20th-century French women

Christine "Kiki" Caron (born 10 July 1948 in Paris) is a French former backstroke swimmer. She won the silver medal in 100 m backstroke at the 1964 Summer Olympics and the gold medal in the same event at the 1966 European Aquatics Championships. She also participated in the 1968 Summer Olympics where she was the first woman to carry the French flag at the opening ceremony. During her swimming career she won 29 national swimming titles. Her elder sister Annie was also a swimmer and competed at the 1960 Olympics.After retiring from swimming she acted in two films: Le lys de mer (1969) and Violentata sulla sabbia (1971). In 1998, Caron was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame. In 2005, she was named Chevalier de la Legion of Honour. During the next year she published an autobiography titled Kiki with a preface written by Johnny Hallyday.

Andrée Micheline Ghislaine Tainsy (26 April 1911 – 19 December 2004) was a Belgian actress. She worked with several notable actors like Philippe Noiret, Jean Louis Trintignant, Charlotte Rampling and famous directors like Claude Chabrol, Costas Gavras and François Ozon. Tainsy began her career with theater plays and her first film debut was in 1945, followed by over 80 different cinema and TV works as co-star. She worked until the day of her death.

Rose Antonia Maria Valland (1 November 1898 – 18 September 1980) was a French art historian, member of the French Resistance, captain in the French military, and one of the most decorated women in French history. She secretly recorded details of the Nazi plundering of National French and private Jewish-owned art from France; and, working with the French Resistance, she saved thousands of works of art.

Ghislaine Dupont (French: [ʒislɛn dypɔ̃]; 13 January 1956 – 2 November 2013) was a French journalist who specialised in African issues.

Camille du Gast (Marie Marthe Camille Desinge du Gast, Camille Crespin du Gast, 30 May 1868 – 24 April 1942) was one of a trio of pioneering French female motoring celebrities of the Belle Epoque, together with Hélène de Rothschild (Baroness Hélène van Zuylen) and Anne de Rochechouart de Mortemart the (Duchess of Uzès).Du Gast was known as "one of the richest and most accomplished widows in France," and as an accomplished sportswoman—a balloonist, parachute jumper, fencer, tobogganist, skier, rifle and pistol shot, horse trainer—as well as a concert pianist and singer. She was the second woman to compete in an international motor race.In France, she later became renowned for her extensive charity work. She was president of the Société protectrice des animaux (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, SPA) until her death, and her campaign against bullfighting included disruptive direct action protests. She provided health-care to disadvantaged women and children in Paris, and continued whilst under German occupation in World War II.She was the central figure in the Parisian scandal of La Femme au Masque where she was maliciously but mistakenly named as the nude model in a notorious painting by Henri Gervex. This salacious story involved three court cases, and was reported around the world.Her exuberant social and sporting lifestyle was changed by a traumatic experience around 1910, when her daughter attempted to have her murdered in order to inherit. In the middle of the night, in her own house, she challenged the gang and they fled. Afterwards she devoted herself to French government work in Morocco, and charitable works with animals, disadvantaged women and orphans.A pioneer feminist, she served as vice-president of the Ligue Française du Droit des Femmes (The French League for the Rights of Women) after World War I. In 1904 she became the only woman official of the Automobile Club de France (A.C.F.).
She was known in the press by the sobriquets l'Amazone and la Walkyrie de la Mécanique (Valkyrie of the motor car).

Commandant Caroline Aigle (French pronunciation: [kaʁɔlin ɛɡl] ) (12 September 1974 – 21 August 2007) was a French aviator who achieved a historical first when, at the age of 25, she became the first woman fighter pilot in the French Air Force. Her promising military career was cut short by death from cancer seven years later. She was posthumously awarded the Médaille de l'Aéronautique (Aeronautics Medal).

Françoise Vatel (born Françoise Watel, 28 November 1937 – 24 October 2005) was a French actress.
Vatel was born in Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine. She began her film career at the age of 16 in Jean Gourguet's Les Premiers outrages, and she worked with the director again in Les promesses dangeureuses, La Putain sentimentale and Les frangines. She worked then in the theatre, playing for several years in Claude Magnier's Oscar. She appeared also in films of the Nouvelle Vague, in Luc Moullet's Brigitte et Brigitte and Les Contrebandières and Claude Chabrol's Les Cousins among others. She died in Soissons, aged 67.

Florence Aubenas (born 6 February 1961) is a French journalist.

Delphine Jeanine Annie Réau (née Racinet, born 19 September 1973 in Melun) is a French sport shooter who competed in the 2000 Summer Olympics and in the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Jacqueline Auriol (French pronunciation: [ʒaklin oʁjɔl]; 5 November 1917, Challans, Vendée – 11 February 2000) was a French aviator who set several world speed records.