rhône, and was ordained a priest on 11 July 1943. Appointed Auxiliary Bishop to the Diocese of Grenoble-Vienne on 4 June 1971 and ordained bishop on 25 September 1971. He would remain bishop of Grenoble-Vienne until his retirement on 11 January 1992.
Mondésert was the Titular bishop of Apollonis from 1971 until his death.

Gilbert-Antoine Duchêne (29 July 1919 – 29 November 2009) was a French bishop of the Roman Catholic Church.
Duchênet was born in Moussey, France and was ordained a priest on 14 July 1946. He was appointed Auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Metz as well as Titular bishop of Tela on 18 September 1971 and ordained bishop on 11 December 1971. Duchênet was appointed Bishop of the Diocese of Saint-Claude on 10 June 1975 and retired from diocese on 1 December 1994.

Adrien Zeller (2 April 1940 – 22 August 2009) was State Secretary of the Social Security in the second Jacques Chirac government from 1986 to 1988. He was the president of the regional council of Alsace from 1996 until 2009. He was a member of the Union for a Popular Movement. He was born in Saverne, and died aged 69 of a heart attack in Haguenau.
He was a graduate of the College of Europe in Bruges (promotion of 1965–1966).

Robert Barcia, also known as Hardy and Roger Girardot (22 July 1928 in Paris – 12 July 2009 in Créteil), was a French politician who was leader of the Internationalist Communist Union (UCI), a Trotskyist organisation better known by the name of its weekly paper, Lutte Ouvrière (Workers' Struggle). Barcia was only known by his cadre name, Hardy, even to the majority of LO members.
Robert Barcia was born into a working-class family in Paris and was originally a member of the Communist Party. He began his activity as a militant in the Second World War. He then joined a tiny Trotskyist group, the Union Communiste, led by Barta (David Korner) a Romanian Trotskyist. Given that the group was clandestine, all members adopted cadre names and there was a considerable stress on security within the group. This continues today as does the emphasis of the UCI on orienting towards workers in the workplaces.
The UC did not take part in the regroupment of the other French Trotskyist groups which took place in 1944 and led to the foundation of the Internationalist Communist Party. This was because the UC held that the other Trotskyist groups had not made a balance sheet of what the UC saw as their nationalist deviations in the early period of the war.
The central task of the UC was working around the Renault factory in the Paris area, where it had members working and doing educational work in order to develop cadres. In 1947, this work meant that the UC was instrumental in leading the Renault strike which contributed to the fall of the Government. However, Hardy was not personally involved in these events due to ill health.
The strain on the UC leading the struggle at Renault and subsequently the independent SDR union there led to its collapse. After various attempts to revive the UC, a paper, Voix Ouvrière, was launched in 1956 after the Soviet invasion of Hungary and the Suez Crisis. Among the figures leading this effort were Hardy and another former member of the UC Pierre Bois the leading UC militant at Renault. An obscure dispute with Barta seems to have ensured his lack of involvement however.
From 1956, Hardy was the central leader of first Voix Ouvrière, and after 1968 Lutte Ouvrière, and stamped his character on the group. However, given that texts from VO and LO tend not to be signed by individuals and given also that Hardy has not run for public office his role in the organisation has been obscure.
The journalist Christophe Bourseiller published a book of conversations with Hardy in 2003. Following the announcement of Robert Barcia's death, he said: "There were two Hardys. There was Hardy the Trotskyist militant who ruled his comrades with great discipline and had dedicated his life to communism and to revolution. And there was Barcia, the private man, a likeable and knowledgeable man with a great sense of humour."

Maurice Grimaud (11 November 1913 – 16 July 2009) was the French Prefect of Police, or police chief, of the city of Paris during the May 1968 general strikes and student uprisings. He is credited with avoiding an escalation of violence and bloodshed during the May 1968 unrest.Grimaud was born in Annonay, Ardèche, on 11 November 1913. He originally studied literature.
Grimaud began his career in civil service with the French colonial administration of Morocco in Rabat. He later worked in both Algeria and Germany. Grimaud also worked as a local governor and aide to then-French Interior Minister François Mitterrand.

Henri Sérandour (April 15, 1937 in Le Mans - November 12, 2009 in Dinard) was a former international water polo player. He was a past president of the French National Olympic Committee (CNOSF) during 16 years (1993-2009) and from 2000 to 2007, a member of the International Olympic Committee.

Pierre Paulin (9 July 1927 – 13 June 2009) was a French furniture designer and interior designer. His uncle Georges Paulin was a part-time automobile designer and invented the mechanical retractible hardtop, who was later executed by the Nazis in 1941 as a hero of the French Resistance. After failing his Baccalauréat, Pierre trained to become a ceramist in Vallaurius on the French Rivera and then as a stone-carver in Burgundy. Soon after, he injured his right arm in a fight, ending his dreams as a sculptor. He then went on to attend the Ecole Camondo in Paris. He had a stint with the Gascoin company in Le Havre where he gained an interest in Scandinavian and Japanese design. He was famed for his innovative work with Artifort in the 1960s and interior design in the 1970s.At the time, his chair designs were considered very modern and unique and kick-started the successes of his designs among the younger population. Even today, his pieces are still being made and are sought after at auctions.