The Société nationale des chemins de fer français is France's national state-owned railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the country's national rail traffic along with Monaco, including the TGV, on France's high-speed rail network. Its functions include operation of railway services for passengers and freight, as well as maintenance and signalling of rail infrastructure. The railway network consists of about 35,000 km (22,000 mi) of route, of which 2,600 km (1,600 mi) are high-speed lines and 14,500 km (9,000 mi) electrified. About 14,000 trains are operated daily.
The Leclerc is a third-generation French main battle tank developed and manufactured by Nexter Systems. It was named in honour of Marshal Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, a commander of the Free French Forces, who led the 2nd Armoured Division in World War II.
Capgemini Engineering is a global innovation and engineering consulting firm founded in 1982 in France by Alexis Kniazeff and Hubert Martigny.
Scientific Data Systems (SDS), was an American computer company founded in September 1961 by Max Palevsky, Arthur Rock and Robert Beck, veterans of Packard Bell Corporation and Bendix, along with eleven other computer scientists. SDS was the first to employ silicon transistors, and was an early adopter of integrated circuits in computer design. The company concentrated on larger scientific workload focused machines and sold many machines to NASA during the Space Race. Most machines were both fast and relatively low priced. The company was sold to Xerox in 1969, but dwindling sales due to the oil crisis of 1973–74 caused Xerox to close the division in 1975 at a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars. During the Xerox years the company was officially Xerox Data Systems (XDS), whose machines were the Xerox 500 series.
Jean David Ichbiah was a French computer scientist and the initial chief designer (1977–1983) of Ada, a general-purpose, strongly typed programming language with certified validated compilers.
The Byte is a small one-design sailing dinghy sailed by one person. It was designed by Canadian Ian Bruce, who also commissioned and marketed the Laser.
SEMT Pielstick was a French company that designed and built large diesel engines. Its full name was Société d’Etudes des Machines Thermiques.
The Prix Iris is a Canadian film award, presented annually by Québec Cinéma, which recognizes talent and achievement in the mainly francophone feature film industry in Quebec. Until 2016, it was known as the Jutra Award in memory of influential Quebec film director Claude Jutra, but Jutra's name was withdrawn from the awards following the publication of Yves Lever's biography of Jutra, which alleged that he had sexually abused children.
Lioré-et-Olivier LeO 45 was a French medium bomber that was used during and after the Second World War. It had been designed for the new Armée de l'air as a modern medium bomber capable of performing independent strategic operations, unlike the majority of previous French bombers.
The SDS Sigma series is a series of third generation computers that were introduced by Scientific Data Systems of the United States in 1966. The first machines in the series are the 16-bit Sigma 2 and the 32-bit Sigma 7; the Sigma 7 was the first 32-bit computer released by SDS. At the time, the only competition for the Sigma 7 was the IBM 360.
The AMX 50 or AMX-50 is a French heavy tank designed in the immediate post Second World War period. It was proposed as, in succession, the French medium, heavy, and main battle tank, incorporating many advanced features. It was cancelled in the late 1950s however, due to unfavourable economic and political circumstances after serious delays in development.
Plan Calcul was a French governmental program to promote a national or European computer industry and associated research and education activities.
The Véhicule Blindé Multi-Rôle Griffon or VBMR Griffon is a French six-wheel multi-purpose armoured personnel carrier developed and manufactured by Nexter, Arquus and Thales. The vehicle entered service in 2019 and is, alongside the four-wheel VBMR-L Serval co-developed by Nexter and Texelis, the successor of the Véhicule de l'Avant Blindé (VAB).
Alice Recoque was a French computer scientist, computer engineer and computer architecture specialist. She worked on the designs of mini-computers in the 1970s and led research focused on artificial intelligence.
The CII 10070 is a discontinued computer system from the French company CII. It was part of the first series of computers manufactured in the late 1960s under Plan Calcul.
Siris 8 is a discontinued operating system developed by the French company CII for its Iris 80 and Mitra 15 computers. It was later replaced by Honeywell DPS 7.
The CII Iris 80 computer is the most powerful computer made by the French company CII as part of Plan Calcul. It was released in 1970 and had roughly the same capabilities and performance than its main rivals in Europe: the IBM 360/75 and 360/85.
The Mitra 15 is a minicomputer made by the French company CII under Plan Calcul, along with the Iris 50 and Iris 80 mainframe computers. It was marketed from 1971 to 1985 and could function in conjunction with large systems. CII manufactured a thousand Mitra 15 machines until 1975 in its Toulouse factory, then in Crolles in the suburbs of Grenoble. A total of 7,929 units were built, most of them for the French market, with a small number sold in Australia, Indonesia, and in other European countries.
The Société d'électronique et d'automatisme (SEA) was an early French computer manufacturer established in 1947 by electrical engineer François-Henri Raymond, which designed and put into operation a significant portion of the first computers in France during the 1950s.
