The Greek community in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
numbers around between 35,000 - 50,000 people (in 2015). They are located all around the country but the main communities are located in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
,
Marseille
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fra ...
and
Grenoble
lat, Gratianopolis
, commune status = Prefecture and commune
, image = Panorama grenoble.png
, image size =
, caption = From upper left: Panorama of the city, Grenoble’s cable cars, place Saint- ...
.
Demographics
The Greeks of Marseille
Marseille, known as Massalia in Greek, was founded by Greeks from Ionia in 600 BC. The Massaliot Greeks are believed to have introduced
viticulture
Viticulture (from the Latin word for '' vine'') or winegrowing (wine growing) is the cultivation and harvesting of grapes. It is a branch of the science of horticulture. While the native territory of '' Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine, ...
to France. Notable ancient Greeks from Massalia included the great explorer and scientist
Pytheas.
Historically the Greek community was composed of merchants, ship-owners, intellectuals and international traders. They participated in the city’s political life or became patrons of its cultural life and the philanthropic activity of some of them was crowned by the
Légion d’Honneur.
The Greeks of Corsica
Corsican Maniots are descendants of
Maniots
The Maniots or Maniates ( el, Μανιάτες) are the inhabitants of Mani Peninsula, located in western Laconia and eastern Messenia, in the southern Peloponnese, Greece. They were also formerly known as Mainotes and the peninsula as ''Maina''.
...
, who migrated to Corsica during the 400 year
Ottoman rule over most of
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...
. To this day the
Cargèse
Cargèse (; or ; it, Cargese ; el, Καργκέζε, Kargkéze) is a village and ''commune'' in the Corse-du-Sud department of France on the west coast of the island of Corsica, 27 km north of Ajaccio. , the commune had a population ...
region of Corsica is referred to as ''Cargèse la Grecque'' (Cargèse, the Greek). The origins of the Greek Maniots community in
Corsica dates back to the end of the 17th century, when
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...
was then under
Ottoman Turk
The Ottoman Turks ( tr, Osmanlı Türkleri), were the Turkic founding and sociopolitically the most dominant ethnic group of the Ottoman Empire ( 1299/1302–1922).
Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks remains scarce, ...
rule and there was a flow of Greek refugees from the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
. The Maniot Greeks were settled on the island and given lands for farming and animal grazing by the then ruling power, Genoa, as part of a Genoese policy to limit the spread and impact of an emergent Corsican nationalism violently opposed to foreign rule. The Maniots founded their four new villages in Paomia with their own church and culture. As a consequence, the pro-Genoese Greeks in Corsica became the targets of sustained attacks by Corsican nationalists and resentful farmers, and so had to be re-settled several times before finally being given territory around Cargese. Attempts at integrating Greeks into Corsican society involved the establishment of a mixed Greek-Corsican gendermerie. Many Corsican Greeks subsequently left the island for French-ruled Algeria, in a wave of south European settlement of the North African colony sponsored by the French government, but returned to Corsica and elsewhere in France following Algerian independence. They have now become fully assimilated into Corsican and French society, through both intermarriage and education. In general this has resulted in Corsican Greeks losing their separate ethnic-religious identity and knowledge of the Greek language, with even older Cargese inhabitants of Greek ancestry having little if any ability to read or speak Greek, while some inhabitants still possess Corsicanized Greek names (like Garidacci etc.) and attend services in the Greek-Catholic church of Cargèse.
Notable people
*
Vincent, Count Benedetti
Vincent, Count Benedetti (29 April 181728 March 1900) was a French diplomat. He is probably best known as one of the central figures in the instigation of the Franco-Prussian War.
Life and career
Benedetti was born to a family of Greek origin a ...
*
Vassilis Alexakis
Vassilis Alexakis ( el, Βασίλης Αλεξάκης; 25 December 1943 – 11 January 2021) was a Greek- French writer and self-translator of numerous novels in Greek, his mother tongue, and French.
Biography
Alexakis, the son of actor Gi ...
*
Nikos Aliagas
Nikos Aliagas ( el, Νικόλαος "Νίκος" Αλιάγας, ''Nikólaos "Níkos" Aliágas''; born 13 May 1969) is a Greek-French journalist and entertainer, known for being the host of the French reality program ''Star Academy''.
Biograph ...
*
Constantine Andreou
Constantine Andreou (also: Costas Andreou, Kostas Andreou; french: Constantin Andréou, Costas Andréou; el, Κωνσταντίνος Ανδρέου, Κώστας Ανδρέου) (March 24, 1917 – October 8, 2007) was a painter and sculp ...
*
Anna Mouglalis
*
Eugène Michel Antoniadi
Eugène Michel Antoniadi (Greek: Ευγένιος Αντωνιάδης; 1 March 1870 – 10 February 1944) was a Greek- French astronomer.
Biography
Antoniadi was born in Istanbul (Constantinople) but spent most of his adult life in Franc ...
*
Roger Apéry
Roger Apéry (; 14 November 1916, Rouen – 18 December 1994, Caen) was a French mathematician most remembered for Apéry's theorem, which states that is an irrational number. Here, denotes the Riemann zeta function.
Biography
Apéry was born ...
*
Antonin Artaud
*
Helene Ahrweiler
Helene Glykatzi-Ahrweiler FBA (; el, Ελένη Γλύκατζη-Αρβελέρ; born 29 August 1926) is a Greek-French academic Byzantinologist. She is also a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for Greece. In the 2008 show '' Great Greeks'', she was ...
*
Kostas Axelos
Kostas Axelos (also spelled ''Costas Axelos''; el, Κώστας Αξελός; 26 June 1924 – 4 February 2010) was a Greek-French philosopher.
Biography
Axelos was born in Athens in 1924 to a doctor and a woman from an old Athenian bourgeo ...
*
Charles Denis Bourbaki
Charles Denis Sauter Bourbaki (22 April 1816, Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Pau – 22 September 1897, Bayonne) was a French general.
Career
Bourbaki was born at Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Pau, the son of Greek colonel Constantin Denis Bourb ...
*
Michel Dimitri Calvocoressi
Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi (2 October 1877 – 1 February 1944) was a French-born music critic and musicologist of Greek descent who was an English citizen and resident from 1914 onwards. He often promoted Russian composers, particularly Modes ...
*
Jean-Christophe Cambadélis
*
Cornelius Castoriadis
Cornelius Castoriadis ( el, Κορνήλιος Καστοριάδης; 11 March 1922 – 26 December 1997) was a Greek-FrenchMemos 2014, p. 18: "he was ... granted full French citizenship in 1970." philosopher, social critic, economist, ps ...
*
André Chénier
André Marie Chénier (; 30 October 176225 July 1794) was a French poet of Greek and Franco-Levantine origin, associated with the events of the French Revolution of which he was a victim. His sensual, emotive poetry marks him as one of the precur ...
*
Joseph Chénier
Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...
*
Iris Clert
Iris Clert ( el, Ίρις Αθανασιάδη; Iris Athanasiadi; 1917 – 1986) was a Greek-born art gallery owner and curator. She owned the Galerie Iris Clert in Paris from 1955 to 1971. During its tenure, her gallery became an avant-garde hot ...
*
Georges Corraface
Georges Corraface ( el, Γιώργος Χωραφάς, ''Giórgos Chorafás'';) is a French actor of Greek descent, born on December 7, 1952 in Paris, France. He performed in film and television, following many years in French theatre, notab ...
*
Jacques Damala
Aristides Damalas (Greek: Aριστεíδης Δαμαλάς, alternative spellings ''Aristidis'' or ''Aristide''; 15 January 1855 – 18 August 1889), known in France by the stage name Jacques Damala, was a Greek military officer-turned-actor, a ...
*
Diam's
Mélanie Georgiades (; born 25 July 1980 in Nicosia), better known by her stage name Diam's (), is a French rapper of Greek Cypriot origin.
Biography
Mélanie Marie Georgiades was born on July 25, 1980 in Nicosia, capital of Cyprus. Her mothe ...
*
Dimitri from Paris
Dimitri from Paris (born Dimitrios Yerasimos, el, Δημήτριος Γεράσιμος; 27 October 1963) is a French music producer and DJ of Greek descent. His musical influences are rooted in 1970s funk and disco sounds that spawned contempo ...
*
Adèle Exarchopoulos
*
Jean Focas
*
Costa Gavras
*
Romain Gavras
Romain Gavras (; born 4 July 1981 in Paris, France) is a French filmmaker. He is known for directing Jamie xx's video " Gosh", Kanye West's video "No Church in the Wild" and M.I.A.'s video " Bad Girls". He also directed Justice's "Stress" and M. ...
*
Pierre Gripari
*
John Iliopoulos
John (Jean) Iliopoulos (Greek: Ιωάννης Ηλιόπουλος; 1940, Kalamata, Greece) is a Greek physicist. He is the first person to present the Standard Model of particle physics in a single report. He is best known for his prediction of ...
*
Laure Junot, duchess d'Abrantès
*
Taïg Khris
*
Apo Lazaridès
Apo Lazaridès (16 October 1925 – 30 October 1998) was a French champion cyclist.
Born Jean-Apôtre Lazaridès in Marles-les-Mines, Pas-de-Calais of Greek ancestry (he became French in 1929). During the German occupation of France, Lazar ...
*
Clément Lépidis
*
Georges Moustaki
Georges Moustaki (born Giuseppe Mustacchi; 3 May 1934 – 23 May 2013) was an Egyptian-French singer-songwriter of Jewish Italo-Greek origin. He wrote about 300 songs for some of the most popular singers in France, including Édith Piaf, Dalida, ...
*
Savitri Devi Mukherji
*
Anna de Noailles
Anna, Comtesse Mathieu de Noailles (Anna Elisabeth Bibesco-Bassaraba de Brancovan) (15 November 1876 – 30 April 1933) was a French writer of Romanian and Greek descent, a poet and a socialist feminist.
Biography
Personal life
Born Princess ...
*
Gabriella Papadakis
Gabriella Maria Papadakis (born 10 May 1995) is a French ice dancer. With her partner, Guillaume Cizeron, she is a 2022 Olympic champion, 2018 Olympic silver medalist, a five-time World champion (2015–2016, 2018–2019, 2022), a five-time con ...
*
Georges Panayotis
*
Nicos Poulantzas
Nicos Poulantzas ( el, Νίκος Πουλαντζάς ; 21 September 1936 – 3 October 1979) was a Greek-French Marxist political sociologist and philosopher. In the 1970s, Poulantzas was known, along with Louis Althusser, as a leading structur ...
*
Gisèle Prassinos
*
Mario Prassinos
*
Nicolas Rossolimo
Nicolas Rossolimo (russian: Николай Спиридонович Россоли́мо, translit=Nikolai Spiridonovich Rossolimo; February 28, 1910 – July 24, 1975) was a Russian Empire-born chess player. After acquiring Greek citizenship in 1 ...
*
Nicolas Sarkozy
*
Joseph Sifakis
Joseph Sifakis (Greek: Ιωσήφ Σηφάκης) is a Greek-French computer scientist. He received the 2007 Turing Award, along with Edmund M. Clarke and E. Allen Emerson, for his work on model checking.
Biography
Joseph Sifakis was born in H ...
*
Demetrio Stefanopoli
*
Patrick Tatopoulos
Patrick Tatopoulos (born September 25, 1957) is a Greek- French production designer and director who lives and works in the United States. His designs have appeared in numerous motion pictures, including '' Pitch Black'', ''Underworld'', ''I, Ro ...
*
Tériade Tériade is the pen name of Stratis (or Efstratios) Eleftheriades ( el, Στρατής Ελευθεριάδης; 2 May 1897 – 23 October 1983), a native of Mytilene who went to Paris in 1915 at the age of eighteen to study law, but who instead bec ...
*
Agnès Varda
*
Antonis Volanis
*
Antonis Rikka
*
Alexandre Desplat
Alexandre Michel Gérard Desplat (; born 23 August 1961) is a French film composer and conductor. He has won many awards, including two Academy Awards, for his musical scores to the films '' The Grand Budapest Hotel'' and '' The Shape of Water'' ...
See also
*
Greek people
*
Greek diaspora
The Greek diaspora, also known as Omogenia ( el, Ομογένεια, Omogéneia), are the communities of Greeks living outside of Greece and Cyprus (excluding Northern Cyprus). Such places historically include Albania, North Macedonia, parts of ...
*
French people of Greek descent
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
*
French-Greek relations
*
Greeks in pre-Roman Gaul
The Greeks in pre-Roman Gaul have a significant history of settlement, trade, cultural influence, and armed conflict in the Celtic territory of Gaul (modern France), starting from the 6th century BC during the Greek Archaic period. Following the ...
References
Bibliography
*Gérard Blanken, ''Les Grecs de Cargèse (Corse). Recherches sur leur langue et leur histoire.T. I. Partie linguistique'', Leyde, 1951
recensionin ''Revue des études byzantines'')
*Marie-Anne Comnène, ''Cargèse: une colonie grecque en Corse'', Société d'édition "Les Belles lettres", 1959, 92 pages
* Mathieu Grenet, ''La fabrique communautaire. Les Grecs à Venise, Livourne et Marseille, 1770-1840'', Athens and Rome, École française d'Athènes and École française de Rome, 2016 ()
*Jean Coppolani, « Cargèse. Essai sur la géographie humaine d'un village corse », ''Revue de géographie alpine'', Année 1949, Volume 37, n° 37-1, pp. 71–108
*Nicolaos Stephanopoli de Comnène,
Histoire de la colonie grecque établie en Corse', Éditeur A. Thoisnier-Desplaces, 1826 (full scanned version on line)
External links
Bilateral relations between Greece and France A web page of the community Information on Greece and Greeks around the world in French
{{Portal bar, France, Greece
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
European diaspora in France
France–Greece relations