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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.
This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.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
See also: § Nobel laureates- Édouard Branly (1865)
- Léon Brillouin
- Marcel Brillouin (1878)
- Monique Combescure
- Hubert Curien (1945)
- Thomas Fink
- Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier
- Paul Langevin (1894)
- Yves Rocard (1922)
- Georges Sagnac (1889)
- Eugene Bloch
- Hamdy Doweidar
Mathematics
See also: § Fields Medal laureates- 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
- Édouard Louis (2011), novelist and sociologist
- 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
- Jean-Charles Darmon (1982)
- Gérard Genette (1951)
- Jean-Pierre Richard (1941)
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
See also: § Nobel laureates- 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
- 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
- See the dedicated website, http://www.archicubes.ens.fr/ Archived 2007-10-09 at the Wayback Machine.
- National Assembly biography