Jane Birkin, September 12, 1985 in Deauville (AFP / MYCHELE DANIAU)
From the singer Jane Birkin to the lady in the hat Geneviève de Fontenay via the writer Milan Kundera and the Immortal Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, here are some of the personalities who died in France in 2023:
JANUARY
– 9: Adolfo KAMINSKY, 97 years old, photographer, forger in the service of the Resistance then anti-colonial movements
– 11: François ROUSSELY, 78 years old, former boss of EDF
Sister André, born Lucile Randon, prays on the eve of her 117th birthday, February 10, 2021 in an EHPAD in Toulon (AFP / NICOLAS TUCAT)
– 17: Sister ANDRÉ, born Lucile RANDON, 118 years old, oldest of humanity
– 18: Marcel ZANINI, 99 years old, jazz musician known for his hit “You want or you want not”
– 18: Paul VECCHIALI, 92 years old, filmmaker, companion of the New Wave
FEBRUARY
– 1st: Philippe TESSON, 94 years old, journalist and polemicist
The actor Louis Velle, June 19, 1974 in Paris (AFP / -)
– 2: Louis VELLE, 96 years old, actor, one of the deans of French cinema
– 3: Paco RABANNE, 88 years old, great Franco-Spanish fashion designer
– 11: Robert HEBRAS, 97 years old, last survivor of the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre in June 1944
– 13: Alain GORAGUER, 91 years old, jazz pianist, arranger for greats of song like Gainsbourg and Ferrat
– 16: Michel DEVILLE, 91 years old, filmmaker, César for best director for “Péril en la domicile” (1986)
– 25: François HADJI-LAZARO, 66 years old, leader of the group Pigalle and Garçons Bouchers, figure of the alternative rock scene
MARCH
Striker Just Fontaine during a match against Hungary in November 1957 (AFP / STAFF)
– 1st: Just FONTAINE, 89 years old, football player, record holder for the number of goals in a single World Cup
– 5: Claire ETCHERELLI, 89 years old, writer, revealed by the novel “Elise or real life”
– 6: Gérard PELISSON, 91 years old, co-founder of the Accor group, global hotel giant
– 8: Marcel AMONT, 93 years old, music hall star and fanciful showman
– 9: Roland CASTRO, 82 years old, architect and left-wing activist
– 11: Michel PEYRAMAURE, 101 years old, writer, master of the historical novel
– 21: Claude LORIUS, 91 years old, glaciologist, pioneer in the study of climate
– 23: Marion GAME, 84 years old, actress
APRIL
– 10: Pierre LACOTTE, 91 years old, choreographer
The Minister of Culture, François Léotard, in his office at the ministry, April 14, 1986 in Paris (AFP / MICHEL GANGNE)
– 10: Hervé TÉMIME, 65 years old, lawyer, tenor of the Paris bar
– 12: Jacques GAILLOT, 87 years old, protest bishop who defended the cause of divorcees, homosexuals and immigrants
– 25: François LOÉTARD, 81 years old, former Minister of Culture and Defense, ex-president of the UDF
MAY
– 2: Bernard LAPASSET, 75 years old, boss of French and then world rugby, architect of the 2024 Paris Olympics
– 5: Michel CORDES, 77 years old, actor, central character in the television series “Plus belle la vie”
Singer Jean-Louis Murat at Printemps de Bourges, April 11, 2002 (AFP / Alain JOCARD)
– 5: Philippe SOLLERS, 86 years old, writer, figure of the French literary scene
– 9: Georges KIEJMAN, 90 years old, lawyer, brilliant figure of the bar and minister of Mitterrand
– 25: Jean-Louis MURAT, 71 years old, singer, unclassifiable rebel of the musical landscape
– 27: Odette NILES, 100 years old, communist resistance fighter and “fiancée” of Guy Môquet
JUNE
The novelist Claude Sarraute, May 25, 2007 in Cannes (AFP / Valery HACHE)
– 1st: Guillaume BATS, 36 years old, comedian, suffering from brittle bone disease
– 6: Françoise GILOT, 101 years old, painter, muse and wife of Pablo Picasso
– 20: Claude SARRAUTE, 95 years old, journalist and novelist, pillar of “Grosses têtes”
JULY
– 3: Léon GAUTIER, 100 years old, last French hero of the Normandy Landings
The writer Milan Kundera on October 14, 1973 in Paris (AFP / -)
– 11: Milan KUNDERA, 94 years old, Franco-Czech writer, author of “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”
– 15: Marie-Laure DE DECKER, 75 years old, photojournalist, war reporter
– 16: Jane BIRKIN, 76 years old, Franco-British singer and actress, muse of Serge Gainsbourg
AUGUST:
Geneviève de Fontenay, the “lady in the hat”, October 27, 2020 in Saint-Cloud, near Paris (AFP / STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN)
– 1st: Geneviève Mullmann known as Geneviève de FONTENAY, 90 years old, “the lady with the hat”, figure in the Miss France competition
– 3: Gilles PERRAULT, 92 years old, writer
– 5: Hélène CARRERE d’ENCAUSSE, 94 years old, historian, specialist in Russia and first woman at the head of the French Academy
– 5: Philippe CURVAL, 93 years old, writer, pioneer of science fiction in France
– 15: Gérard LECLERC, 71 years old, journalist, former president of the parliamentary channel LCP-AN
Academician Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, October 25, 2022 in Paris (AFP / Ludovic MARIN)
– 18: Jean-Louis GEORGELIN, 74 years old, general, former chief of staff of the armed forces, responsible for the Notre-Dame restoration project
– 20: Pierre CORNETTE de SAINT CYR, 84 years old, art dealer, founder of a famous auction house
SEPTEMBER
The novelist Frédérique Hébrard, June 1, 1978 in Paris (AFP / -)
– 6: Marc BOHAN, 97 years old, fashion designer, artistic director at Dior for 30 years
– 7: Frédérique HEBRARD, 96 years old, actress and novelist, queen of sagas adapted for television
– 8: Jacques JULLIARD, 90 years old, historian and editorialist, figure of the second left
OCTOBER
Journalist Jean-Pierre Elkabbach, February 22, 2019 in Paris (AFP / Thomas SAMSON)
– 3: Jean-Pierre ELKABBACH, 86 years old, journalist, veteran of political journalism
– 13: Hubert REEVES, 91 years old, Franco-Canadian astrophysicist
– 31: Francis MER, 84 years old, former captain of industry, Minister of the Economy under Chirac
NOVEMBER
A portrait of Gérard Collomb and his coffin, November 27, 2023 in Lyon (AFP / OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE)
– 22: Emmanuel LE ROY LADURIE, 94 years old, historian, pioneer of climate history
– 25: Gérard COLLOMB, 76 years old, former socialist mayor of Lyon, former Minister of the Interior under Emmanuel Macron
DECEMBER
Actor and singer Guy Marchand, on August 31, 2014 in Chanceaux-près-Loches, in Indre-et-Loire (AFP / GUILLAUME SOUVANT)
– 15: Guy MARCHAND, 86 years old, actor and singer, immortalized by his role as detective Nestor Burma on television
– 16: Claude VILLERS, 79 years old, figure on France Inter and the satirical show “Le Tribunal des flagrants délires”
– 17: Philippe MARTIN, 57 years old, economist, former advisor to Emmanuel Macron
– 26: Patrick BUISSON, 74 years old, historian, shadow advisor to Nicolas Sarkozy, support for Éric Zemmour in the presidential election and champion of the union of the rights.