French male ballet dancers

Paul Marque (born 12 April 1997) is a French ballet dancer . In December 2020, he was named an étoile (literally, "star"), the highest rank of the Paris Opera Ballet.

François Alu (born 1993 in Fussy) is a French ballet dancer. He danced with the Paris Opera Ballet as an étoile (star).He entered the Paris Opera Ballet School in 2004, and the Paris Opera Ballet in 2010. At his first promotion competition in 2011, he was promoted to coryphée, then to sujet (semi-soloist) in 2013.
He has been a member of 3e étage, an independent dance group formed by dancers of the company’s corps de ballet and directed by Samuel Murez, since 2011.
In 2014, he was promoted to first dancer (full soloist). Notable roles include Basilio in Don Quixote, the Golden Idol in La Bayadère, Frollo in Roland Petit's Notre Dame de Paris, and Byraxis in Benjamin Millepied's Daphnis et Chloé.On 23 April 2022, Alu was named étoile following a performance as Solor in La Bayadère. In November, Alu left the Paris Opera Ballet.

Jean Babilée (real name Jean Gutman(n); 3 February 1923 – 30 January 2014) was a prominent French dancer and choreographer of the latter half of the 20th century. He is considered to have been one of modern ballet's greatest performers, and the first French dancer to gain international acclaim. Babilée has been called the "enfant terrible of dance."Born in Paris in 1923, the son of a doctor, Babilée studied at the Paris Opéra Ballet School from 1936 to 1940. His dance career was interrupted during World War II because he was Jewish on his father's side. He left Paris in 1940 when the Wehrmacht was approaching the city, but returned to dance with the Paris Opera Ballet in early 1942. He narrowly escaped being sent to Auschwitz during the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup in Paris on 16 July 1942. In early 1943 he left the city to avoid compulsory deportation to Germany as a forced laborer. He spent the rest of the war with the French Resistance, fighting with the Maquis in Touraine.After the war, Babilée returned to dance, joining the Soirées de la Danse, which later became Les Ballet des Champs Elysées. His birth name was Jean Gutmann, but he adopted his mother's maiden name for professional use. Babilée enjoyed some of his greatest successes as a member of Les Ballets des Champs-Elysées and Les Ballets de Paris. From 1945 to 1950 he was principal dancer of the Ballets des Champs-Élysées, for which he created roles in ballets including Jeu de cartes, Jean Cocteau's Le Jeune Homme et la Mort, L'Amour et son amour, and Till Eulenspiegel. In several of these ballets he performed opposite his wife, featured ballerina Nathalie Philippart. In the 1940s Babilée quickly developed a reputation for his physical prowess. It was said that he could leap better than any dancer since Nijinsky, and in the 1946 premiere of Le Jeune Homme et la Mort he hung by his neck on a gallows for one minute, supported only by wrapping one arm around a pillar.In the 1950s he danced as a guest of Le Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris and the American Ballet Theatre, before forming his own company, Les Ballets Jean Babilée. In 1972 and 1973 he served as director of the Ballet du Rhin in Strasbourg. In the early 1980s, Maurice Béjart created the solo Life for him. In 1984, at the age of 61, he performed Le Jeune Homme et la Mort with the Ballet de Marseille.He also appeared as a stage actor and in several films.The 2000 documentary film Le Mystère Babilée, directed by Patrick Bensard, reconstructs Babilée's career through interviews with the dancer, excerpts from his choreographic work, and recollections by observers and collaborators including Béjart, Christian Lacroix, Jean-Paul Goude and Yvette Chauviré.

Nicolas Le Riche (born 29 January 1972, in Sartrouville, Yvelines) is a French ballet dancer, choreographer and ballet director.

Attilio Labis (5 September 1936 – 26 January 2023) was a French ballet dancer and teacher. He was regarded as a star of the Paris Opera.

Michel Descombey (28 October 1930 – 5 December 2011) was a French ballet dancer, choreographer and director.
Descombay studied dancing in Paris, and debuted as a professional dancer of the Ballet de l'Opéra National in 1947. In 1959 he became premier danseur, then ballet master, and official choreographer and finally director of the company from 1962 to 1969. He also established the training ballet group of the Opéra National de Paris. Afterwards he was ballet director of the Zürcher Ballett of the Zurich Opera from 1971 to 1973, and was invited to Mexico by Orozco. In 1975 he settled down in Mexico, where he became chief choreographer and associate director of the Ballet Teatro del Espacio in 1977. He was a member of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte (SNCA).

Jules-Joseph Perrot (18 August 1810 – 29 August 1892) was a French dancer and choreographer who later became Ballet Master of the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia. He created some of the most famous ballets of the 19th century including Pas de Quatre, La Esmeralda, Ondine, and Giselle with Jean Coralli.

Pierre Lacotte (4 April 1932 – 10 April 2023) was a French ballet dancer, choreographer, teacher, and company director. He specialised in the reconstruction of lost choreographies of romantic ballets.