Alain may refer to:

Mathieu Amalric (born 25 October 1965) is a French actor and film director, perhaps best known internationally for his performance as the lead villain in Bond film Quantum Of Solace and for his role in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, for which he drew critical acclaim. He also has won the Étoile d'or and the Lumière Award.

Amalric was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a suburb of Paris, France, the son of journalists Nicole Zand, a literary critic for Le Monde, and Jacques Amalric, who has worked as a foreign affairs editor for Le Monde and Libération. Mathieu Amalric's mother was born in Poland to Jewish parents, and moved to France before World War II; she originates from the same village as director Roman Polanski's family. Amalric first gained fame in the film Ma Vie Sexuelle (My Sex Life...or How I Got Into an Argument), for which he won a César Award.

Amalric was selected to play the James Bond villain Dominic Greene, and stars alongside Daniel Craig (alongside whom he had previously starred in Munich) in the 2008 film Quantum of Solace.

Pierre Corneille (French pronunciation: [pjɛːʁ kɔʁ.nɛj]) (6 June 1606 – 1 October 1684) was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine. He has been called “the founder of French tragedy” and produced plays for nearly forty years.

Corneille was born at Rouen, France, to Marthe le Pesant de Boisguilbert and Pierre Corneille, a distinguished lawyer. His younger brother, Thomas Corneille, also became a noted playwright. He was given a rigorous Jesuit education at the then named Collège de Bourbon which has been known as the Lycée Pierre Corneille since 1873. At 18 he began to study law but his practical legal endeavors were largely unsuccessful. Corneille’s father secured two magisterial posts for him with the Rouen department of Forests and Rivers. During his time with the department, he wrote his first play. It is unknown exactly when he wrote it, but the play, the comedy Mélite, surfaced when Corneille brought it to a group of traveling actors in 1629. The actors approved of the work and made it part of their repertoire. The play was a success in Paris and Corneille began writing plays on a regular basis. He moved to Paris in the same year and soon became one of the leading playwrights of the French stage. His early comedies, starting with Mélite, depart from the French farce tradition by reflecting the elevated language and manners of fashionable Parisian society. Corneille describes his variety of comedy as "une peinture de la conversation des honnêtes gens" ("a painting of the conversation of the gentry"). His first true tragedy is Médée, produced in 1635.

Marine Le Pen (French pronunciation: [ma.ʁin lə.pɛn]; born Marion Anne Perrine Le Pen; 5 August 1968) is a lawyer by profession, a French right-wing politician and the president of the Front National (FN), the third-largest political party in France, since 16 January 2011. She is the youngest daughter of the French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, former president of the FN and currently its honorary chairman.

She joined the FN in 1986, its Executive Committee in 2000 and was a vice-president of the FN for eight years (2003–2011). She currently is an ex-officio member of the FN Executive Office, Executive Committee and Central Committee.

She has been a regional councillor since 1998 (Île-de-France: 2004–2010, Nord-Pas-de-Calais: 1998–2004, 2010–present), a Member of the European Parliament since 2004 (Île-de-France: 2004–2009, North-West France: 2009–present) and was a municipal councillor in Hénin-Beaumont, Pas-de-Calais for three years (2008–2011).

In 2010, she was a candidate for the leadership of the FN set up by Jean-Marie Le Pen on 5 October 1972. She successfully succeeded him during the FN congress in Tours, Indre-et-Loire. On 16 January 2011, she was elected with 67.65% (11,546 votes) as the second president of the Front National.

Manuel Valls (French: [manyɛl vals], Catalan: [mənuˈɛɫ ˈβaʎs], born August 13, 1962) is a French Socialist Party (PS) politician, deputy since 2002 and mayor of Évry. On May 16, 2012 he was appointed Minister of the Interior (Homeland security) in the French government of Jean-Marc Ayrault.

Valls was born in Barcelona, Spain, and became a naturalized French citizen in 1982. He is a prominent supporter of F.C. Barcelona, the famous club whose anthem was composed by a namesake of his, the cousin of his father. As reported on the Swiss Newspapers last week he is the son of a Spanish citizen, while his mother is a Ticinese, Swiss-Italian from Valle di Blenio, Canton Ticino.

After serving as an advisor on youth issues for Prime Minister Michel Rocard from 1988 to 1991, he was communications advisor to Prime Minister Lionel Jospin from 1997 to 2001.

He sought the PS nomination for President of France in the 2012 election. Finally ranked 5th of the first round of the PS primary, he called for a François Hollande vote in the second round. Valls is often considered in France as a representative of the social-liberal wing of the French Socialist Party, sharing common orientations with Scandinavian style Social Democracy and Blairism.