List of École normale supérieure people

Here follows a list of notable alumni and faculty of the École normale supérieure.

The term used in ENS slang for an alumnus is Archicube.^[1]

Alumni

The year when they entered the ENS is in parentheses.

Nobel laureates

Henri Bergson (1878) (1927 Nobel Prize in Literature)
Claude Cohen-Tannoudji (1953) (1997 Nobel Prize in Physics)
Pierre-Gilles de Gennes (1951) (1991 Nobel Prize in Physics)
Gérard Debreu (1941) (1983 Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel)
Albert Fert (1957) (2007 Nobel Prize in Physics)
Serge Haroche (1963) (2012 Nobel Prize in Physics)
Alfred Kastler (1921) (1966 Nobel Prize in Physics)
Gabriel Lippmann (1868) (1908 Nobel Prize in Physics)
Louis Néel (1924) (1970 Nobel Prize in Physics)
Jean-Baptiste Perrin (1891) (1926 Nobel Prize in Physics)
Romain Rolland (1886) (1915 Nobel Prize in Literature)
Paul Sabatier (1874) (1912 Nobel Prize in Chemistry)
Jean-Paul Sartre (1924) (declined 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature)
Esther Duflo (2019 Nobel Prize in Economics)

Fields Medal laureates

The following Fields Medal recipients were educated at the École Normale Supérieure.

Laurent Schwartz (1934): 1950 Fields Medalist
Jean-Pierre Serre (1945): 1954 Fields Medalist
René Thom (1943): 1958 Fields Medalist
Alain Connes (1966): 1982 Fields Medalist
Jean-Christophe Yoccoz (1975): 1994 Fields Medalist
Pierre-Louis Lions (1975): 1994 Fields Medalist
Laurent Lafforgue (1986): 2002 Fields Medalist
Wendelin Werner (1987): 2006 Fields Medalist
Cédric Villani (1992): 2010 Fields Medalist
Ngô Bảo Châu (1992): 2010 Fields Medalist
Hugo Duminil-Copin (2006): 2022 Fields Medalist

Sciences

Chemistry

David Zitoun (1999)
Anna Fischer (2003)

Medicine and biology

Stanislas Dehaene (1984), current Chair of Experimental Psychology at the Collège de France
Charles Chamberland, microbiologist, Known for Chamberland filter
Jean-Pierre Changeux, neuroscientist
Louis Pasteur (1843), chemist and microbiologist, confirmed the germ theory of disease

Physics

Mathematics

Nalini Anantharaman (1994)
Roger Apéry (1936)
Paul Emile Appell (1872)
Cahit Arf (1932)
Denis Auroux (1995)
René-Louis Baire (1892)
Arnaud Beauville (1966)
Marcel Berger (1948)
Pierre Berthelot (1962)
Philippe Biane (1981)
Émile Borel (1889)
Louis Boutet de Monvel (1960)
Emmanuel Breuillard (1997)
Marcel Brillouin (1874)
Jean-Luc Brylinski (1971)
François Bruhat (1948)
Élie Cartan (1888)
Henri Cartan (1923), co-founder of Bourbaki
Pierre Cartier (1950)
Claude Chevalley (1926), co-founder of Bourbaki
Gustave Choquet (1934)
Henri Cohen (1966)
Yves Colin de Verdière (1964)
Jean-Louis Colliot-Thélène (1966)
Pierre Colmez (1981)
Alain Connes (1966)
Thierry Coquand (1980)
Antoine Augustin Cournot (1821)
Louis Couturat (1887)
Jean Gaston Darboux (1891)
Georges Darmois (1906)
Patrick Dehornoy (1971)
Jean Delsarte (1922), co-founder of Bourbaki
Michel Demazure (1955)
Arnaud Denjoy (1902)
Jean Dieudonné (1924), co-founder of Bourbaki
Jacques Dixmier (1942)
Pierre Dolbeault (1944)
Adrien Douady (1954)
Paul Dubreil (1923)
Marie-Louise Dubreil-Jacotin (1926)
Hugo Duminil-Copin (2005)
Charles Ehresmann (1927), co-founder of Bourbaki
Ivar Ekeland (1963)
Nicole El Karoui (1964)
Hélène Esnault (1973)
Pierre Fatou (1898)
Jacqueline Ferrand (1936)
Étienne Fouvry (1972)
Maurice René Fréchet (1900)
Évariste Galois (1829), originated Galois theory
René Gateaux (1907)
Roger Godement (1940)
François Golse (1981)
Édouard Goursat (1876)
Alice Guionnet (1989)
Jacques Hadamard (1884)
Guy Henniart (1973)
Jacques Herbrand (1925)
Luc Illusie (1959)
Hervé Jacquet (1959)
Gaston Julia (1911)
Fanny Kassel (2003)
Jean-Louis Koszul (1940)
François Labourie (1980)
Vincent Lafforgue (1992)
Gérard Laumon (1972)
Jean-François Le Gall (1978)
Henri Lebesgue (1894)
Pierre Lelong (1931)
Jean Leray (1926)
André Lichnerowicz (1933)
Jacques-Louis Lions (1950)
François Loeser (1978)
Édouard Lucas (1861)
Bernard Malgrange (1947)
Frank Merle (1982)
Loïc Merel (1986)
Paul-André Meyer (1954)
Yves Meyer (1957)
Paul Montel (1894)
Sophie Morel (1999)
André Néron (1943)
Joseph Oesterlé (1973)
Patrice Ossona de Mendez (1986)
Henri Padé (1883)
Paul Painlevé (1883)
Bernadette Perrin-Riou (1974)
Mihailo Petrović (1890)
Charles Émile Picard (1874)
Vincent Pilloni (2002)
Charles Pisot (1929)
Georges Poitou (1945)
René de Possel (1923), co-founder of Bourbaki
Victor Puiseux (1837)
Michel Raynaud (1958)
Raphaël Rouquier (1988)
Laure Saint-Raymond (1994)
Pierre Samuel (1940)
Marie-Hélène Schwartz (1934)
Sylvia Serfaty (1994)
Jean-Claude Sikorav (1976)
Christophe Soulé (1970)
Jean-Marie Souriau (1942)
Gheorghe Tzitzeica (1896)
Jean-Louis Verdier (1955)
Ernest Vessiot (1884)
Paul Vidal de la Blache (1863), considered the founder of French modern geography
Claire Voisin (1981)
Jean-Loup Waldspurger (1972)
André Weil (1922), co-founder of Bourbaki
Jean-Pierre Wintenberger (1973)

Humanities

Jean Bousquet (1931), classicist, archaeologist (Delphi excavations), Director of ENS
François Déroche, orientalist, islamologist, and specialist in Codicology and Palaeography

Philosophy

Louis Althusser (1939), Marxist philosopher
Raymond Aron (1924), political philosopher, founder of French conservative thought post-1960
Alain Badiou, philosopher
Étienne Balibar (1960), philosopher and linguist
Georges Canguilhem (1924), philosopher of science
Jean Cavaillès (1923), philosopher and Résistance hero
Emile Auguste Chartier "Alain" (1889), philosopher
Gustave Belot (1878), philosopher
André Comte-Sponville (1972), philosopher and essayist
Victor Cousin (1810), spiritualist philosopher and historian of philosophy
Jacques Derrida (1952), founder of deconstruction
Michel Foucault (1946), historian of systems of thought, member of Collège de France
Georges Gusdorf (1933), philosopher and historian of ideas
Jean Hyppolite (1924), founder of Hegelian studies in France
Vladimir Jankélévitch (1922), philosopher, musicologist
Quentin Meillassoux, philosopher
Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1926), phenomenologist
Jacques Rancière (1960), philosopher
Philippe-Joseph Salazar (1975), rhetorician, member of College international de philosophie
Jean-Paul Sartre (1924), philosopher, novelist, playwright, journalist
Hippolyte Taine (1893)
Simone Weil (1928), philosopher and mystic

Sociology

Jean-Michel Berthelot (1966)
Raymond Boudon (1951)
Pierre Bourdieu (1951)
Émile Durkheim (1879), considered the founder of French sociology

Literature

Paul Bénichou (1927)
Robert Brasillach, novelist, critic and pro-Nazi collaborationist
Aimé Césaire (1935), poet and politician
Marie Darrieussecq (1990), novelist
Assia Djebar (1955), Algerian novelist and filmmaker
Jean Giraudoux (1903), playwright
Julien Gracq (1930), novelist and literary critic
Sabiha Al Khemir (1982), writer, illustrator and expert in Islamic art
Paul Nizan (1924)
Charles Péguy (1894), poet
Claude Ribbe (1974), historian and novelist
Romain Rolland (1886), novelist
Jules Romains (1906), novelist
Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt (1980)

Literary criticism

Philology, grammar, linguistics

Anatole Bailly (1853), hellenist
Jean Bousquet (1931), hellenist
Michel Bréal (1852), philologist
Jérôme Carcopino (1901), specialist of Roman Antiquity
Jacqueline de Romilly (1933), hellenist, specialist of the history and literature of Ancient Greece
Antoine Culioli (1944), linguist
Oswald Ducrot (1949), linguist, specialist of pragmatics
Georges Dumézil (1916), philologist, linguist, caucasianist, specialist of Proto-Indo-European language and society
Alexandre François (1992), linguist, specialist of Oceanic languages
Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges (1850), specialist of classical and mediaeval history
Marcel Granet (1904), sinologist
Pierre Grimal (1933), Latinist
Claude Hagège (1955), linguist
Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni [fr] (1963), linguist, specialist of pragmatics
Charles de Lamberterie [fr], specialist of Armenian and comparative linguistics of Indo-European languages
Gilbert Lazard (1940), linguist, iranologist
Christiane Marchello-Nizia (1961), specialist of Old French
Alain Rouveret [fr] (1968), syntactician

History

Marc Bloch (1904), co-founder of the Annales School
Lucien Febvre (1899), co-founder of the Annales School
Henri Hauser (1885), economic historian
Ernest Lavisse (1862), a founder of Positivist history
Jacques Le Goff (1945), medievalist
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie (1949), historian
Neil MacGregor, art historian, Director of the British Museum
Paul Mantoux (1894), economic historian
Jacques Soustelle (1929), ethnologist
Gilbert Dagron (1953), historian

Economics

Yves Balasko (1964)
Esther Duflo (1992)
Emmanuel Farhi (1997)
Xavier Gabaix (1991)
Thomas Piketty (1989)
Emmanuel Saez (1992)
Christian Morrisson (1957)
Jean-Charles Asselain [fr] (1962)

Government and public policy

Léon Blum (1890) (expelled during his third year), first Socialist Prime Minister of France (1936)
Pierre Brossolette (1922), politician and resistant
Laurent Fabius (1966), Prime Minister of France, 1984-1986
Édouard Herriot (1891), Prime Minister of France, 1924–1925, 1926 and 1932
Jean Jaurès (1878), Socialist leader
Alain Juppé (1964), Prime Minister of France 1995-1997
Bruno Le Maire (1989), Minister of the Economy, 2017-present ; Minister of Agriculture 2009-2012
Benny Lévy (1965), founder of Gauche prolétarienne
Paul Painlevé (1883), mathematician; Prime Minister of France in 1917 and 1925
Georges Pompidou (1931), Prime Minister of France 1962–1968; President of France 1969-1974
Michel Sapin (1974), Finance Minister 1992–1993; Minister of Civil Servants and State Reforms 2000-2002^[2]
Laurent Wauquiez (1994), President of The Republicans, 2017–present ; Minister of Higher Education 2011-2012

Business

Philippe Camus (1967), Chairman of Alcatel Lucent
Isabelle Kocher (1987), CEO of Engie
Anne Lauvergeon (1978), former President of Areva
Jean-Charles Naouri (1967), CEO of Groupe Casino

Faculty

Louis Althusser
Alain Badiou
Samuel Beckett, 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature
Pierre Bonnet
Paul Celan
John Coates
Victor Cousin
Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges
Jacques Derrida
Alfred Des Cloizeaux
Laurent Freidel
Michael Ghil
Jacques Lacan
Ernest Lavisse
Alfred Kastler, 1966 Nobel Prize in Physics
Thomas MacGreevy
Jacqueline de Romilly
Jean-Pierre Serre, 1954 Fields Medal
Michel Soutif, 1942
Christian Lorenzi (2005), Professor of Experimental Psychology, he was a former director of the Department of Cognitive Studies and Director of Scientific Studies

Sources

Dates of entrance at the ENS can be checked at https://web.archive.org/web/20071009092113/http://www.archicubes.ens.fr/

References

[1]

[2]

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