Catherine Fabienne Dorléac, known professionally as Catherine Deneuve, is a French actress as well as an occasional singer, model, and producer, considered one of the greatest European actresses. She gained recognition for her portrayal of aloof and mysterious beauties for various directors, including Luis Buñuel, François Truffaut, and Roman Polanski. In 1985, she succeeded Mireille Mathieu as the official face of Marianne, France's national symbol of liberty. A 14-time César Award nominee, she won for her performances in Truffaut's The Last Metro (1980), for which she also won the David di Donatello for Best Foreign Actress, and Régis Wargnier's Indochine (1992).
Same-sex marriage has been legal in France since 18 May 2013, making France the thirteenth country worldwide to allow same-sex couples to marry. The legislation applies to metropolitan France as well as to all French overseas departments and territories.
Jean-Jacques Goldman is a French retired singer-songwriter and record producer whose work remains hugely popular in the French-speaking world. Since the death of Johnny Hallyday in 2017 he has been the highest grossing living French pop rock act. Born in Paris and active on the music scene from 1975, he had a highly successful solo career in the 1980s, before he was part of the trio Fredericks Goldman Jones, releasing another string of hits in the 1990s.
Annie Thérèse Blanche Ernaux is a French writer who was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory". Her literary work, mostly autobiographical, maintains close links with sociology.
Marie NDiaye is a French novelist, playwright and screenwriter. She published her first novel, Quant au riche avenir, when she was 17. She won the Prix Goncourt in 2009. Her play Papa doit manger is the sole play by a living female writer to be part of the repertoire of the Comédie française. She co-wrote the screenplay for the 2022 legal drama Saint Omer alongside its director Alice Diop, and Amrita David. In September 2022 the film was selected as France's official selection for Best International Film at the 95th Academy Awards.
Antoinette Fouque was a French psychoanalyst who was involved in the French women's liberation movement. She was the leader of one of the groups that originally formed the French Women's Liberation (MLF), and she later registered the trademark MLF specifically under her name. She helped found the publishing house Éditions des Femmes as well as the first collection of audio-books in France, "Bibliothèque des voix". Her position in feminist theory was primarily essentialist, and heavily based in psychoanalysis. She helped author Le Dictionnaire universel des créatrices (2013), a biographical dictionary about creative women.
Dominique Claudine Ouattara née Nouvian is the current First Lady of Ivory Coast, married to President Alassane Ouattara.
Michelle Perrot is a French historian, and Professor emeritus of Contemporary History at the Paris Diderot University. She won the 2009 Prix Femina Essai.
Zahia Dehar is an Algerian-French fashion and lingerie designer, model and actress.
Katell Quillévéré is a French filmmaker.
Anne Gravoin is a French concert violinist and music entrepreneur.
Scholastique Mukasonga is a French-Rwandan author born in the former Gikongoro province of Rwanda. In 2012, She won the prix Renaudot and the prix Ahmadou-Kourouma for her book Our Lady of the Nile. In addition to being a finalist for the International Dublin Literary Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Mukasonga was rewarded in 2014 with the Seligmann Prize against racism and intolerance and in 2015 with the prize Société des gens de lettres. She currently resides in Normandy, France.
The Prix Renée Vivien is an annual French literary prize which is awarded to poets who write in French. Dedicated to the British poet Renée Vivien, the eponymous prize was first initiated in 1935, and continued intermittently by three different patrons, each with their own vision. First patron was Hélène de Zuylen de Nyevelt de Haar, followed by Natalie Clifford Barney in 1949 then more latterly and currently ongoing from 1994 with Claude Evrard. From each patron, the naming of the award after Renée Vivien was an act of remembrance. Nonetheless, women's poetry, feminist literature and the memories of romantic entanglement with the honoured poet have been inspiring on the first two patrons, who were more alike in their approach to awarding poets, while the heritage of Renée Vivien's style in contemporary poetry interested more Claude Evrard.
The Irène Joliot-Curie Prize is a French prize for women in science and technology, founded in 2001. It is awarded by the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, the Airbus Group corporate foundation, the French Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Technologies, it aims at rewarding women for their work in the fields of science and technology".
Louise Toupin is a Canadian political scientist and specialist in feminist studies. She was a founding member of the Women's Liberation Front of Quebec and Éditions du remue-ménage, which were important sites of feminist activism in the late 1960s and early 1970s in Montreal. She then earned a PhD from the Université du Québec à Montréal, later becoming a lecturer at that same institution. Her research focused on collections and analyses of feminist theory from the recent history of Québec.
Angélique Gérard, born Angélique Dilscher in 1975 in Fontainebleau, France, is a French business personality specializing in telecommunications.
Cécile Coulon is a French novelist, poet and short story writer. As of 2020, she has published seven novels, two poetry collections and one short story collection. She has been awarded the Prix des libraires (2017) and the prix Guillaume Apollinaire (2018)
Christine Prunaud is a French politician. She served as senator for Côtes-d'Armor from 2014 to 2020.
Sandrine Revel is a French bande dessinée illustrator and author of comics.
