François de La RocqueFrançois de La Rocque (fʁɑ̃swa dəlaʁɔk; 6 October 1885 – 28 April 1946) was the leader of the French right-wing league the Croix de Feu from 1930 to 1936 before he formed the more moderate nationalist French Social Party (1936–1940), which has been described by several historians, such as René Rémond and Michel Winock, as a precursor of Gaullism. La Roque was born on 6 October 1885 in Lorient, Brittany, the third son of a family from Haute-Auvergne.
Nicolas François de NeufchâteauNicolas François de Neufchâteau (fʁɑ̃swa d(ə) nœfʃɑto, - nøʃɑto; 17 April 1750 - 10 January 1828) was a French statesman, poet, and agricultural scientist. Born at Saffais, in Meurthe-et-Moselle, the son of a schoolteacher, he studied at the college of Neufchâteau in the Vosges, and at the age of fourteen published a volume of poetry which obtained the interest of Voltaire. When only sixteen, he was elected member of some of the main academies of France. In 1783 he was named procureur-général to the council of Saint Domingue.
Gary KlangGary Klang (born December 28, 1941, in Port-au-Prince Haiti), is a Haitian-Canadian poet and novelist. Since 2007, he is the president of the prestigious "Conseil des Écrivains francophones d'Amérique" (Council of America's francophone writers). Klang's work is very rich. It includes novels, poetry, short stories and essays. On July 14, 2000, "l'Union Française à Montréal" (the French Union of Montreal) chose Gary as the promoter of the French national holiday marking the storming of the Bastille.
Gabriel MarcelGabriel Honoré Marcel (7 December 1889 – 8 October 1973) was a French philosopher, playwright, music critic and leading Christian existentialist. The author of over a dozen books and at least thirty plays, Marcel's work focused on the modern individual's struggle in a technologically dehumanizing society. Though often regarded as the first French existentialist, he dissociated himself from figures such as Jean-Paul Sartre, preferring the term philosophy of existence or neo-Socrateanism to define his own thought.
Régis DebrayJules Régis Debray (dəbʁɛ; born 2 September 1940) is a French philosopher, journalist, former government official and academic. He is known for his theorization of mediology, a critical theory of the long-term transmission of cultural meaning in human society, and for associating with Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara in Bolivia in 1967 and advancing Salvador Allende's presidency in Chile in the early 1970s. He returned to France in 1973 and later held various official posts in the French government.
TGVThe TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse, "high-speed train"; previously TurboTrain à Grande Vitesse) is France's intercity high-speed rail service, operated by SNCF. SNCF worked on a high-speed rail network from 1966 to 1974 and presented the project to President Georges Pompidou who approved it. Originally designed as turbotrains to be powered by gas turbines, TGV prototypes evolved into electric trains with the 1973 oil crisis. In 1976 the SNCF ordered 87 high-speed trains from Alstom.
Les Pieds NickelésLes Pieds Nickelés (French for "The nickel plated feet") is a French comic series, originally created by Louis Forton. The comic premiered on June 4, 1908 in the newspaper L'Épatant, published by Société Parisienne d'Édition. It is considered to be one of the earliest French comics and one of the longest-running. It centers on a group of anarchist youth getting in trouble. In French informal speech of the early twentieth century, "nickel-plated feet" was a moniker for slackers, work-shy people.
Michel LeirisJulien Michel Leiris (lɛʁis; 20 April 1901 in Paris – 30 September 1990 in Saint-Hilaire, Essonne) was a French surrealist writer and ethnographer. Part of the Surrealist group in Paris, Leiris became a key member of the College of Sociology with Georges Bataille and head of research in ethnography at the CNRS. Michel Leiris obtained his baccalauréat in philosophy at the Lycée Janson de Sailly in 1918 and after a brief attempt at studying chemistry, he developed a strong interest in jazz and poetry.
Christopher EhretChristopher Ehret (born 27 July 1941), who currently holds the position of Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA, is an American scholar of African history and African historical linguistics particularly known for his efforts to correlate linguistic taxonomy and reconstruction with the archeological record. He has published ten books, most recently History and the Testimony of Language (2011) and A Dictionary of Sandawe (2012), the latter co-edited with his wife, Patricia Ehret.
Martial GueroultMartial Gueroult (ɡeʁu; 15 December 1891 – 13 August 1976) was a French philosopher. His primary areas of research were in 17th- and 18th-century philosophy as well as the history of philosophy. Gueroult was born on 15 December 1891 in the city of Le Havre in northwestern France. A veteran of both the First and Second World Wars, he was awarded the Légion d’Honneur [Legion of Honour] and twice with the Croix de Guerre [Cross of War].
