This is a list of notable

French 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 ...

scientist A scientist is a person who conducts scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosop ...

A–F

* José Achache, geophysicist and ecologist *

Jean le Rond d'Alembert Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert (; ; 16 November 1717 – 29 October 1783) was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. Until 1759 he was, together with Denis Diderot, a co-editor of the '' Encyclopéd ...

, mathematician, mechanician, physicist and philosopher *

Claude Allègre Claude Allègre (; born 31 March 1937) is a French politician and scientist. Scientific work The main scientific area of Claude Allègre was geochemistry. Allègre co-authored an ''Introduction to geochemistry'' in 1974. Since the 1980s, he ...

, geochemist *

André-Marie Ampère André-Marie Ampère (, ; ; 20 January 177510 June 1836) was a French physicist and mathematician who was one of the founders of the science of classical electromagnetism, which he referred to as "electrodynamics". He is also the inventor of nu ...

, physicist and mathematician *

Françoise Ardré Françoise Ardré (1931–2010) was a French phycologist and marine scientist, honoured as the namesake of the red alga known as ''Pterosiphonia ardreana''. Christine A. Maggs & Max H. Hommersand (1993) ''Seaweeds of the British Isles: a collabor ...

, phycologist, marine scientist *

Louis Bachelier Louis Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Bachelier (; 11 March 1870 – 28 April 1946) was a French mathematician at the turn of the 20th century. He is credited with being the first person to model the stochastic process now called Brownian motion, as part ...

, mathematician *

Antoine Jérôme Balard Antoine Jérôme Balard (30 September 1802 – 30 April 1876) was a French chemist and one of the discoverers of bromine. Career Born at Montpellier, France, on 30 September 1802, he started as an apothecary, but taking up teaching he acted as ...

, chemist *

Éliane Basse Éliane Basse or Éliane Basse de Ménorval (21 May 1899 – 28 January 1985) was a French paleontologist and geologist who became research director at the French National Center for Scientific Research in 1960. Life A student at the École ...

, paleontologist and geologist *

Pierre-Dominique Bazaine Pierre-Dominique Bazaine (Пётр Петрович Базен) (1786–1838) was a French scientist and engineer. Early life He was born 13 January 1786, in the town of Scy-sur-Moselle, son of Pierre Bazaine (1760-1832) and Francoise Gilb ...

, mathematician and engineer * Jean de Beaurain, geographer * Antoine César Becquerel, electrochemist * A.E. Becquerel, physicist *

Henri Becquerel Antoine Henri Becquerel (; 15 December 1852 – 25 August 1908) was a French engineer, physicist, Nobel laureate, and the first person to discover evidence of radioactivity. For work in this field he, along with Marie Skłodowska-Curie and Pie ...

, physicist and Nobel laureate *

Jean Becquerel Jean Antoine Edmond Marie Becquerel (5 February 1878 – 4 July 1953) was a French physicist, the son of Antoine-Henri Becquerel. He worked on a range of experimental physics topics including magnetic effects on the optical properties of materials ...

, physicist * Léon Bence, physician * Jacques Benoit (biologist), physician, biologist and neuroendocrinologist *

Claude Bernard Claude Bernard (; 12 July 1813 – 10 February 1878) was a French physiologist. Historian I. Bernard Cohen of Harvard University called Bernard "one of the greatest of all men of science". He originated the term '' milieu intérieur'', and the ...

, physiologist *

Marcellin Berthelot Pierre Eugène Marcellin Berthelot (; 25 October 1827 – 18 March 1907) was a French chemist and Republican politician noted for the ThomsenBerthelot principle of thermochemistry. He synthesized many organic compounds from inorganic substa ...

, chemist * Julien Bessières, physician, diplomat, and member of the

Commission des Sciences et des Arts The Commission des Sciences et des Arts (''Commission of the Sciences and Arts'') was a French scientific and artistic institute. Established on 16 March 1798, it consisted of 167 members, of which all but 16 joined Napoleon Bonaparte's conquest ...

* Jean Bosler, astronomer * Claude Bourgelat, veterinary surgeon * Thomas Bourgeron, neuroscientist *

Jean-Baptiste Boussingault Jean-Baptiste Joseph Dieudonné Boussingault (2 February 1801 – 11 May 1887) was a French chemist who made significant contributions to agricultural science, petroleum science and metallurgy. Biography Jean-Baptiste Boussingault – an agric ...

, chemist * Gerard Brachet, space scientist *

Paul Broca Pierre Paul Broca (, also , , ; 28 June 1824 – 9 July 1880) was a French physician, anatomist and anthropologist. He is best known for his research on Broca's area, a region of the frontal lobe that is named after him. Broca's area is involve ...

, physician, surgeon, anatomist, and anthropologist *

Bernard Brunhes Antoine Joseph Bernard Brunhes (3 July 1867 – 10 May 1910) was a French geophysicist known for his pioneering work in paleomagnetism, in particular, his 1906 discovery of geomagnetic reversal. The current period of normal polarity, ''Brunhes C ...

, physicist *

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (; 7 September 1707 – 16 April 1788) was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopédiste. His works influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including two prominent ...

, naturalist and mathematician * Bernard Cabane, physicist * Pierre Jean George Cabanis, physiologist *

Albert Calmette Léon Charles Albert Calmette ForMemRS (12 July 1863 – 29 October 1933) was a French physician, bacteriologist and immunologist, and an important officer of the Pasteur Institute. He discovered the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin, an attenuated fo ...

, physician, bacteriologist and immunologist *

Georges Canguilhem Georges Canguilhem (; ; 4 June 1904 – 11 September 1995) was a French philosopher and physician who specialized in epistemology and the philosophy of science (in particular, biology). Life and work Canguilhem entered the École Normale Supé ...

, physician and philosopher *

Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot ''Sous-lieutenant'' Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot (; 1 June 1796 – 24 August 1832) was a French mechanical engineer in the French Army, military scientist and physicist, and often described as the "father of thermodynamics". He published o ...

, physicist and military engineer *

Henri Cartan Henri Paul Cartan (; 8 July 1904 – 13 August 2008) was a French mathematician who made substantial contributions to algebraic topology. He was the son of the mathematician Élie Cartan, nephew of mathematician Anna Cartan, oldest brother of c ...

, mathematician *

Augustin-Louis Cauchy Baron Augustin-Louis Cauchy (, ; ; 21 August 178923 May 1857) was a French mathematician, engineer, and physicist who made pioneering contributions to several branches of mathematics, including mathematical analysis and continuum mechanics. H ...

, mathematician and physicist *

Jean-François Champollion Jean-François Champollion (), also known as Champollion ''le jeune'' ('the Younger'; 23 December 17904 March 1832), was a French philologist and orientalist, known primarily as the decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs and a founding figure in t ...

, philologist * Georges Charpak, physicist, Nobel prize winner 1992 * Georges Charpy, physicist and metallurgist *

Albert Châtelet Albert Châtelet (24 October 1883 – 30 June 1960) was a French politician and mathematician. Biography Châtelet was a student at the École normale supérieure (Paris) from 1905 to 1908, succeeding to the Agrégation (a highly selective compe ...

, mathematician *

Émilie du Châtelet Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet (; 17 December 1706 – 10 September 1749) was a French natural philosopher and mathematician from the early 1730s until her death due to complications during childbirth in 1749. ...

, mathematician and physicist * Jean Mathieu de Chazelles, professor of hydrography * Michel Che, chemist *

Gustave Choquet Gustave Choquet (; 1 March 1915 – 14 November 2006) was a French mathematician. Choquet was born in Solesmes, Nord. His contributions include work in functional analysis, potential theory, topology and measure theory. He is known for creat ...

, mathematician *

Charles Pierre Claret de Fleurieu Charles Pierre Claret, comte de Fleurieu (2 July 1738, Lyon – 18 August 1810) was a French Navy officer, explorer, hydrographer and politician. He served as Minister of the Navy under Louis XVI, and was a member of the Institut de France. He wa ...

, explorer, hydrographer and politician *

Alain Connes Alain Connes (; born 1 April 1947) is a French mathematician, and a theoretical physicist, known for his contributions to the study of operator algebras and noncommutative geometry. He is a professor at the , , Ohio State University and Vand ...

, mathematician; Fields Medalist 1982 * Louis Couffignal, mathematician and cybernetician *

Charles-Augustin de Coulomb Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (; ; 14 June 1736 – 23 August 1806) was a French officer, engineer, and physicist. He is best known as the eponymous discoverer of what is now called Coulomb's law, the description of the electrostatic force of attra ...

, physicist * Jean Courtial, physician and polytechnician *

Vincent Courtillot Vincent E. Courtillot (born 6 March 1948) is an emeritus French geophysicist, prominent among the researchers who are critical of the hypothesis that impact events are a primary cause of mass extinction of life forms on the Earth. He is known for ...

, geophysicist * Philippe Cousteau, oceanographer * Jean-Marie-Joseph Coutelle, engineer, scientist and pioneer of ballooning *

Adam de Craponne Adam de Craponne (; 1526–1576) was a French engineer. He built the eponymous Canal de Craponne to irrigate the ''Désert de la Crau''. He was poisoned while fortifying Nantes for King Henry III of France during the French Wars of Religion Ear ...

, engineer who implemented the

Canal de Craponne The Canal de Craponne, Craponne canal, is a canal in the Pélissanne commune of the Bouches-du-Rhône department of France. It was originally conceived and built between 1554 and 1559 by the engineer Adam de Craponne to bring fresh water 25km from ...

in 1559 * Jean Cruveilhier, anatomist and pathologist *

Marie Curie Marie Salomea Skłodowska–Curie ( , , ; born Maria Salomea Skłodowska, ; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the fir ...

, physicist and chemist, two Nobel Prizes, in physics (1903) and chemistry (1911) *

Pierre Curie Pierre Curie ( , ; 15 May 1859 – 19 April 1906) was a French physicist, a pioneer in crystallography, magnetism, piezoelectricity, and radioactivity. In 1903, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics with his wife, Marie Curie, and Henri Becq ...

, physicist and chemist, Nobel Prize in physics (1903) *

Georges Cuvier Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (; 23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier was a major figure in na ...

, regarded as the founding father of palaeontology * Boris Cyrulnik, ethologist, neurologist, and psychiatrist *

Thomas-François Dalibard Thomas-François Dalibard (born in Crannes-en-Champagne, France in 1709, died in 1778) was a French physicist who performed the first lightning rod experiment. He was married to the novelist and playwright Françoise-Thérèse Aumerle de Saint- ...

, physicist and botanist * Henry Darcy, hydraulic engineer * Michel Darluc, naturalist * Raymond Daudel, quantum chemist * Jean Dausset, biologist, Nobel prize winner 1980 * André-Louis Debierne, chemist *

Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre Jean Baptiste Joseph, chevalier Delambre (19 September 1749 – 19 August 1822) was a French mathematician, astronomer, historian of astronomy, and geodesist. He was also director of the Paris Observatory, and author of well-known books on t ...

, mathematician and astronomer * Marcel Deprez, electrical engineer *

John Theophilus Desaguliers John Theophilus Desaguliers FRS (12 March 1683 – 29 February 1744) was a British natural philosopher, clergyman, engineer and freemason who was elected to the Royal Society in 1714 as experimental assistant to Isaac Newton. He had studied at ...

, natural philosopher (physicist) *

Guillaume Delisle Guillaume Delisle, also spelled Guillaume de l'Isle, (; 28 February 1675, Paris – 25 January 1726, Paris) was a French cartographer known for his popular and accurate maps of Europe and the newly explored Americas. Childhood and education Desli ...

, cartographer *

Girard Desargues Girard Desargues (; 21 February 1591 – September 1661) was a French mathematician and engineer, who is considered one of the founders of projective geometry. Desargues' theorem, the Desargues graph, and the crater Desargues on the Moon are ...

, mathematician *

René Descartes René Descartes ( or ; ; Latinized: Renatus Cartesius; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Ma ...

, scientist and philosopher *

Robert Debré Robert Debré (7 December 1882 – 29 April 1978) was a French physician (pediatrician) at Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital in Paris. The largest pediatric hospital in Paris, l' Hôpital Robert-Debré - located in the North-East part of Paris ( ...

, physician *

Georges Duby Georges Duby (7 October 1919 – 3 December 1996) was a French historian who specialised in the social and economic history of the Middle Ages. He ranks among the most influential medieval historians of the twentieth century and was one of Fran ...

, historian * Jean-Baptiste du Hamel, natural philosopher (physicist) * Émilien Dumas, paleontologist, and geologist *

Jean-Baptiste Dumas Jean Baptiste André Dumas (14 July 180010 April 1884) was a French chemist, best known for his works on organic analysis and synthesis, as well as the determination of atomic weights (relative atomic masses) and molecular weights by measuring ...

, chemist * Charles François Dupuis, polymath and theologian * Pierre Fauchard, dentist *

Hervé Faye Hervé Auguste Étienne Albans Faye ( – ) was a French astronomer, born at Saint-Benoît-du-Sault (Indre) and educated at the École Polytechnique, which he left in 1834, before completing his course, to accept a position in the Paris Obser ...

, astronomer *

Pierre de Fermat Pierre de Fermat (; between 31 October and 6 December 1607 – 12 January 1665) was a French mathematician who is given credit for early developments that led to infinitesimal calculus, including his technique of adequality. In particular, he ...

, mathematician *

Louis Feuillée Louis Éconches Feuillée (sometimes spelled Feuillet) (1660, Mane, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence – 18 April 1732) was a French member of the Order of the Minims, explorer, astronomer, geographer, and botanist. Biography Feuillée was educated at t ...

, explorer, astronomer, geographer, and botanist * Bernard Foing, astronomer *

Pierre Fourmanoir Pierre Fourmanoir (1924–2007) was a French ichthyologist working mainly in New Caledonia ) , anthem = "" , image_map = New Caledonia on the globe (small islands magnified) (Polynesia centered).svg , map_alt = Location of New Caledonia , ma ...

, ichthyologist *

Joseph Fourier Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier (; ; 21 March 1768 – 16 May 1830) was a French mathematician and physicist born in Auxerre and best known for initiating the investigation of Fourier series, which eventually developed into Fourier analysis and ha ...

, mathematician and physicist *

Augustin-Jean Fresnel Augustin-Jean Fresnel (10 May 1788 – 14 July 1827) was a French civil engineer and physicist whose research in optics led to the almost unanimous acceptance of the wave theory of light, excluding any remnant of Newton's corpuscular th ...

, physicist known for work on optics

G–M

Pierre-Gilles de Gennes Pierre-Gilles de Gennes (; 24 October 1932 – 18 May 2007) was a French physicist and the Nobel Prize laureate in physics in 1991. Education and early life He was born in Paris, France, and was home-schooled to the age of 12. By the age of ...

, mathematician and physicist *

Paul Gervais Paul Gervais full name François Louis Paul Gervais (26 September 1816 – 10 February 1879) was a French palaeontologist and entomologist. Biography Gervais was born in Paris, where he obtained the diplomas of doctor of science and of medicine ...

, palaeontologist and entomologist *

Jacques Géry Jacques Géry (12 March 1917, Paris – 15 June 2007, Sarlat, France) was a French ichthyologist Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish (Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jaw ...

, ichthyologist *

Mirko Grmek Mirko Dražen Grmek (9 January 1924 – 6 March 2000) was a Croatian and French historian of medicine, writer and scientist. He was one of the pioneers and founders of the history of medicine. His entire opus promotes the historical research of me ...

, historian of medicine * Camille Guérin, biologist * Alexander Grothendieck, mathematician; Fields Medalist 1966 (German-born) *

André Guinier André Guinier (1 August 1911 – 3 July 2000) was a French physicist who did important work in the field of X-ray diffraction and solid-state physics. He worked at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, then taught at the University of ...

, physicist *

Jacques Hadamard Jacques Salomon Hadamard (; 8 December 1865 – 17 October 1963) was a French mathematician who made major contributions in number theory, complex analysis, differential geometry and partial differential equations. Biography The son of a teac ...

, mathematician * Armand Havet, botanist *

Charles Hermite Charles Hermite () FRS FRSE MIAS (24 December 1822 – 14 January 1901) was a French mathematician who did research concerning number theory, quadratic forms, invariant theory, orthogonal polynomials, elliptic functions, and algebra. ...

, mathematician * François Jacob, biologist, Nobel prize winner 1965 *

Charles Janet Charles Janet (; 15 June 1849 – 7 February 1932) was a French engineer, company director, inventor and biologist. He is also known for his innovative ''left-step'' presentation of the periodic table of chemical elements. Life and work Janet gra ...

, chemist and biologist *

Paul Janet Paul Alexandre René Janet (30 April 1823 – 4 October 1899) was a French philosopher and writer. Biography Born in Paris, he became professor of moral philosophy at Bourges (1845–1848) and Strasbourg (1848–1857), and of logic at the ''lyc� ...

, philosopher *

Irène Joliot-Curie Irène Joliot-Curie (; ; 12 September 1897 – 17 March 1956) was a French chemist, physicist and politician, the elder daughter of Pierre and Marie Curie, and the wife of Frédéric Joliot-Curie. Jointly with her husband, Joliot-Curie was awar ...

, physicist and Nobel Prize winner *

Frédéric Joliot-Curie Jean Frédéric Joliot-Curie (; ; 19 March 1900 – 14 August 1958) was a French physicist and husband of Irène Joliot-Curie, with whom he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935 for their discovery of Induced radioactivity. T ...

, physicist, Nobel Prize winner 1935 *

Jean Jouzel Jean Jouzel, (born 5 March 1947) is a prominent French glaciologist and climatologist. He has mainly worked on the reconstruction of past climate derived from the study of the Antarctic and Greenland ice. Career Jean Jouzel's career occurred mo ...

, glaciologist and climatologist *

Gaston Julia Gaston Maurice Julia (3 February 1893 – 19 March 1978) was a French Algerian mathematician who devised the formula for the Julia set. His works were popularized by French mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot; the Julia and Mandelbrot fractals are cl ...

, mathematician * Étienne Hubert d'Orléans, Arabist * Nicole El Karoui, mathematician *

Robert Kühner Robert Kühner (15 March 1903 in Paris – 27 February 1996 in Lyon) was a French mycologist most notable for reviewing many forms of agaric (mushroom fungus) genera. He studied at the Sorbonne, afterwards from 1921 until 1932, he was work ...

, mycologist * Michel de La Vigne, physician * Yves Lacoste, geographer and geopolitician *

Laurent Lafforgue Laurent Lafforgue (; born 6 November 1966) is a French mathematician. He has made outstanding contributions to Langlands' program in the fields of number theory and analysis, and in particular proved the Langlands conjectures for the automorphism ...

, mathematician; Fields Medalist 2002 *

Frédéric de Lafresnaye Baron Nöel Frédéric Armand André de Lafresnaye (24 July 1783 – 14 July 1861) was a French ornithologist and collector. Lafresnaye was born into an aristocratic family at Chateau de La Fresnaye in Falaise, Normandy. He took an early inte ...

, ornithologist *

Joseph Louis Lagrange Joseph-Louis Lagrange (born Giuseppe Luigi LagrangiaJean Laherrère Jean H. Laherrère (* May 30, 1931) is a petroleum engineer and consultant, best known as the co-author of an influential 1998 Scientific American article entitled ''The End of Cheap Oil''. Career Laherrère studied at the Ecole Polytechnique and ...

, consultant and petroleum engineer * Claude François Lallemand, physician and pathologist *

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, chevalier de Lamarck (1 August 1744 – 18 December 1829), often known simply as Lamarck (; ), was a French naturalist, biologist, academic, and soldier. He was an early proponent of the idea that biolo ...

, evolutionary biologist *

Paul Langevin Paul Langevin (; ; 23 January 1872 – 19 December 1946) was a French physicist who developed Langevin dynamics and the Langevin equation. He was one of the founders of the ''Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes'', an ant ...

, physicist *

Pierre-Simon Laplace Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (; ; 23 March 1749 – 5 March 1827) was a French scholar and polymath whose work was important to the development of engineering, mathematics, statistics, physics, astronomy, and philosophy. He summarize ...

, mathematician and physicist * François-de-Paule Latapie, botanist * Lucien Laubier, oceanographer * René Lavocat, paleontologist *

Antoine Lavoisier Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier ( , ; ; 26 August 17438 May 1794),
CNRS (

Xavier Le Pichon Xavier Le Pichon (born 18 June 1937 in Qui Nhơn, French protectorate of Annam (after South Vietnam and today Vietnam) is a French geophysicist. Among many other contributions, he is known for his comprehensive model of plate tectonics (1968), h ...

, geophysicist * Jean-Marie Lehn, chemist, Nobel prize winner in 1987 * Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond, physicist *

Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss (, ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social Anthr ...

, anthropologist *

Arnoult de Lisle Arnoult de Lisle (1556–) was a French physician, Arabist, and diplomat of the 16th and 17th centuries. As a young physician, Arnoult de Lisle married the daughter of Louis Duret, a specialist of Avicenna, in 1586. Morocco (1588–98) In 1587, ...

, Arabist and physician *

Pierre-Louis Lions Pierre-Louis Lions (; born 11 August 1956) is a French mathematician. He is known for a number of contributions to the fields of partial differential equations and the calculus of variations. He was a recipient of the 1994 Fields Medal and the 199 ...

, mathematician; Fields Medalist 1994 * Edmond Locard, pioneer of forensic science *

André Lwoff André — sometimes transliterated as Andre — is the French and Portuguese form of the name Andrew, and is now also used in the English-speaking world. It used in France, Quebec, Canada and other French-speaking countries. It is a variation ...

, biologist, Nobel prize winner 1965 *

Jean-Michel Macron Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron (; born 1950) is a French doctor and professor of neurology at the University of Picardy. He is the father of French president Emmanuel Macron. Early life Jean-Michel Macron was born in 1950. His father was André M ...

, neurologist * Charles Madic, radiochemist *

Jean-Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan Jean-Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan (26 November 1678 – 20 February 1771) was a French geophysicist, astronomer and most notably, chronobiologist, was born in the town of Béziers on 26 November 1678. De Mairan lost his father, François d'Ortou ...

, geophysicist, astronomer and chronobiologist *

Benoit Mandelbrot Benoit B. Mandelbrot (20 November 1924 – 14 October 2010) was a Polish-born French-American mathematician and polymath with broad interests in the practical sciences, especially regarding what he labeled as "the art of roughness" of p ...

, mathematician *

Jacques Masquelier Jack Arthur Masquelier (1922-2009), sometimes incorrectly called Jacques Masquelier, was a French scientist. In July 1948 he published his doctoral thesis based on his successful isolation and chemical description of the phytonutrient we know toda ...

, phytochemist * Albert Mathiez, historian *

Pierre Louis Maupertuis Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (; ; 1698 – 27 July 1759) was a French mathematician, philosopher and man of letters. He became the Director of the Académie des Sciences, and the first President of the Prussian Academy of Science, at the ...

, mathematician and philosopher * Prosper Ménière, doctor concerned with hearing loss and tinnitus *

Marin Mersenne Marin Mersenne, OM (also known as Marinus Mersennus or ''le Père'' Mersenne; ; 8 September 1588 – 1 September 1648) was a French polymath whose works touched a wide variety of fields. He is perhaps best known today among mathematicians for ...

, mathematician *

André Michaux André Michaux, also styled Andrew Michaud, (8 March 174611 October 1802) was a French botanist and explorer. He is most noted for his study of North American flora. In addition Michaux collected specimens in England, Spain, France, and even Per ...

, botanist and explorer *

François André Michaux François André Michaux (16 August 1770 – 23 October 1855) was a French botanist, son of André Michaux and the namesake of Michaux State Forest in Pennsylvania. Michaux ''père'' botanized in North America for nearly a dozen years (1785 ...

, botanist * Jean-Louis Michel, oceanographer and engineer *

Jules Michelet Jules Michelet (; 21 August 1798 – 9 February 1874) was a French historian and an author on other topics whose major work was a history of France and its culture. His aphoristic style emphasized his anti-clerical republicanism. In Michelet' ...

, historian *

Alphonse Milne-Edwards Alphonse Milne-Edwards (Paris, 13 October 1835 – Paris, 21 April 1900) was a French mammalogist, ornithologist, and carcinologist. He was English in origin, the son of Henri Milne-Edwards and grandson of Bryan Edwards, a Jamaican planter who se ...

, mammalologist and ornithologist *

Abraham de Moivre Abraham de Moivre FRS (; 26 May 166727 November 1754) was a French mathematician known for de Moivre's formula, a formula that links complex numbers and trigonometry, and for his work on the normal distribution and probability theory. He move ...

, mathematician * Jacques Monod, biologist, Nobel prize winner 1965 *

Théodore Monod Théodore André Monod (9 April 1902 – 22 November 2000) was a French naturalist, humanist, scholar and explorer. Exploration Early in his career, Monod was made professor at the '' Muséum national d'histoire naturelle'' and founded the '' Ins ...

, naturalist and theologian * Gabriel Mouton, mathematician and astronomer

N–Z

* Adolphe-Simon Neboux, surgeon and naturalist * Louis Néel, physicist, Nobel Prize winner 1970 * André Niederlender, archaeologist * Jean de Noailles, chemist *

Jean-Baptiste Noulet Jean-Baptiste Noulet (1 May 1802 – 24 May 1890) was a French scientist and naturalist who helped to prove the archæological existence of humans and was one of the pioneers of the scientific discipline of prehistoric archaeology. He was born in ...

, archaeologist * Hélène Olivier-Bourbigou, chemist and researcher *

Henri Padé Henri Eugène Padé (; 17 December 1863 – 9 July 1953) was a French mathematician, who is now remembered mainly for his development of Padé approximation techniques for functions using rational functions. Education and career Pad ...

, mathematician *

Paul Painlevé Paul Painlevé (; 5 December 1863 – 29 October 1933) was a French mathematician and statesman. He served twice as Prime Minister of the Third Republic: 12 September – 13 November 1917 and 17 April – 22 November 1925. His entry into politic ...

, mathematician *

Denis Papin Denis Papin FRS (; 22 August 1647 – 26 August 1713) was a French physicist, mathematician and inventor, best known for his pioneering invention of the steam digester, the forerunner of the pressure cooker and of the steam engine. Early li ...

, physicist, mathematician, and inventor *

Blaise Pascal Blaise Pascal ( , , ; ; 19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic writer. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pascal's earliest ...

, mathematician and philosopher * Étienne Pascal, mathematician *

Louis Pasteur Louis Pasteur (, ; 27 December 1822 – 28 September 1895) was a French chemist and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation and pasteurization, the latter of which was named afte ...

, microbiologist and chemist *

Jean Pecquet Jean Pecquet (9 May 1622, Dieppe, Seine-Maritime – 26 February 1674) was a French scientist. He studied the expansion of air, wrote on psychology, and is also known for investigating the thoracic duct. Furthermore, he studied the nature of visi ...

, psychologist *

Jean-Marie Pelt Jean-Marie Pelt (24 October 1933 – 23 December 2015) was a French biologist, botanist and pharmacist with degrees in both biology and pharmacy. He was professor at the University of Lorraine, specializing in medicinal plants and traditional pha ...

, botanist * Jean-Pierre Petit, engineer * Jean Robert Petit,

paleoclimatologist Paleoclimatology ( British spelling, palaeoclimatology) is the study of climates for which direct measurements were not taken. As instrumental records only span a tiny part of Earth's history, the reconstruction of ancient climate is important t ...

* Alphonse Pinart, philologist *

Gilles Pisier Gilles I. Pisier (born 18 November 1950) is a professor of mathematics at the Pierre and Marie Curie University and a distinguished professor and A.G. and M.E. Owen Chair of Mathematics at the Texas A&M University. He is known for his contribution ...

, mathematician *

Hippolyte Pixii Hippolyte Pixii (1808–1835) was an instrument maker from Paris, France. In 1832 he built an early form of alternating current electrical generator, based on the principle of electromagnetic induction discovered by Michael Faraday. Mohamed A. El- ...

, inventor *

Henri Poincaré Jules Henri Poincaré ( S: stress final syllable ; 29 April 1854 – 17 July 1912) was a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and philosopher of science. He is often described as a polymath, and in mathematics as "Th ...

, mathematician and physicist *

Lucien Poincaré Lucien Poincaré (22 July 1862 – 9 March 1920) was a distinguished French physicist. Biography Poincaré was born at Bar-le-Duc July 22, 1862. After a distinguished academic career he became in succession inspector general of physical science in ...

, physicist * Siméon Poisson, mathematician and physicist * Pierre Poivre, horticulturist and botanist *

Albéric Pont Albéric Pont (1870–1960) was a French dentist. He created a center for maxillofacial surgery during the first World War. References 1870 births 1960 deaths People from Bagnols-sur-Cèze French dentists {{france-med-bio-stub ...

, dentist and pioneer in maxillofacial surgery * Alberte Pullman, quantum chemist * Bernard Pullman, quantum chemist *

Lucien Quélet Lucien Quélet in 1869 Lucien Quélet (14 July 1832 – 25 August 1899) was a French naturalist and mycologist. Quélet discovered several species of fungi and was the founder of the Société mycologique de France, a society devoted to mycolo ...

, naturalist and mycologist * Petrus Ramus, mathematician and logician *

Louis-Antoine Ranvier Louis-Antoine Ranvier (2 October 1835 – 22 March 1922) was a French physician, pathologist, anatomist and histologist, who discovered the nodes of Ranvier, regularly spaced discontinuities of the myelin sheath, occurring at varying intervals ...

, physician, pathologist, anatomist and histologist *

Didier Raoult Didier Raoult (; born 13 March 1952) is a retired French physician and microbiologist specialising in infectious diseases. He taught about infectious diseases at the Faculty of Medicine of Aix-Marseille University (AMU), and in 1984, created the ...

, microbiologist and virologist *

René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (; 28 February 1683, La Rochelle – 17 October 1757, Saint-Julien-du-Terroux) was a French entomologist and writer who contributed to many different fields, especially the study of insects. He introduced t ...

, entomologist * Jean-Baptiste Robinet, naturalist * Paul Rohmer, physician *

Michel Rolle Michel Rolle (21 April 1652 – 8 November 1719) was a French mathematician. He is best known for Rolle's theorem (1691). He is also the co-inventor in Europe of Gaussian elimination (1690). Life Rolle was born in Ambert, Basse-Auvergne. Ro ...

, mathematician * Henri Romagnesi, mycologist * Joël de Rosnay, scientific administrator * Jean Rostand, biologist and philosopher *

Louis Rougier Louis Auguste Paul Rougier (; 10 April 1889 – 14 October 1982) was a French philosopher. Rougier made many important contributions to epistemology, philosophy of science, political philosophy and the history of Christianity. Early life Rougie ...

, mathematician, physicist, and philosopher *

Nicolas Sarrabat Fr. Nicolas Sarrabat or Sarabat (February 7, 1698 – April 27, 1739), also known as Nicolas Sarrabat de la Baisse, was an eighteenth-century French mathematician and scientist. He was born in Lyon, the son of the painter Daniel Sarrabat (1666–1 ...

, mathematician concerned with many aspects of science *

Henri Émile Sauvage Henri Émile Sauvage (22 September 1842 in Boulogne-sur-Mer – 3 January 1917 in Boulogne-sur-Mer) was a French paleontologist, ichthyologist, and herpetologist. He was a leading expert on Mesozoic fish and reptiles.Schlumberger brothers (Conrad Schlumberger and Marcel Schlumberger) *

Laurent Schwartz Laurent-Moïse Schwartz (; 5 March 1915 – 4 July 2002) was a French mathematician. He pioneered the theory of distributions, which gives a well-defined meaning to objects such as the Dirac delta function. He was awarded the Fields Medal in ...

, mathematician; Fields Medalist 1950 * Géraud Sénizergues, computer scientist and 2002

Gödel Prize The Gödel Prize is an annual prize for outstanding papers in the area of theoretical computer science, given jointly by the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS) and the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interes ...

recipient. *

Jean-Pierre Serre Jean-Pierre Serre (; born 15 September 1926) is a French mathematician who has made contributions to algebraic topology, algebraic geometry, and algebraic number theory. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1954, the Wolf Prize in 2000 and the ina ...

, mathematician; Fields Medalist 1954 * Michel Talagrand, mathematician *

Jules Tannery Jules Tannery (24 March 1848 – 11 December 1910) was a French mathematician, who notably studied under Charles Hermite and was the PhD advisor of Jacques Hadamard. Tannery's theorem on interchange of limits and series is named after him. He ...

, mathematician * Auguste Ambroise Tardieu, forensic medical scientist * Daniel Tauvry, physician * Fabiola Terzi, physician-scientist * Melchisédech Thévenot, inventor of the spirit level *

Adrien-Jean-Pierre Thilorier Adrien-Jean-Pierre Thilorier (16 February 1790 – 2 December 1844) was a French inventor who was the first person to produce solid carbon dioxide ("dry ice"). Early years Adrien-Jean-Pierre Thilorier was born in Paris, France, on 16 February 1790 ...

, discovered dry ice *

René Thom René Frédéric Thom (; 2 September 1923 – 25 October 2002) was a French mathematician, who received the Fields Medal in 1958. He made his reputation as a topologist, moving on to aspects of what would be called singularity theory; he becam ...

, mathematician; Fields Medalist 1958 * Muriel Thomasset physicist *

Pierre-Marie-Jérôme Trésaguet Pierre-Marie-Jérôme Trésaguet (15 January 1716 – 1796) was a French engineer. He is widely credited with establishing the first scientific approach to road building about the year 1764. Among his innovations was the use of a base layer of l ...

, engineer and road builder * François Trèves, mathematician *

Georges Valiron Georges Jean Marie Valiron (7 September 1884 – 17 March 1955) was a French mathematician, notable for his contributions to analysis, in particular, the asymptotic behaviour of entire functions of finite order and Tauberian theorems. Biography ...

, mathematician * Jean-Pierre Vernant, historian * Jean-Christophe Victor, geographer *

Paul-Émile Victor Paul-Émile Victor (born Paul Eugène Victor; 28 June 1907 – 7 March 1995) was a French ethnologist and explorer. Victor was born in Geneva, Switzerland to French Jewish parents of Bohemian and Polish descent. He graduated from École Centr ...

, ethnologist *

François Viète François Viète, Seigneur de la Bigotière ( la, Franciscus Vieta; 1540 – 23 February 1603), commonly know by his mononym, Vieta, was a French mathematician whose work on new algebra was an important step towards modern algebra, due to i ...

, mathematician *

Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot Louis Pierre Vieillot (10 May 1748, Yvetot – 24 August 1830, Sotteville-lès-Rouen) was a French ornithologist. Vieillot is the author of the first scientific descriptions and Linnaean names of a number of birds, including species he collec ...

, ornithologist *

Charles Athanase Walckenaer Baron Charles Athanase Walckenaer (25 December 1771 – 28 April 1852) was a French civil servant and scientist. Biography Walckenaer was born in Paris and studied at the universities of Oxford and Glasgow. In 1793 he was appointed head of t ...

, geographer * Wendelin Werner, mathematician; Fields Medalist 2006 (German-born) * Rachid Yazami, engineer and inventor *

Jean-Christophe Yoccoz Jean-Christophe Yoccoz (29 May 1957 – 3 September 2016) was a French mathematician. He was awarded a Fields Medal in 1994, for his work on dynamical systems. Biography Yoccoz attended the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, during which time he was a silv ...

, mathematician; Fields Medalist 1994

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See also