Recipients of the Legion of Honour

Catherine Destivelle (born 24 July 1960) is a French rock climber and mountaineer who is considered one of the greatest and most important female climbers in the history of the sport. She came to prominence in the mid-1980s for sport climbing by winning the first major female climbing competitions, and by being the first-ever female to redpoint a 7c+/8a sport climbing route with Fleur de Rocaille in 1985, and an 8a+ (5.13c) route with Choucas in 1988. During this period, she was considered the strongest female sport climber in the world along with Lynn Hill, however, in 1990 she retired to focus on alpine climbing.
In 1990, she made the first-ever female alpine ascent of the Bonatti Pillar on the Petit Dru, which she followed up in 1991, by becoming the first-ever female to create a new extreme alpine route, also on the Petit Dru, which was named Voie Destivelle in her honor. From 1992 to 1994, Destivelle became the first female to complete the winter alpine free solo of the "north face trilogy" of the Eiger, the Grandes Jorasses, and the Matterhorn. She made Himalayan and high-altitude ascents such as Nameless Tower in 1990, the southwest face of Shishapangma in 1995, and the south face of Peak 4111, in Antarctica, in 1996.
As well as her Alpine free solos, she made other notable free solos, such as the Devils Tower in 1992, and the Old Man of Hoy in 1997. She is the subject of several documentaries, including Rémy Tezier's, Beyond the Summits, which won the best feature-length film award at the 2009 Banff Film Festival. In 2007, she was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour, and in 2020, became the first-ever female recipient of the Piolet d'Or Lifetime Achievement Award.

Virginie Dedieu (born 25 February 1979) is a French former synchronized swimmer and Olympic medalist.
Virginie won a bronze medal in the women's duet at the 2000 Summer Olympics with Myriam Lignot. She was also successful in the European and World Aquatics Championships, winning several medals.Dedieu was awarded the Legion of Honour on 1 January 2006.

Catherine Langeais, born Marie-Louise Terrasse, (9 August 1923 in Valence, Drôme – 23 April 1998 in Mantes-la-Jolie, Yvelines), was a French television presenter and actress.

Eugène Claudius-Petit was a French politician. He participated in many governments under the Fourth Republic and was a proponent of Firminy Vert. He later added his pseudonym from the Resistance, "Claudius", to his name.

Alain Jacques Georges Marie Gerbault (November 17, 1893 – December 16, 1941) was a French sailor, writer and tennis champion, who made a circumnavigation of the world as a single-handed sailor. He eventually settled in the islands of south Pacific Ocean, where he wrote several books about the islanders' way of life. As a tennis player he was ranked the fifth on the French rankings in 1923.

Charles Armand Auguste Ferdinand Mercier du Paty de Clam (21 February 1853 – 3 September 1916) was a French army officer, an amateur graphologist, and a key figure in the Dreyfus affair.

Joseph Martray (born 14 May 1914, Lamballe – died 2 June 2009, at Rennes) was a French jurist, journalist, and politician. He was a member of the Legion of Honour of France. He supported Breton rights.

François de Labouchere, born at Saint-Jean-le-Vieux (Ain) on 18 September 1917 and killed in air-to-air combat on 5 September 1942, was a French pilot of the Second World War.

André Leroi-Gourhan (; French: [ləʁwa guʁɑ̃]; 25 August 1911 – 19 February 1986) was a French archaeologist, paleontologist, paleoanthropologist, and anthropologist with an interest in technology and aesthetics and a penchant for philosophical reflection.

Major André Édouard Turcat (23 October 1921 – 4 January 2016) was a French Air Force pilot and test pilot celebrated for flying the first prototype of Concorde for its maiden flight.Turcat was born on 23 October 1921 in Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône) into a family in the automotive industry. He studied at Ecole Polytechnique.