Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres

Jacques René Chirac (French: [ʒak ʁəne ʃiʁak] ; UK: , US: ,; 29 November 1932 – 26 September 2019) was a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He was previously Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and 1986 to 1988, as well as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.
After attending the École nationale d'administration, Chirac began his career as a high-level civil servant, entering politics shortly thereafter. Chirac occupied various senior positions, including minister of agriculture and minister of the interior. In 1981 and 1988, he unsuccessfully ran for president as the standard-bearer for the conservative Gaullist party Rally for the Republic (RPR). Chirac's internal policies initially included lower tax rates, the removal of price controls, strong punishment for crime and terrorism, and business privatisation. After pursuing these policies in his second term as prime minister, he changed his views. He argued for different economic policies and was elected president in 1995, with 52.6% of the vote in the second round, beating Socialist Lionel Jospin, after campaigning on a platform of healing the "social rift" (fracture sociale). Chirac's economic policies, based on dirigisme, allowing for state-directed investment, stood in opposition to the laissez-faire policies of the United Kingdom under the ministries of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, which Chirac described as "Anglo-Saxon ultraliberalism".He was also known for his stand against the American-led invasion of Iraq, his recognition of the collaborationist French government's role in deporting Jews, and his reduction of the presidential term from seven years to five through a referendum in 2000. At the 2002 presidential election, he won 82.2% of the vote in the second round against the far-right candidate, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and was the last president to be re-elected until 2022.
In 2011, the Paris court declared Chirac guilty of diverting public funds and abusing public confidence, giving him a two-year suspended prison sentence.

Maria-Hélène Schneider (27 March 1952 – 3 February 2011), known professionally as Maria Schneider, was a French actress. In 1972, at the age of 19, she starred opposite Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris, but being traumatised by a rape scene and hounded by unsavoury publicity negatively affected her subsequent career. Although Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger (1975) showcased her abilities, a reputation for walking out of films mid-production resulted in her becoming unwelcome in the industry. However, she re-established stability in her personal and professional life in the early 1980s, and became an advocate for equality and improving the conditions actresses worked under. She continued acting in film and TV until a few years before she died in 2011 after a long illness.

Jean-Baptiste Frédéric Isidor, Baron Thielemans (29 April 1922 – 22 August 2016), known professionally as Toots Thielemans ([tuts tiləmans]), was a Belgian jazz musician. He was mostly known for playing the chromatic harmonica, as well as his guitar and whistling skills, and composing. According to jazz historian Ted Gioia, his most important contribution was in "championing the humble harmonica", which Thielemans made into a "legitimate voice in jazz". He eventually became the "preeminent" jazz harmonica player.His first professional performances were with Benny Goodman's band when they toured Europe in 1949 and 1950. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1951, becoming a citizen in 1957. From 1953 to 1959 he played with George Shearing, and then led his own groups on tours in the U.S. and Europe. In 1961 he recorded and performed live one of his own compositions, "Bluesette", which featured him playing guitar and whistling. In the 1970s and 1980s, he continued touring and recording, appearing with musicians such as Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Bill Evans, Dizzy Gillespie, Kenny Werner, Pat Metheny, Jaco Pastorius, Mina Mazzini, Elis Regina, Quincy Jones, George Shearing, Natalie Cole, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, and Paquito D'Rivera.
Thielemans recorded the soundtracks for The Pawnbroker (1964), Midnight Cowboy (1969), The Getaway (1972), Cinderella Liberty (1973), The Sugarland Express (1974) and Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977). His harmonica theme song for the popular Sesame Street TV show was heard for 40 years. He often performed and recorded with Quincy Jones, who once called him "one of the greatest musicians of our time." In 2009 he was designated a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts, the highest honor for a jazz musician in the United States.

Anne Christine "Kiki" Sørum (16 January 1939 – 30 August 2009) was a Norwegian fashion journalist, editor, and author. She worked as a fashion editor for the weekly magazine Hjemmet from 1973 to 1977 and general editor of the magazine Nicole from 1979 to 1981. She also worked as a freelancer for several publications, among these Verdens Gang, Se og Hør and Dagbladet.
The books she authored included Hollywood i moten (Hollywood in Fashion, 1986) and Kle deg magisk (Dress Magically, 1999). Sørum was also recognised internationally for her fashion writing, and received the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2003 and became Commander of the Order of the Lion of Finland in 2005.

Arnold Charles Ernest Hintjens (21 May 1949 – 23 April 2022), better known by his stage name Arno, was a Belgian singer. He was the frontman of TC Matic, one of the best-known Belgian bands of the 1980s. After the band split in 1986 he enjoyed a solo career.

Lea Desandre (born 1993) is a French-Italian mezzo-soprano.

Béatrice Uria Monzon (born 28 December 1963 in Agen (Lot-et-Garonne)) is a French mezzo-soprano.

Laurent Lafitte (born 22 August 1973) is a French actor. He is known for playing the role of Patrick in Elle. In March 2016 he was named as the host of the opening and closing ceremonies at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. In 2023 he starred in the Netflix mini-series Class Act (original name "Tapie") as the French businessman and politician Bernard Tapie.

Émilie Simon (French pronunciation: [emili simɔ̃]; born 1978 in Montpellier, Occitanie, France) is a French singer, songwriter and composer of electronic music.

André Laronde (19 June 1940, in Grenoble – 1 February 2011, in Paris) was a French historian and archaeologist. He was a specialist of Greek settlements in Cyrenaica (now Libya).