The French government gives out the Legion of Honour awards, to both French and foreign nationals, based on a recipient's exemplary services rendered to France, or to the causes supported by France. This award is divided into five distinct categories (in ascending order), i.e. three ranks: Knight, Officer, Commander, and two titles: Grand Officer and Grand Cross. Knight is the most common and is awarded for either at least 20 years of public service or acts of military or civil bravery. The rest of the categories have a quota for the number of years of service in the category below before they can be awarded. The Officer rank requires a minimum of eight years as a Knight, and the Commander, the highest civilian category for a non-French citizen, requires a minimum of five years as an Officer. The Grand Officer and the Grand Cross are awarded only to French citizens, and each requires three years' service in their respective immediately lower rank. The awards are traditionally published and promoted on 14 July.
The following is a non-exhaustive list of recipients of the Legion of Honour awards, since the first ceremony in May 1803. 2,550 individuals can be awarded the insignia every year. The total number of awards is close to 1 million (estimated at 900,000 in 2021, including over 3,000 Grand Cross recipients), with some 92,000 recipients alive today. Only until 2008 was gender parity achieved amongst the yearly list of recipients, with the total number of women recipients since the award's establishment being only 59 at the end of the second French empire and only 26,000 in 2021.
List of Légion d'honneur recipients by name
Recipient | Dates (birth – death) |
General work, and reason for the award | Award Category (Date) |
---|---|---|---|
Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf | 1738 – 1815 | French naturalized German industrialist | TBA (20 June 1806) |
Victoria Ocampo | 1890 – 1979 | Argentine intellectual, publisher, writer and critic. | TBA |
Michel Ocelot | 1943 – Present | French writer, designer, storyboard artist and director of animated films and television programs and a former president of the International Animated Film Association. | Knight (23 October 2009) |
Brian O'Connell | TBA | ||
Richard O'Connor | 1889 – 1981 | Senior British Army officer who fought in both the First and Second World Wars | TBA |
François-Joseph Offenstein | 1760 – 1837 | French general and military commander during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. | TBA |
Henri O'Kelly | 1859 – 1938 | Franco-Irish composer, pianist, organist and choir director, based in Paris. | Knight (1931) |
Joseph O'Kelly | 1828 – 1885 | Franco-Irish composer, pianist and choral conductor. Known as the most prominent member of a family of Irish musicians in 19th- and early 20th-century France. | Knight (1881) |
Olav V of Norway | 1903 – 1991 | King of Norway | Grand Cross |
Laurence Olivier | 1907 – 1989 | English actor and director | TBA |
Joseph Francis Olliffe | 1808 – 1869 | Irish-born British physician. | Knight (1846) Officer (1855) |
John O'Neill | 1897 – 1942 | Sergeant, World War I, V.C., M.M. Soldier in the Prince of Wales's Leinster Regiment (Royal Canadians) | TBA |
Terence O'Reilly | Irish Rebel who fought in the 1798 Rebellion in Wicklow, Wexford and Dublin and under Napoleon at Austerlitz. | TBA | |
Mathieu Orfila | 1787 – 1853 | Spanish toxicologist and chemist. Known as the founder of the science of toxicology. | TBA |
Philippe Antoine d'Ornano | 1784 – 1863 | French soldier and political figure (Marshal of France) | Grand Cross |
Sherard Osborn | 1822 – 1875 | Royal Navy admiral and Arctic explorer | TBA |
Władysław Ostrowski | 1790 – 1869 | Polish nobleman (szlachcic). Recognised for Napoleon's Russian Campaign (1812 – 1813). | TBA (1813) |
Terence Otway | 1914 – 2006 | British Army officer. Known for his role as commander of the paratroop assault on the Merville Battery on D-Day. | TBA (2001) |
Georges Ouégnin, directeur du protocole d'Etat ivoirien | TBA | ||
William "Bill" Bruce Overstreet, Jr. | World War II P-51 "Mustang" Fighter pilot. 357th FG, 363rd FS, "Yoxford Boys" | Knight (8 December 2009) | |
Amos Oz | 1939 – 2018 | Israeli people writer, novelist, journalist, and intellectual. | TBA (1997) |
Andranik Ozanian | 1865 – 1927 | Armenian military commander and statesman. Known fedayi and a key figure of the Armenian national liberation movement. | Officer (1919) |
Seiji Ozawa | 1935 – 2024 | Japanese conductor. Promotion of French composers. Known for his advocacy of modern composers and for his work with the San Francisco Symphony. | Knight (1998) |
See also
- Legion of Honour
- List of Legion of Honour recipients by name
- List of foreign recipients of Legion of Honour by name
- List of foreign recipients of the Legion of Honour by country
- List of British recipients of the Legion of Honour for the Crimean War
- Legion of Honour Museum
- Ribbons of the French military and civil awards
- War Cross (France)
References
- Légion Code, article 16.
- Les étrangers qui se seront signalés par les services qu’ils ont rendus à la France ou aux causes qu’elle soutient, Légion Code, art. 128.
- ^ "France train attack: Chris Norman awarded Legion d'honneur". BBC News. 24 August 2015. Archived from the original on 27 July 2021. Retrieved 27 July 2021.
- DM, Florey (29 March 2017). "Michelle Yeoh receives France's highest civilian honour". Cinema Online. Archived from the original on 19 July 2021. Retrieved 20 July 2021. Alt URL
- ^ "The Grand Chancellery is co-producing a film on women and the Legion of Honor". The Grand Chancellery of the Legion of Honour. Archived from the original on 24 July 2021. Retrieved 24 July 2021.
- "Legion of Honour". Australian Government – Department of Veteran's Affairs. 31 January 2021. Retrieved 27 July 2021.
- Wattel, Michel; Wattel, Béatrice (2009). "Les Grand Croix de la Légion d'honneur. De 1805 à nos jours, titulaires français et étrangers". Archives & Culture.
- Benoist, Chloé (18 December 2020). "Explained: Sisi, Macron and the dubious history of France's Legion of Honour". Middle East Eye. Archived from the original on 26 July 2021. Retrieved 27 July 2021.
- Brane, Edouard (26 October 2009). "Le papa de "Kirikou" reçoit la Légion d'Honneur" (in French). AlloCiné. Retrieved 9 June 2010.
- Brane, Edouard (26 October 2009). "Le papa de "Kirikou" reçoit la Légion d'Honneur" (in French). AlloCiné. Archived from the original on 28 July 2021. Retrieved 9 June 2010.
- "National Archives - File:LH/2012/60". Minister of Culture. Archived from the original on 1 April 2016. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
- Gil Blas: 4. 12 January 1881.
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(help) - Le Ménestrel: 54. 16 January 1881.
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(help) - "London Gazette". No. 21909. 4 August 1856. p. 2699.
- "Amos Oz". The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature. Archived from the original on 28 July 2021. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
- Wheeler, Edward Jewitt; Funk, Isaac Kaufman; Woods, William Seaver; Draper, Arthur Stimson; Funk, Wilfred John (17 January 1920). "General Andranik, the Armenian Washington". The Literary Digest. Vol. 64. pp. 90–92. Archived from the original on 28 July 2021.
- The Armenian Review. Hairenik Association. 1976. p. 239. Archived from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 27 July 2021.
- Macler, Frédéric (1920). "Frédéric Macler". Journal of Armenian Studies (in French). Paris, France: Imprimerie nationale: 158.
External links
- Official website
- Léonore database, census of recipients of the Legion of Honor (deceased before 1977), on the French Ministry of Culture website (in French)
- Code of the Legion of Honor and the Military Medal, Légifrance (in French)