Claude VivierClaude Vivier (klod 'vivje ; baptised as Claude Roger; 14 April 1948 7 March 1983) was a Canadian composer, pianist, poet and ethnomusicologist of Québécois origin. After studying with Karlheinz Stockhausen in Cologne, Vivier became an innovative member of the "German Feedback" movement, a subset of what is now known as spectral music. He was also among the first composers in either Europe or the Americas to integrate elements of Balinese music and gamelan in his compositions, alongside Lou Harrison, John Cage and fellow Québécois Colin McPhee.
Philippe BeckPhilippe Beck (born in Strasbourg on April 21, 1963) is a French poet, writer and professor for Philosophy at University of Nantes, in France and European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. Beck was a former student of the ENS de Saint-Cloud, having first attended to study philosophy in 1985. He completed a master in literature and an H. dip in philosophy, and later defended a doctoral thesis in philosophy (Histoire et imagination / History and imagination) under the supervision of Jacques Derrida.
Charles-Caïus RenouxCharles-Caius Renoux (born in Paris, 1795; died in Paris, 14 March 1846) was a French painter, lithographer, and illustrator. He first achieved success with paintings of medieval churches, particularly the ruins of cloisters and monasteries destroyed during the French Revolution, works for which he is still best known. Renoux also painted landscapes, large-scale battle scenes, and historical subjects, works which uniquely prepared him for the final phase of his career, the creation of spectacular dioramas, the “moving pictures” of the era.
Anne MuxelAnne Muxel is a French sociologist more specialised in the study of the biographical memory. Her major sociological works concern politic socialisation, on one hand, and biographical roots of political and family behaviour, on the other hand. She is Research Director at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and a senior research fellow in the Paris Institute of Political Studies, a French research institute specializing in political and economic sciences and, specifically, in political sociology.
Lise with a ParasolLise with a Parasol (Lise – La femme à l'ombrelle) is an oil on canvas painting by French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir, created in 1867 during his early Salon period. The full-length painting depicts model Lise Tréhot posing in a forest. She wears a white muslin dress and holds a black lace parasol to shade her from the sunlight, which filters down through the leaves, contrasting her face in the shadow and her body in the light, highlighting her dress rather than her face.
Paris pneumatic postThe Paris pneumatic post was a pneumatic tube message-carrying service that operated in the French capital from 1866. It was established because of the popularity of the electric telegraph in the city which had led to the signal cables becoming overloaded and messages being sent by road. The pneumatic system allowed the telegraph companies to send messages underground through sealed lines laid in the Paris sewers, bypassing any traffic on the roads above.
Françoise ThomFrançoise Thom (born 1951) is a French historian and Sovietologist, honorary lecturer in contemporary history at Paris-Sorbonne University. A specialist in post-communist Russia, she is the author of works of political analysis on the country and its leaders. Françoise Thom was born in Strasbourg, 1951. Her parents are René Thom, a mathematician known for his theory of catastrophes and winner of the Fields Medal, and of Suzanne Helmlinger. Françoise has two siblings, Elizabeth and Christian. Thom has a degree in Russian.
Palace of VersaillesThe Palace of Versailles (vɛərˈsaɪ,_vɜːrˈsaɪ ; Château de Versailles ʃɑto d(ə) vɛʁsɑj) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, under the direction of the French Ministry of Culture, by the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles. About 15,000,000 people visit the palace, park, or gardens of Versailles every year, making it one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world.
Pasquale PistorioPasquale Pistorio (born 6 January 1936, in Agira) is an Italian company director, ex president of STMicroelectronics and board member of Confindustria. From 17 April 2007 until 3 December 2007 he was president of Telecom Italia. He graduated in Electronic Engineering department at Politecnico di Torino, his early career was at Motorola where he became the European marketing director in 1967.
Charlie Hebdo shootingOn 7 January 2015, at about 11:30 a.m. CET local time, two French Muslim terrorists and brothers, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, forced their way into the offices of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Armed with rifles and other weapons, they murdered 12 people and injured 11 others. The gunmen identified themselves as belonging to the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which took responsibility for the attack.
