List of Famous people born in France
Maurice Bunau-Varilla
Maurice Bunau-Varilla was a French press magnate, and proprietor of the newspaper Le Matin. During the Second World War, he made the newspaper's editorial line pro-German and pro-collaborationist, and it ceased publication 16 days after his death. Bunau-Varilla admired Adolf Hitler more out of his anti-Communist leanings than out of Nazi conviction.
Daniel Morelon
Daniel Morelon is a retired French racing cyclist who was active between 1963 and 1980. He is a triple Olympic champion, eight times world champion, and a knight of the Legion d'Honneur. Morelon was a police officer before becoming a cycling coach.
Raymond Sommer
Raymond Sommer was a French motor racing driver. He raced both before and after WWII with some success, particularly in endurance racing. He won the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race in both 1932 and 1933, and although he did not reach the finishing line in any subsequent appearance at the Le Mans, he did lead each event until 1938. Sommer was also competitive at the highest level in Grand Prix motor racing, but did not win a race. He won the French Grand Prix in 1936, but the event that year was run as a sports car race. After racing resumed in the late 1940s, Sommer again won a number of sports car and minor Grand Prix events, and finished in fourth place in the 1950 Monaco Grand Prix, the second round of the newly-instituted Formula One World Drivers' Championship. He was killed toward the end of 1950, when his car overturned during a race at the Circuit de Cadours.
Georgette Vallejo
Georgette Marie Philippart Travers, French writer and poet. She was the wife of the Peruvian poet César Vallejo of international fame, considered by Mario Benedetti to be a "human paradigm", while the American poet-monk Thomas Merton points out that "the project for the translation of his poetry is of an urgent and enormous importance for the entire human race."