List of Famous people born in France

Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson is an English actress, model, and activist. She has gained recognition for her roles in both blockbusters and independent films, as well as her women's rights work. Watson has been ranked among the world's highest-paid actresses by Forbes and Vanity Fair, and was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2015.

Napoleon Bonaparte was a French statesman and military leader who led many successful campaigns during the French Revolution and the French Revolutionary Wars, and was Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814 and again briefly in 1815 during the Hundred Days. Napoleon dominated European and global affairs for more than a decade while leading France against a series of coalitions during the Napoleonic Wars. He won many of these wars and a vast majority of his battles, building a large empire that ruled over much of continental Europe before its final collapse in 1815. Napoleon is regarded as one of the greatest military commanders in history, and his wars and campaigns are studied at military schools worldwide. His political and cultural legacy has made him one of the most celebrated and controversial leaders in human history.

Léa Hélène Seydoux-Fornier de Clausonne is a French actress. She began her acting career in French cinema, appearing in films such as The Last Mistress (2007) and On War (2008). She first came to attention after she received her first César Award nomination, for her performance in The Beautiful Person (2008), and won the Trophée Chopard, an award given to promising actors at the Cannes Film Festival.

David Ginola-Ceze is a French former international football player who has also worked as an actor, model and football pundit.

Ghislaine Noelle Marion Maxwell is a British socialite, known for her association with financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. She worked for her father, the publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell, until his death in 1991, when she moved to the United States and became a close associate of Epstein. Maxwell founded a non-profit group for the protection of oceans, The TerraMar Project, in 2012. The organisation announced cessation of operations on 12 July 2019, a week after the sex trafficking charges brought by New York federal prosecutors against Epstein became public.

Éric Justin Léon Zemmour is a French essayist, political journalist and writer. His anti-liberal and anti-immigration positions, as well as the numerous controversies he has been involved in, are notorious in his homeland. With the publication of The French Suicide in 2014, a book for which he was awarded the Prix Combourg-Chateaubriand the following year, he gained popularity outside of France. He also received the Prix Richelieu in 2011 for the whole of his career as a journalist.

Kylian Mbappé Lottin is a French professional footballer who plays as a forward for Ligue 1 club Paris Saint-Germain and the France national team. Widely considered as one of the best players in the world, he is known for his dribbling, explosive speed, and clinical finishing.

Sir Jean de Carrouges IV was a French knight who governed estates in Normandy as a vassal of Count Pierre d'Alençon and served under Admiral Jean de Vienne in several campaigns against the English and the forces of the Ottoman Empire. He became infamous in medieval France for fighting in the last judicial duel permitted by the French king and the Parlement of Paris. The combat was decreed in 1386 to contest charges of rape Carrouges had brought against his neighbour and erstwhile friend Jacques Le Gris on behalf of his wife Marguerite. It was attended by much of the highest French nobility of the time led by King Charles VI and his family, including a number of royal dukes. It was also attended by thousands of ordinary Parisians and in the ensuing decades was chronicled by such notable medieval historians as Jean Froissart, Jean Juvénal des Ursins and Jean de Waurin.

Claude Cahun, born Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob, was a French queer photographer, sculptor and writer.

Zinedine Yazid Zidane, popularly known as Zizou, is a French former professional football player who played as an attacking midfielder. He is the current manager of La Liga club Real Madrid and is one of the most successful managers in the world. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, Zidane was an elite playmaker renowned for his elegance, vision, passing, ball control, and technique. He received many individual accolades as a player, including being named FIFA World Player of the Year in 1998, 2000 and 2003, and winning the 1998 Ballon d'Or.

Valérie Pécresse is a French politician who has been serving as President of the Regional Council of Île-de-France since 2015. She was previously a member of the National Assembly, Minister for Higher Education and Research (2007-2011) and Minister of the Budget (2011-2012). She was also the Government's spokeswoman.

Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron is a French politician who has been serving as the president of France and ex officio co-prince of Andorra since 14 May 2017.

Karim Mostafa Benzema is a French professional footballer who plays as a striker for Spanish club Real Madrid and the France national team. Known for his aerial ability, workrate, playmaking and finishing, Benzema is considered to be one of the best strikers in the world.

Georges-Pierre Seurat was a French post-Impressionist artist. He is best known for devising the painting techniques known as chromoluminarism as well as pointillism. While less famous than his paintings, Seurat's conté crayon drawings have also garnered a great deal of critical appreciation.

Emma Margaret Marie Tachard-Mackey is a French-British actress. Since 2019, she has starred as Maeve Wiley in the Netflix drama series Sex Education.

Louis XIV, known as Louis the Great or the Sun King, was King of France from 14 May 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest recorded of any monarch of a sovereign country in European history. Louis XIV's France was emblematic of the age of absolutism in Europe. The King surrounded himself with a variety of significant political, military, and cultural figures, such as Mazarin, Colbert, Louvois, the Grand Condé, Turenne, Vauban, Boulle, Molière, Racine, Boileau, La Fontaine, Lully, Charpentier, Marais, Le Brun, Rigaud, Bossuet, Le Vau, Mansart, Charles Perrault, Claude Perrault, and Le Nôtre.

Eva Gaëlle Green is a French actress. The daughter of actress Marlène Jobert, she started her career in theatre before making her film debut in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers (2003). She achieved international recognition for her portrayal of Sibylla, Queen of Jerusalem in Ridley Scott's historical epic Kingdom of Heaven (2005). The following year, she played Bond girl Vesper Lynd in the James Bond film Casino Royale (2006), for which she received the BAFTA Rising Star Award.

Charles Pierre Baudelaire was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and one of the first translators of Edgar Allan Poe. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticism inherited from Romantics, but are based on observations of real life.

Antoine Griezmann is a French professional footballer who plays as a forward for Spanish club Barcelona and the France national team.

Sébastien Romain Teddy Haller is a professional footballer who plays as a forward for Eredivisie club Ajax and the Ivory Coast national team. He has previously played for Auxerre, Utrecht, Eintracht Frankfurt and West Ham United. At international level he has also played for France U16, France U17, France U18, France U19, France U20 and France U21.