Jean Léon Jaurès (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ ʒɔ.ʁɛs]; full name Auguste Marie Joseph Jean Léon Jaurès; 3 September 1859 – 31 July 1914) was a French Socialist leader. Initially an Opportunist Republican, he evolved into one of the first social democrats, becoming the leader, in 1902, of the French Socialist Party, which opposed Jules Guesde's revolutionary Socialist Party of France. The two parties merged in 1905 in the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO). An antimilitarist, Jaurès was assassinated at the outbreak of World War I, and remains one of the main historical figures of the French Left.

The son of an unsuccessful businessman and farmer, Jean Jaurès was born in Castres (Tarn), in a modest French provincial bourgeois family. He was the first cousin once removed of the admiral and senator Benjamin Jaurès, who was named Minister of the Navy and Colonies in 1889, and of the admiral Charles Jaurès. His younger brother, Louis, also became an admiral and a Republican-Socialist deputy.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ lyk melɑ̃ʃɔ̃]; born 19 August 1951 in Tangier (International zone of Tangier) is a French politician who served in the government of France as Minister of Vocational Education from 2000 to 2002. He was also a member of the French Senate, representing the département of Essonne.

Mélenchon left the Socialist Party in November 2008 to found the Left Party with French deputy Marc Dolez. As leader of the Left Party, he joined the Left Front before the 2009 European elections and was selected as the coalition's main candidate in the South-West region. At those elections he won 8.15% of the votes cast and was elected to the European Parliament.

Mélenchon is co-president of the Left Party along with Martine Billard. During the protest movement against the pension reform of 2010 his public stature grew thanks to his many public and television appearances.

Born in the international zone of Tangier, he was educated at the Lycée Pierre-Corneille in Rouen (Normandy).

Paul Déroulède (2 September 1846 – 30 January 1914) was a French author and politician.

Déroulède was born in Paris. He was published first as a poet in the magazine Revue nationale, with the pseudonym "Jean Rebel". In 1869 he produced, at the Théâtre Français, a one-act drama in verse named Juan Strenner.

At the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War he enlisted as a private, but was wounded and taken prisoner at the Battle of Sedan. He was sent to Breslau (now Wrocław), but escaped. He then served with generals Antoine Chanzy and Charles Denis Bourbaki, participated with the latter's disastrous retreat to Switzerland, and fought against the Paris Commune. After being promoted to lieutenant, he was forced by an accident to retire from the army.

In 1872, he published a collection of patriotic poems (Chants du soldat), which enjoyed great popularity. This was followed in 1875 by another collection, Nouveaux Chants du soldat. In 1877 he produced a drama in verse named L'Hetman, which derived a moderate success from the patriotic fervour of its sentiments. For the exhibition of 1878 he wrote a hymn, Vive la France, which was set to music by Charles Gounod. In 1880 his drama in verse, La Moabite, which had been accepted by the Théâtre Français, was censored for religious reasons.

Philippe Torreton (born 13 October 1965, Rouen, Seine-Maritime, France) is a French actor.

Born in Rouen, to a teacher mother, and fireman father, Torreton grew up in a suburb of the city. A student at the lycée Val de Seine de Grand-Quevilly, he discovered there a certain liking for the theater that he nurtured, thanks to his teachers, - he often cites one in particular, - M.Désir. A student of CNSAD, he would return there, this time as a teacher, in October 2008.

Torreton entered the Comédie-Française in 1990 as a pensionnaire (salaried actor having no share in the profits) and became a sociétaire (shareholding member of the Comédie-Française) in 1994. He left in 1999 having played many prestigious roles including Scapin, Lorenzaccio, Hamlet, Henry V, Tartuffe.

He played Capitaine Conan in the film of the same name, directed by Bertrand Tavernier, based on a little known incident from the time of the First World War, and for which he won the César Award for Best Actor 1997. And, a politically committed actor, he played the role of the principal of a primary school confronted with social problems in Ça commence aujourd'hui, again directed by Tavernier, in 1998.

Erik Marchand (born 1955) is a French Breton traditional singer and player of the treujenn-gaol (Breton clarinet). Although born in Paris, his family was of Breton origin, hailing from Quelneuc, Brittany.

Influenced by the music of Manuel Kerjean, Marchand moved to his family's homeland and studied traditional music and the Breton language. He became deeply involved with traditional Breton singing, including the gwerz, a traditional lament. In the 1980s he helped form a traditional music group called Gwerz which released three albums. In the 1980s Marchand also began to collaborate with oudist Thierry Robin, producing a fusion of Celtic and Arabic motifs influenced by jazz.