# 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.

## 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

* 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

* 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

* 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/