We are going to know about the Famous People of France. This list of the top 20 Most Famous French People is ranked according to Pantheon’s historical popularity index.
France, renowned for its rich culture, history, and contributions to the arts, sciences, and politics, has produced a plethora of influential individuals who have left an indelible mark on the world stage. From philosophers to artists, scientists to leaders, the nation has been a breeding ground for brilliance. In this article, we delve into the lives and accomplishments of the top 10 most famous French people ever, who have not only shaped their homeland but have also left an enduring legacy on the global stage.
Ranking of the Top 20 Greatest French People of All Time
The following 20 individuals are the most Famous French historical figures Ever, according to Pantheon’s Historical Popularity Index (HPI) 2022. The highest HPI is 100, and we have listed people with HPI over 83.70.
Famous Personalities of France with Pictures
20. Albert Camus (HPI : 83.70)
According to the Historical Popularity Index (HPI), Albert Camus is ranked 20th among the most famous French people of all time. His HPI is 83.70, and His biography is available in 130 different languages on Wikipedia.
Albert Camus (November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French-Algerian philosopher, author, dramatist, and journalist. He was the recipient of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the second-youngest recipient in history. His works include The Stranger, The Plague, The Myth of Sisyphus, The Fall, and The Rebel. Read more on Wikipedia
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19. Molière (HPI : 83.95)
According to the Historical Popularity Index (HPI), Molière is ranked 19th among the most famous people in France. His HPI is 83.95, and His biography is available in 155 different languages on Wikipedia.
Molière (15 January 1622 – 17 February 1673) was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world literature. His extant works include comedies, farces, tragicomedies, comédie-ballets, and more. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed at the Comédie-Française more often than those of any other playwright today. His influence is such that the French language is often referred to as the “language of Molière”. Read more on Wikipedia
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18. Nostradamus (HPI : 83.96)
According to the Historical Popularity Index (HPI), Nostradamus is also ranked 18th among the most famous French people in history. His HPI is 83.96, and His biography is available in 98 different languages on Wikipedia.
Michel de Nostredame (December 1503 – July 1566), usually Latinised as Nostradamus, was a French astrologer, apothecary, physician, and reputed seer, who is best known for his book Les Prophéties (published in 1555), a collection of 942 poetic quatrains allegedly predicting future events. Read more on Wikipedia
17. Jean-Paul Sartre (HPI : 84.51)
According to the Historical Popularity Index (HPI), Jean-Paul Sartre is ranked 17th among the most famous French people of all time. His HPI is 84.51, and His biography is available in 138 different languages on Wikipedia.
Jean-Paul Sartre (21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism. Sartre was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology).
His work has influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies, and continues to do so. He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature despite attempting to refuse it, saying that he always declined official honors and that “a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution.” Read more on Wikipedia
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16. Jules Verne (HPI : 84.74)
According to the Historical Popularity Index (HPI), Jules Verne is ranked 16th among the most Famous People of France. His HPI is 84.74, and His biography is available in 121 different languages on Wikipedia.
Jules Gabriel Verne (8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the Voyages extraordinaires, a series of bestselling adventure novels including Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1872). His novels, always well documented, are generally set in the second half of the 19th century, taking into account the technological advances of the time.
Jules Verne has been the second most-translated author in the world since 1979, ranking below Agatha Christie and above William Shakespeare. He has sometimes been called the “father of science fiction”, a title that has also been given to H. G. Wells and Hugo Gernsback. In the 2010s, he was the most translated French author in the world. In France, 2005 was declared “Jules Verne Year” on the occasion of the centenary of the writer’s death. Read more on Wikipedia
14. Marie Antoinette (HPI : 85.12)
According to the Historical Popularity Index (HPI), Marie Antoinette is ranked 14th among the most famous people of France of all time. Her HPI is 85.12, and Her biography is available in 93 different languages on Wikipedia. She is also ranked 3rd among the most Famous French women of all time.
Marie Antoinette (2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an Archduchess of Austria, and was the penultimate child and youngest daughter of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I. She became dauphine of France in May 1770 at age 14 upon her marriage to Louis-Auguste, heir apparent to the French throne. On 10 May 1774, her husband ascended the throne as Louis XVI and she became queen. Read more on Wikipedia
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14. Louis XVI (HPI : 85.12)
According to the Historical Popularity Index (HPI), Louis XVI is also ranked 14th among the most Famous People of France. His HPI is 85.12, and His biography is available in 103 different languages on Wikipedia.
Louis XVI (23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793), sometimes known as The Last, was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. The son of Louis, Dauphin of France (son and heir-apparent of King Louis XV), and Maria Josepha of Saxony, Louis became the new Dauphin when his father died in 1765.
On his grandfather’s death on 10 May 1774, he became King of France and Navarre, reigning until 4 September 1791, when he received the title of King of the French, reigning as king until the monarchy was abolished on 21 September 1792. Read more on Wikipedia
13. Montesquieu (HPI : 85.71)
According to the Historical Popularity Index (HPI), Montesquieu is ranked 13th among the most famous French people of all time. His HPI is 85.71, and His biography is available in 101 different languages on Wikipedia.
Montesquieu (18 January 1689 – 10 February 1755) was a French judge, man of letters, historian, and political philosopher. He is the principal source of the theory of separation of powers, which is implemented in many constitutions throughout the world.
He is also known for doing more than any other author to secure the place of the word despotism in the political lexicon. His anonymously published The Spirit of Law (1748), which was received well in both Great Britain and the American colonies, influenced the Founding Fathers of the United States in drafting the U.S. Constitution. Read more on Wikipedia
12. Claude Monet (HPI : 85.77)
According to the Historical Popularity Index (HPI), Claude Monet is ranked 12th among the most famous French people of all time. His HPI is 85.77, and His biography is available in 125 different languages on Wikipedia.
Oscar-Claude Monet (14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it.
During his long career, he was the most consistent and prolific practitioner of impressionism’s philosophy of expressing one’s perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein air (outdoor) landscape painting. The term “Impressionism” is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant, exhibited in 1874 (the “exhibition of rejects”) initiated by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon. Read more on Wikipedia
Top 10 Famous Personalities of France
11. Victor Hugo (HPI : 86.03)
According to the Historical Popularity Index (HPI), Victor Hugo is ranked 11th among the most famous French people of all time. His HPI is 86.03, and His biography is available in 172 different languages on Wikipedia.
Victor-Marie Hugo (26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the greatest French writers of all time. Read more on Wikipedia
10. Voltaire (HPI : 87.55)
According to the Historical Popularity Index (HPI), Voltaire is ranked 10th among the most famous French people of all time. His HPI is 87.55, and His biography is available in 165 different languages on Wikipedia.
Voltaire (21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, philosopher and historian. He was famous for his wit, in addition to his criticism of Christianity—especially of the Roman Catholic Church—and of slavery. Voltaire was an advocate of freedom of speech, freedom of religion and separation of church and state.
Voltaire was a versatile and prolific writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, histories, but also scientific expositions. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and 2,000 books and pamphlets. Voltaire was one of the first authors to become renowned and commercially successful internationally. Read more on Wikipedia
9. Louis Pasteur (HPI : 87.59)
According to the Historical Popularity Index (HPI), Louis Pasteur is ranked 9th among the most Famous People of France. His HPI is 87.59, and His biography is available in 150 different languages on Wikipedia.
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 last of which was named after him. His research in chemistry led to remarkable breakthroughs in the understanding of the causes and preventions of diseases, which laid down the foundations of hygiene, public health and much of modern medicine.
Pasteur’s works are credited with saving millions of lives through the developments of vaccines for rabies and anthrax. He is regarded as one of the founders of modern bacteriology and has been honored as the “father of bacteriology” and the “father of microbiology” (together with Robert Koch; the latter epithet also attributed to Antonie van Leeuwenhoek). Read more on Wikipedia
8. Blaise Pascal (HPI : 88.71)
According to the Historical Popularity Index (HPI), Blaise Pascal is ranked 8th among the most Famous People From France. His HPI is 88.71, and His biography is available in 134 different languages on Wikipedia.
Blaise Pascal (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic writer. He was also a pioneer in the natural and applied sciences. He wrote in defense of the scientific method and produced several controversial results.
Pascal made important contributions to the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalising the work of Evangelista Torricelli. Following Torricelli and Galileo Galilei, he rebutted the likes of Aristotle and Descartes who insisted that nature abhors a vacuum in 1647. Read more on Wikipedia
7. Charlemagne (HPI : 89.46)
According to the Historical Popularity Index (HPI), Charlemagne is ranked 7th among the most Famous People of France, and 9th among the most Famous People of Germany. His HPI is 89.46, and His biography is available in 154 different languages on Wikipedia.
Charlemagne or Charles the Great (2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and was crowned as the Emperor of the Romans by the Papacy in 800. Charlemagne succeeded in uniting the majority of western and central Europe and was the first recognized emperor to rule from western Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire approximately three centuries earlier.
The expanded Frankish state that Charlemagne founded was the Carolingian Empire, which is considered the first phase in the history of the Holy Roman Empire. He was canonized by Antipope Paschal III—an act later treated as invalid—and he is now regarded by some as beatified (which is a step on the path to sainthood) in the Catholic Church. Charlemagne has been called the “Father of Europe“. Read more on Wikipedia
6. Joan of Arc (HPI : 89.59)
According to the Historical Popularity Index (HPI), Joan of Arc is ranked 6th among the most famous people in France. Her HPI is 89.59, and Her biography is available in 148 different languages on Wikipedia. She is also ranked 2nd among the most Famous French women of all time.
Joan of Arc (1412 – 30 May 1431) is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and her insistence on the coronation of Charles VII of France during the Hundred Years’ War. Claiming to be acting under divine guidance, she became a military leader who transcended gender roles and gained recognition as a savior of France. Read more on Wikipedia
Top 5 Most Famous French People
5. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (HPI : 89.83)
According to the Historical Popularity Index (HPI), Rousseau is ranked 5th among the most famous French people of all time. His HPI is 89.83, and His biography is available in 149 different languages on Wikipedia.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the development of modern political, economic, and educational thought. Read more on Wikipedia
4. Marie Curie (HPI : 90.71)
According to the Historical Popularity Index (HPI), Marie Curie is ranked 4th among the most famous French people of all time. Her HPI is 90.71, and Her biography is available in 176 different languages on Wikipedia. She ranks 1st among the most Famous French women of all time.
Marie Curie (7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win a Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two scientific fields.
Her husband, Pierre Curie, was a co-winner of her first Nobel Prize, making them the first-ever married couple to win the Nobel Prize and launching the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. She was, in 1906, the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris. Read more on Wikipedia
3. René Descartes (HPI – 90.95)
According to the Historical Popularity Index (HPI), René Descartes is ranked 3rd among the most famous French people in history. His HPI is 90.95, and His biography is available in 171 different languages on Wikipedia.
René Descartes or 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. Mathematics was central to his method of inquiry, and he connected the previously separate fields of geometry and algebra into analytic geometry.
Descartes spent much of his working life in the Dutch Republic, initially serving the Dutch States Army, later becoming a central intellectual of the Dutch Golden Age. Although he served a Protestant state and was later counted as a Deist by critics, Descartes was Roman Catholic. Read more on Wikipedia
2. Louis XIV (HPI : 91.31)
According to the Historical Popularity Index (HPI), the king Louis XIV is ranked 2nd among the most famous French people of all time. His HPI is 91.31, and His biography is available in 132 different languages on Wikipedia.
Louis XIV (5 September 1638 – 1 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great or the Sun King, was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest of any sovereign.
Although Louis XIV’s France was emblematic of the Age of Absolutism in Europe, the King surrounded himself with a variety of significant political, military, and cultural figures, such as Bossuet, Colbert, Le Brun, Le Nôtre, Lully, Mazarin, Molière, Racine, Turenne, Condé, and Vauban. Read more on Wikipedia
1. Napoleon (HPI : 94.47)
According to the Historical Popularity Index (HPI), Napoleon is ranked 1st among the most famous French people of all time. His HPI is 94.47, and His biography is available in 202 different languages on Wikipedia.
Napoleon Bonaparte (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led successful campaigns during the Revolutionary Wars. He was the leader of the French Republic as First Consul from 1799 to 1804, then of the French Empire as Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814 and again in 1815.
Napoleon’s political and cultural legacy endures as a celebrated and controversial leader. He initiated many liberal reforms that have persisted, and is considered one of the greatest ever military commanders. His campaigns are still studied at military academies worldwide. Between three and six million civilians and soldiers died in the Napoleonic Wars. Read more on Wikipedia
See also
- Top 20 Most Famous American People
- Top 20 Most Famous British People
- Top 25 Most Famous Chinese People
- Top 20 Most Famous French People
- Top 20 Most Famous German People
- Top 30 Most Famous Indian People
- Top 20 Most Famous Pakistani People
- Top 20 Most Famous Russian People
About the Historical Popularity Index (HPI)
Pantheon aggregates information about individuals’ online popularity. Pantheon’s Historical Popularity Index (HPI) is currently made of five components: the “age” of a biography’s character (e.g. Nostradamus is more than 500 years old), number of Wikipedia language editions in which the biography has a presence (L), the concentration of the pageviews received by a biography across languages (L*), the stability of pageviews over time (CV), and the number of non-English pageviews received by that biography.
Table of Top 20 Famous French People of All Time
Rank | HPI | Name | Lifespan | Profession |
1 | 94.47 | Napoleon | 1769 – 1821 | Political leader |
2 | 91.31 | Louis XIV | 1638 – 1715 | King |
3 | 90.95 | René Descartes | 1596 – 1650 | Philosopher and scientist |
4 | 90.71 | Marie Curie | 1867 – 1934 | Scientist |
5 | 89.83 | Jean-Jacques Rousseau | 1712 – 1778 | Philosopher |
6 | 89.59 | Joan of Arc | 1412 – 1431 | Patron saint |
7 | 89.46 | Charlemagne | 747 – 814 | King |
8 | 88.71 | Blaise Pascal | 1623 – 1662 | Scientist and philosopher |
9 | 87.59 | Louis Pasteur | 1822 – 1895 | Scientist |
10 | 87.55 | Voltaire | 1694 – 1778 | Philosopher |
11 | 86.03 | Victor Hugo | 1802 – 1885 | Writer and politician |
12 | 85.77 | Claude Monet | 1840 – 1926 | Painter |
13 | 85.71 | Montesquieu | 1689 – 1755 | Philosopher |
14 | 85.12 | Louis XVI | 1754 – 1793 | King |
14 | 85.12 | Marie Antoinette | 1755 – 1793 | Queen |
16 | 84.74 | Jules Verne | 1828 – 1905 | Writer |
17 | 84.51 | Jean-Paul Sartre | 1905 – 1980 | Philosopher |
18 | 83.96 | Nostradamus | 1503 – 1566 | Astrologer and physician |
19 | 83.95 | Molière | 1622 – 1673 | Writer |
20 | 83.70 | Albert Camus | 1913 – 1960 | Philosopher |
21 | 83.63 | Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | 1900 – 1944 | Writer |
Summary
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