* 1779 – Louis de Freycinet, French explorer ( d. 1842 )

* 1541 – French explorer Jacques Cartier lands near Quebec City in his third voyage to Canada.

* 1741 – Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse, French navy officer and explorer ( d. 1788 )

* Alexandra David-Néel ( 1868 – 1969 ), French explorer and spiritualist

* Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, French explorer, founder of Detroit

However, it was French explorer Jacques Cartier who made the first detailed reconnaissance of the region for a European power, and in so doing, claimed the region for the King of France.

Diego Garcia had no permanent inhabitants when discovered by the Spanish explorer Diego García de Moguer in the 16th century and remained so until settled as a French colony in 1793.

* 1873 – Francis Garnier, French explorer ( b. 1839 )

French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac sailed up the Detroit River on July 23, 1701.

* 1840 – Henri Duveyrier, French explorer ( d. 1892 )

* 1772 – Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne, French explorer ( b. 1724 )

* 1637 – Jacques Marquette, French missionary and explorer ( d. 1675 )

* 1534 – French explorer Jacques Cartier plants a cross on the Gaspé Peninsula and takes possession of the territory in the name of Francis I of France.

* 1786 – Joseph Nicollet, French mathematician and explorer ( d. 1843 )

* 1740 – Jeanne Baré, French explorer ( d. 1803 )

Jacques-Yves Cousteau (; commonly known in English as Jacques Cousteau ; 11 June 1910 – 25 June 1997 ) was a French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water.

It is believed that the French explorer Jean Nicolet was the first non-Native American to reach Lake Michigan in 1634 or 1638.

The lake was named for the French explorer Samuel de Champlain, who encountered it in 1609.

The French explorer Jacques Marquette contacted the tribe in 1673 and paved the way for trade with the French.

The French explorer Étienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont visited the people in the early 1720s.

* 1790 – Jules Dumont d ' Urville, French naval officer, admiral, and explorer ( d. 1842 )

* 1878 – Paul Pelliot, French sinologist and explorer ( d. 1945 )

* 1643 – Robert Cavelier de La Salle, French explorer ( d. 1687 )

* 1729 – Louis Antoine de Bougainville, French explorer ( d. 1811 )

* 1723 – Mathurin Jacques Brisson, French naturalist ( d. 1806 )

* 1952 – Jacques Audiard, French director

* 1738 – Jacques François Dugommier, French general ( d. 1794 )

* 1786 – Mont Blanc on the French – Italian border is climbed for the first time by Jacques Balmat and Dr. Michel-Gabriel Paccard.

* 1890 – Jacques Ibert, French composer ( d. 1962 )

* Jean Jacques Barthelemy's The Travels of Anacharsis the Younger in Greece ( French )

* 1665 – Jacques Lelong, French bibliographer ( d. 1721 )

Finally, in 1740 the French astronomer Jacques Cassini, who is traditionally credited with the invention of year zero, completed the transition in his Tables astronomiques, simply labeling this year 0, which he placed at the end of Julian years labeled avant Jesus-Christ ( before Jesus Christ or BC ), and immediately before Julian years labeled après Jesus-Christ ( after Jesus Christ or AD ).

* 1823 – Jacques Charles, French chemist ( b. 1746 )

* French author Jacques Lusseyran, who was visually impaired at the age of 7 when he injured his eyes on the sharp corner of a teacher's desk, became part of the French resistance during World War II.

After the French chemists Louis Nicolas Vauquelin, Louis Jacques Thénard, and Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac approved the experiments of the young pharmacist Balard, the results were presented at a lecture of the Académie des Sciences and published in Annales de Chimie et Physique.

Although Nelson's biographer Ernle Bradford assumed in 1977 that the remains of Orient " are almost certainly unrecoverable ", the first archaeological investigation into the battle began in 1983, when a French survey team under Jacques Dumas discovered the wreck of the French flagship.

In 1965 he received a joint Erasmus Prize with film director Ingmar Bergman and in 1971 he was made a Commander of the national order of the Legion of Honor by the French Minister of Culture Jacques Duhamel at the Cannes Film Festival.

Several hours after the attack French President Jacques Chirac ordered the destruction of the Ivorian air force and the seizure of Yamoussoukro airport.

A number of French comedians were also able to find an English speaking audience in the 1950s, including Fernandel and Jacques Tati.

Cahiers du Cinéma (, Notebooks on Cinema ) is an influential French film magazine founded in 1951 by André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca.

* 1855 – Jacques Charles François Sturm, French mathematician ( b. 1803 )

* 1865 – Jacques Hadamard, French mathematician ( d. 1963 )

Jacques le fataliste ( written in 1773, but not published until 1792 in German and 1796 in French ) is similar to Tristram Shandy and The Sentimental Journey.

Deconstruction is a form of semiotic analysis, derived mainly from French philosopher Jacques Derrida's 1967 work Of Grammatology.

* Derrida, Jacques, 1954 ( French ), 2003 ( English ).