20th-century French women

Berty Albrecht (15 February 1893 – 31 May 1943) was a French feminist and French Resistance martyr of the Second World War.

Jacqueline Joubert (29 March 1921 – 8 January 2005), born Jacqueline Annette Édith Pierre, was a French television continuity announcer, producer and director. Alongside Arlette Accart, Joubert was one of the first two in-vision continuity announcers (or speakerines) when television commenced in France after the Second World War.

Françoise d'Eaubonne (French: [fʁɑ̃swaz d‿obɔn]; 12 March 1920 – 3 August 2005) was a French author, labour rights activist, environmentalist, and feminist. Her 1974 book, Le Féminisme ou la Mort, introduced the term ecofeminism. She co-founded the Front homosexuel d'action révolutionnaire, a homosexual revolutionary alliance in Paris.

Christiane Collange (29 October 1930 – 24 October 2023) was a French journalist and author.

Adrienne Clostre (9 October 1921 – 5 August 2006) was a French composer. She was born in Thomery, Seine-et-Marne, and studied at the Conservatoire de Paris with Yves Nat, Darius Milhaud, Jean Rivier and Olivier Messiaen.After completing her studies, Clostre worked as a composer. She won the Grand Prix de Rome in 1949, the Grand Music Prize of the City of Paris in 1955, the Florence Gould Prize in 1976 and the SACD Prix Musique in 1987. Clostre married architect Robert Biset in 1951 and had two daughters. She died in Serrières.

Samira Bellil (24 November 1972 – 4 September 2004) was a French feminist activist and a campaigner for the rights of girls and women.
Bellil became famous in France with the publication of her autobiographical book Dans l'enfer des tournantes ('In the hell of the "tournantes" (gang-rapes) in 2002. The book discusses the violence she and other young women endured in the predominantly North African and Arab immigrant outskirts of Paris, where she was repeatedly gang-raped as a teenager by gangs led by people she knew, and then abandoned by her family and friends.
The book is available in English (translated by Lucy R. McNair) as To Hell and Back: The Life of Samira Bellil.

Florence Baverel (born 24 May 1974 in Pontarlier, Doubs), is a retired French biathlete who competed in the biathlon at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. Baverel-Robert won the gold medal in the women's 7.5 km sprint. She placed 26th in the women's 15 km individual event, 5th in the 12.5 km mass start and 13th in the 10 km pursuit final.She married fellow French biathlete Julien Robert. They have one daughter Rose. Now they are divorced.
At the end of the 2006-07 World Cup season, which she finished in 5th place in the overall standings (her best career result), she announced the end of her career.

Marie-Agnès Gillot (born in 1975) is a French ballet dancer and choreographer. She danced with the Paris Opera Ballet as an étoiles. She is also POB's first in-house female dancer to choreograph for the company.

Adrienne Bolland, born Boland, (25 November 1895 – 18 March 1975) was a French test pilot. She was the first woman to fly over the Andes between Chile and Argentina. She was later described as "France's most accomplished female aviator", setting a woman's record for loops done in an hour. The French government eventually recognized her with the Legion of Honor and other awards. Since her death, she has been commemorated with a postage stamp of Argentina.
Born into a large family outside Paris, she became a pilot in her twenties to pay off gambling debts. An early crossing of the English Channel led René Caudron, her employer, to send her to South America to demonstrate his planes, where she made her Andes crossing, assisted, she later said, by a tip relayed to her from a medium. Later in her life she became involved in leftist political causes, and eventually became part of the French Resistance.

Maryvonne Samson Dupureur (24 May 1937 – 7 January 2008) was a French middle-distance runner. Competing in the 800 m event she won silver medals at the 1964 Olympics and 1967 European Indoor Games; she also took part in the 1960 and 1968 Olympics.Between 1959 and 1969 Dupureur won ten national titles: six in the 800 m, three in the 400 m and one in the 1500 m. She was an Olympic silver medalist in the 800
metres in Tokyo in 1964 after leading for most of the race but being overtaken in the final 100 metres by Great Britain’s Ann Packer, who set a new world record. Dupurer lived for many years in Brittany, and taught physical education and sport at a high school in Saint-Brieuc until her retirement.