Jean-Marie Bigard (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ maʁi biɡaʁ]; born 17 May 1954) is a French comedian and actor. Known for his often controversial humour, he has performed at some of the largest entertainment facilities in France, including the Paris-Bercy Arena and Stade de France. Bigard is a close friend of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whom he accompanied on an official visit to Pope Benedict XVI in Rome.
Paul-Élie Ranson (29 March 1861 – 20 February 1909) was a French painter and writer associated with Les Nabis.
Daniel Bensaïd (25 March 1946 – 12 January 2010) was a philosopher and a leader of the Trotskyist movement in France. He became a leading figure in the student revolt of 1968, while studying at the University of Paris X: Nanterre.
Anatole le Braz, the "Bard of Brittany" (2 April 1859 – 20 March 1926), was a Breton poet, folklore collector, and translator. He was highly regarded amongst both European and American scholars, and was known for his warmth and charm.
Michel Valette (born 14 June 1928 in Colmar, France - 14 March 2016) was a cabaret performer, actor, composer, cartoonist and writer.In 1954, he created the cabaret La Colombe in Paris in the Île de la Cité, and over the next ten years, he was beginning to make more than 200 artists, including Guy Béart, Anne Sylvestre, Pierre Perret, Jean Ferrat, Maurice Fanon, Francesca Solleville, Helène Martin, Jean Vasca, Henri Gougaud, Georges Moustaki, Marc Ogeret, Avron and Claude Philippe Evrard, Bernard Haller, Henri Guybet and Romain Bouteille.
In 1964, he was artistic director of the Cabaret Arsouille Milord. It was reviewed in the program starring Catherine Sauvage, Serge Gainsbourg, Guy Béart and Helene Martin. In 1969, he founded the SDA Mouffe (Service Diffusion Artistique) of the House and the host for four and a half years at the same time, he was responsible for the administration of the old Theatre Mouffetard.
In 1975, he starred in movies like "Une partie de plasir" by Claude Chabrol, as well as in films by Jean Delannoy and Paul Vecchiali and among others as well as on television. Then at Chaillot theater in 1989 where he played the Duke of Rochefort in D'Artagnan, directed by Jérôme Savary and Christophe Malavoy. He was part of the "théâtre des cinquante" led by Andreas Voutsinas. He played at Théâtre La Bruyère and toured in Le Malade Imaginaire, directed by Karim Salah, he played the role of Jacques Béralde Fabbri in the play. He also played in Karamazov opened in Cartoucherie de Vincennes and La Rochelle, directed by Anita Picchiarini where he took the role of Starets.
In 1988, he performed in Do that love, directed by Kazem Shahryari at the Arlequin and recorded his first 45 songs recorded on several CDs: "Michel Valette sings Gilbert Hennevic" (Jacques Canetti's home), "De la Colombe the Colombière", "my heart to sing" and "I met wonderful people."
Meanwhile, he wrote, "De Verdun à Cayenne" (ISBN 978-2-84654-150-3)(From Verdun to Cayenne), the true story of Robert Porchet, peace activist from the beginning the 20th century, after three years of military service, he went to the battlefields of the First World War. His desertion after the Battle of Verdun, his capture and his life in the penal colony of Cayenne until the War Resisters' International succeeded to shorten his sentence and once obtained he went back to France.
From 1993 to 2000 he founded and animated in Essonne, the cultural association "Chant'Essonne" whose goal is to spread and promote the French song in Essonne. He made known artists defend the French song quality.As of December 2008 he had recently written a book-document of more than 600 pages: L'histoire de la Colombe ("The History of la Colombe") in which he wrote many anecdotes from the beginnings of many French singers in the 1960s (i.e. Guy Béart, Anne Sylvestre, Pierre Perret, Jean Ferrat). He is currently rewriting a 400-page version Le Joli temps de la Colombe to make a cheaper edition.
Georges David Wolinski (French: [vɔlɛ̃ski]; 28 June 1934 – 7 January 2015) was a French cartoonist and comics writer. He was killed on 7 January 2015 in the Charlie Hebdo shooting.
Roger Garaudy (French: [ʁɔʒe gaʁodi]; 17 July 1913 – 13 June 2012) was a French philosopher, French resistance fighter and a communist author. He converted to Islam in 1982. In 1998, he was convicted and fined for Holocaust denial under French law for claiming that the death of six million Jews was a "myth".
Henri Michel (April 28, 1907 in Vidauban, Var – June 5, 1986 in Paris) was a French historian, who studied the Second World War. He created the Comité d'Histoire de la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale and the Revue d'Histoire de la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale.
Michel de Certeau (French: [sɛʁto]; 17 May 1925 – 9 January 1986) was a French Jesuit priest and scholar whose work combined history, psychoanalysis, philosophy, and the social sciences as well as hermeneutics, semiotics, ethnology, and religion. He was known as a philosopher of everyday life and widely regarded as a historian who had interests ranging from travelogues of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to contemporary urban life.A multidisciplinarian, he wrote ground-breaking studies in fields as diverse as mysticism, the act of faith, cultural dynamics in contemporary society, and historiography as an intellectual practice. His impact continues unabated, with new volumes appearing regularly, and perhaps surprisingly his reputation is growing even more rapidly in English and German-speaking countries and the Mediterranean than in his native France. This strong and growing interest in academia is not matched in the public sphere; however, partly due to his being considered a "difficult" author because of his highly personal style which makes translation difficult, and partly due to the declining status of French in the world generally. Nevertheless, portions of his prolific output have been translated into a dozen languages.
Jean Cazeneuve (17 May 1915 – 4 October 2005) was a French sociologist and anthropologist. Apart from being a scholar, he has been involved with Radio and TV at the executive level; from 1964 till 1974 he has been president of the French public Radio and TV agency (ORTF), after which he has been chairman of TF1, the first French national-wide channel, till 1978. He joined the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques in 1973, of which became president in 1983.
He is highly regarded for his illuminating contribution to the study the ritual clowns.