Famous French People a to z

Moliere was a renowned 17th century French dramatist, actor, director and all-around artist known for his innovative stage comedies.

Claude Monet was a famous French painter whose work gave a name to the art movement Impressionism which was concerned with capturing light and natural forms.

Economist Jean Monnet was deputy secretary general and financial adviser of the League of Nations. Monnet helped unify and modernize Europe after WWII.

Jeanne Moreau is a French actress, best known for her performances in French New Wave films of the 1950s and 60s.

French artist Nadar was a caricaturist and photographer who became famous for his portrait studio and the images snapped from his giant hot air balloon.

Napoleon III, the nephew of Napoleon I, was emperor of France from 1852 to 1870. His downfall came during the Franco-Prussian War, when his efforts to defeat Otto Von Bismarck ended in his capture.

Nicholas II was pope of the Holy Roman Empire from 1059 to 1061. His reforms included the official ban on clerical marriage.

St. Bernadette of Lourdes was best known as a saint who received visions from the Virgin Mary in a cave near Lourdes. Pope Pius XI canonized her as a saint in 1933.

Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician, physicist and religious philosopher, who laid the foundation for the modern theory of probabilities.

Scientist Louis Pasteur came up with the food preparing process known as pasteurization; he also developed a vaccination for anthrax and rabies.

Charles Perrault was a French poet and author known for writing the Mother Goose fairy tales.

French daredevil Philippe Petit is best known for his 1974 high-wire walk between the twin towers in New York City.

Édith Piaf, also known as “The Little Sparrow,” was a French singer who became an icon of France during World War II.

Camille Pissarro was a French landscape artist best known for his influence on Impressionist and Postimpressionist painting.

Frenchman Georges Pompidou rose from schoolteacher to Premier and then President, continuing many of his predecessor's, Charles de Gaulle, policies.

French Romantic painter Pierre-Paul Prud'hon is best known for his soft forms and gentle light in his allegorical paintings and portraits.

George Psalmanazar was best known for posing as the first Formosan to visit Europe.

Maurice Ravel was a 19th and early 20th century French composer of classical music. His best known works are Bolero and Daphnis et Chloé.

Louis Renault was a French jurist and educator and co-winner in 1907 of the Nobel Prize for Peace.

A leading Impressionist painter, Pierre-Auguste Renoir was one of the most famous artists of the early twentieth century.

French actress Emmanuelle Riva first attracted international attention with the 1959 film Hiroshima Mon Amour. She later received an Academy Award nomination for 2012's Amour.

Christopher Rocancourt conned dozens of wealthy families in the Hamptons, while pretending he was a French Rockefeller.

French sculptor Auguste Rodin is known for creating several iconic works, including "The Age of Bronze," "The Thinker," "The Kiss" and "The Burghers of Calais."

French film director Eric Rohmer was an editor of respected periodicals, including Cahiers du Cinéma, and the maker of films like My Night at Maud's.

Henri Rousseau was a self-taught French painter who was ridiculed during his lifetime but was later given the title of artistic genius.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau is best known as an influential 18th-century philosopher who wrote the acclaimed work A Discourse on the Arts and Sciences.

Théodore Rousseau was a French painter known for his landscapes and unruly depictions of nature. He was a member of the Barbizon School of artists in France.

Ségolène Royal is a French politician who has run for president and worked as a prominent leader of the Socialist Party.

Madame de Récamier was a Parisian hostess who attracted her time's literary and political big wigs and inspired the wrath of Napoleon.

Yves Saint Laurent was best known as an influential European fashion designer who impacted fashion in the 1960s to the present day.

French author Amandine Aaurore Lucile Dudevant wrote many popular novels during the Romantic period under the pseudonym George Sand.

Nicolas Sarkozy served as France's 23rd president from 2007 to 2012. His term was marked by controversy, which included his marriage to Carla Bruni in 2008.

Jean-Paul Sartre was a 20th century intellectual, writer and activist who put forth pioneering ideas on existentialism.

German actress Simone Signoret performed in films like Room at the Top and Les Diaboliques, and met with international stardom. She married Yves Allegret in 1944, and later wed Yves Montand.

French novelist Claude Simon’s novels include The Wind; The Grass; and The Flanders Road. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1985.

Alfred Sisley was a French impressionist painter, primarily of landscapes, and was a friend of Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn is the former IMF chief who faced sexual assault charges that were dismissed.

The Man in the Iron Mask wore a black velvet mask to hide his identity. He was arrested in 1681, and was held as a political prisoner at Pignerol and the Bastille.

Pastry chef Jacques Torres is best known for his mastery of cooking and baking with chocolate. He is often referred to as "Mr. Chocolate" and owns seven chocolate shops.

French director François Truffaut established the New Wave movement in film. He won an Oscar for his 1972 film, Day for Night.

World-ranked tennis pro Jo-Wilfried Tsonga beat Rafael Nadal at the Australian Open in 2008, as an unseeded player. In 2012, he lost to Andy Murray in the semifinals at Wimbledon.

Jules Verne was a 19th century French author whose revolutionary science-fiction novels, including Around the World in Eighty Days and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, have entranced readers for more than a century.

Hervé Villechaize was a French actor best known for playing Tattoo on the 1970s television show Fantasy Island.

Author Voltaire wrote the satirical novella Candide and, despite controversy during his lifetime, is widely considered one of France's greatest Enlightenment writers.

As a fashion journaist who worked for Harper's Bazaar and Vogue, Diana Vreeland was an influential figure in American fashion during the 20th century.

Emma Watson is best known for playing the character of Hermione, the best friend of Harry Potter in the Harry Potter film franchise.

French painter Antoine Watteau's work embraced the artifice of the theatre, particularly the commedia dell'arte and ballet. His works typified the Rococo style.

Simone Weil was a French intellectual, activist and Christian Mystic.

The policies of William the Conqueror, king of England from 1066 until his death in 1087, may be largely responsible for eventually making Britain the most powerful nation in Europe.

Iannis Xenakis was a Greek avant-garde composer of electronic music and musique concrete.

Convicted terrorist. Born May 30, 1968 in Morlaix, France. Raised by a single mother, Moussaoui received his master's degree in international business from London??s South Bank University in 1995. By 1996, he was meeting with Islamic extremists in London

One of soccer's all-time greats, Zinedine Zidane led France to victory at the 1998 World Cup, but was thrown out of the '06 Cup final for striking an opponent.

Émile Zola was the most prominent French novelist of the late 19th century. He was noted for his theories of naturalism as expressed in Les Rougon-Macquart.