Inspiring figures from Sciences Po

Pierre Arrighi graduated from the École Libre des Sciences Politiques in 1942. He was a key figure in the French Resistance.

After studying public finance at rue Saint-Guillaume, Pierre Arrighi became the military leader of Ceux de la Résistance. He was arrested by the Gestapo in March 1944, and deported to the Mauthausen camp, where he died.

Pierre Arrighi was made a Companion of the Liberation.

Raymond Aron was a professor at the École Libre des Sciences Politiques, where in the 1950s and 1960s he taught the sociology of elites and international relations theory. He was also a founding member of the French Political Science Association.

A graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure and fellow student of Georges Canguilhem, Paul Nizan and Jean-Paul Sartre, Raymond Aron earned his agrégation in philosophy in 1928. In 1935, he published La Sociologie allemande contemporaine (Contemporary German Sociology), before defending his thesis Introduction à la philosophie de l'histoire (Introduction to the philosophy of history) in 1938. During the Second World War he joined the Armée de l'Air. When France was defeated, he joined the Free French forces in London, editing the newspaper France Libre (Free France). After the war he returned to academia, teaching at the Sorbonne, the Collège de France and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales. He also worked as a journalist for Combat and Les Temps modernes, and later for Le Figaro and L'Express. He also co-founded the journal Commentaire.

As a student in Berlin in 1933, he witnessed Hitler's rise to power. He subsequently became a tireless critic of Nazi and Stalinist totalitarianism within liberal and Atlanticist networks and in his writings, his best known work being L'opium des intellectuels (The Opium of the Intellectuals), (1955). A theorist of international relations, which he helped develop while teaching at the École Libre des Sciences Politiques, he analysed the Cold War and the world system in influential works such as Paix et guerre entre les nations (Peace and war: a theory of international relations) (1962).

A world-renowned professor of international public law and a prominent activist, between 1941 and 1968 she was the first and only woman appointed full professor at the École Libre des Sciences Politiques, where she taught for 40 years.
 

Suzanne Basdevant-Bastid was a pioneer. In 1932, she became the first woman to hold the agrégation in public law; she was the first woman to teach at the École Libre des Sciences Politiques, and the first woman to teach at the Paris Law Faculty. In 1948 she became the first woman elected to the Institut de droit international (the Institute of International Law), of which she was Secretary General from 1963 to 1969,  and in 1971 she became the first woman to be elected to the Académie des sciences morales et politiques (Academy of Moral and Political Sciences). 

A woman of conviction and a committed activist, she worked alongside her husband Paul Bastid to set up one of the first central bodies of the Resistance during the Second World War. In the 1950s, she presided over the United Nations Administrative Tribunal, where she served until 1982, and from the 1970s onwards she pleaded cases before the International Court of Justice.

Keen to promote French legal thought, in 1968 she founded the Société française pour le droit international (French Society for International Law), which she chaired for 20 years. She also advocated for gender equality through the Association française des femmes diplômées des universités (French Women Graduates’ Association).

Yves de Bernon graduated from the École Libre des Sciences Politiques in 1943, and was killed in action during the Second World War.

A student in the general section between 1941 and 1943, Yves de Bernon became second lieutenant in charge of an elite section of the 1st Chasseur Shock Battalion. He took part in the liberation of Corsica, the invasion of Elba, and the Battle of Toulon before being killed in action at Chapelle de Rochamp (near Belfort).

He was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour and awarded the Croix de Guerre.

Jacques Bingen graduated from the École Libre des Sciences Politiques in 1931, and was a high-ranking member of the French Resistance.

After studying at the École des Mines and the École Libre des Sciences Politiques, Jacques Bingen became director of the French shipping company Société Anonyme de Gérance et d'Armement and secretary of the Comité Central des Armateurs (General Committee of French Shipowners, CCAF). In 1940 he was wounded and escaped to England, where he joined the Free French under General Charles de Gaulle and was put in charge of its merchant navy. Wishing to fight more actively for his country, he signed up with the Bureau Central de Renseignements et d'Action, (Central Bureau of Intelligence and Operations) in 1942. Liaising with Jean Moulin, he organised meetings in London with the heads of the various groups that comprised the Resistance. In 1943, he created a Resistance steering committee, which would later become the Conseil National de la Résistance (National Council of the Resistance) (CNR). Appointed Delegate-General of the French Resistance in 1943, he worked to merge the various groups into the French Forces of the Interior (FFI). Betrayed by a double agent working for the Abwehr, the German military-intelligence service, he was arrested on 13 May 1944 in Clermont-Ferrand. He chose to commit suicide rather than risk divulging what he knew under torture.

Jacques Bingen was posthumously made a Knight of the Legion of Honour, a Companion of the Liberation, and was awarded the Croix de Guerre.

Suzanne Borel studied at the École Libre des Sciences Politiques (ELSP), was a member of the French Resistance during the Second World War and was France's first female diplomat.

The daughter of a colonel in the colonial army, Suzanne Borel spent her childhood travelling the world. She dreamed of becoming a diplomat, a profession that was inaccessible to women in France until 1928. After initially studying philosophy, she continued her studies at the ELSP from 1928–1930. In 1930, she passed the entrance examination to the French Foreign Ministry, becoming the first female embassy attaché.

French women were deprived of the right to vote until 1945 and were not permitted to represent France abroad. Working at central government in Paris, Borel was appointed to the Service des Oeuvres Françaises à l’Etranger (SOFE), which promoted French culture and language around the world. She held various domestic positions until the outbreak of the Second World War, when she joined the French Resistance.

After the liberation of France, she was asked to join Foreign Minister Georges Bidault’s staff. She then held various positions at the Foreign Ministry before joining the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons.

Robert Boulloche graduated from the École Libre des Sciences Politiques in 1934, and was a key figure in the French Resistance.

Robert Boulloche joined the Resistance in 1942 as a member of the Action network in the Paris region. He was arrested on 6 August 1944 and deported to Germany. After passing through Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora, he died in the Ellrich concentration camp in January 1945.

He was awarded the Croix de Guerre.

A former Sciences Po student, Boutros Boutros Ghali is remembered for his diplomatic career, during which, from 1992 to 1996, he became the first UN Secretary-General to originate from the African continent.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali was born in Cairo into a French-speaking Coptic family with a long history of involvement in Egyptian politics (he was the grandson of a prime minister and the nephew of two foreign ministers). He pursued his higher education in France, graduating from the international section of Sciences Po in 1949 and obtaining a doctorate in international law from the University of Paris. 

A theorist and practitioner of international law, he was appointed Professor of International Law and International Relations at Cairo University and President of the Egyptian Society of International Law before embarking on a rich political career. He served as Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1977, then Deputy Prime Minister in 1991. In 1992 he was appointed the sixth Secretary-General of the United Nations – a post he held until 1996. He then held the role of first Secretary-General of La Francophonie between 1997 and 2002. A scion of Third-Worldism, he was a tireless advocate for peace who strived for closer ties between Egypt and Israel, and an unrelenting promoter of human rights, establishing the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Jacques Briffaut, a key figure in the French Resistance, graduated from the École Libre des Sciences Politiques in 1943.

A student in the Economie Privée section of the École Libre des Sciences Politiques, Jacques Briffaut engaged in clandestine activities during the Second World War. The German police arrested him in April 1944, but he divulged nothing under torture. He was deported to Germany and died in the Stassfurt salt mine camp on 21 March 1945. He was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre.

With her generous donation to the École Libre des Sciences Politiques, the Duchesse de Galliera became the first patron of Sciences Po.

Marie Brignole-Sale  was a wealthy heiress descended from Genoese aristocracy. In 1928, she married the Marquis Raphaël de Ferrari, a banking and railroad magnate, becoming Duchesse de Galliera in 1838. She founded numerous charities (hospitals, orphanages and hospices for the elderly) and built the Palais Galliera in Paris to house her prestigious art collection, which she eventually entrusted to her native Genoa.

A multilingual, cultured, and cosmopolitan woman who hosted a renowned Parisian salon, the Duchess, who was related to the House of Orléans, made her Hôtel Galliera (today Hôtel Matignon) a rallying point for Orléanists. It was here that Thiers, Guizot, Mérimée, Sainte-Beuve and Émile Boutmy met.

Her philanthropic activities focused on charity and education, and found an ideal recipient in the École Libre des Sciences Politiques. Her anonymous 1877 donation of a million francs enabled the École to move to 27 rue Saint-Guillaume in 1879.

Catherine de Brunel de Serbonnes graduated from the École Libre des Sciences Politiques in 1939. She was active in the Resistance during the Second World War.

When war broke out, Catherine de Brunel de Serbonnes, who aspired to a career in diplomacy, was studying for a law degree while simultaneously attending the general section of the École Libre des Sciences Politiques.

She was active in the Resistance as a member of two escape lines and an intelligence network. In 1942 her family took in a pilot whose plane had been shot down over their village and successfully exfiltrated him. In the spring of 1943 Catherine was denounced and went underground. That same year, she helped her husband, Raymond Janot, who had been taken prisoner in 1940, to escape from the Stalag prisoner-of-war camp. Raymond would be wounded in the fighting for the liberation, while Catherine became an ambulance driver until her demobilisation in 1946.

A committed activist, from the early 1970s she was involved in the interfaith and humanitarian movement Avoir Faim pour Partager, where she fought against poverty and advocated for human rights. She was also a member of the Near East discussion group of the World Conference of Religions for Peace.

A lecturer at the École Libre des Sciences Politiques, René Carmille was a graduate of the École Polytechnique and a staff officer, army administration controller, and statistician under the Vichy regime, where he sabotaged the Nazi census of Jews and forged documents. He was arrested in Lyon in 1944, tortured by Klaus Barbie and deported to Dachau, where he died. He was awarded the Legion of Honour, the Croix de Guerre and the Rosette de la Résistance.

François Delimal was a student at the École Libre des Sciences Politiques during the Second World War, and a key figure in the French Resistance.

François Delimal was admitted to the École Libre des Sciences Politiques in 1939, and was recruited by his classmate, Pierre Arrighi, into the Organisation Nationale de la Résistance, which subsequently became Ceux de la Résistance (CDLR). He was involved in the escape lines for British airmen and was instrumental in numerous intelligence, transport, and parachuting missions. In 1943 he left for London where he underwent training and joined the Bureau Central de Renseignement et d'Action (Central Bureau of Intelligence and Operations). He returned to France at the age of 22, taking charge of parachuting operations in Haute-Marne, Marne, Côte d'Or and Haute-Saône. He was arrested by the Gestapo on 20 March 1944 and chose to commit suicide rather than risk divulging what he knew under torture. He was cremated at Père-Lachaise cemetery at the same time as Pierre Brossolette.

François Delimal was made a Companion of the Liberation, Knight of the Legion of Honour, and was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Médaille de la Résistance.

Thérèse Ehlers-Holstebroe was among the six female students admitted to the École Libre des Sciences Politiques when it first opened its doors to women in 1919.

Thérèse Ehlers-Holstebroe was born into a French-speaking, Francophile Danish family in Copenhagen in 1892. She was admitted into the diplomatic section of the École Libre des Sciences Politiques at the age of 27, after working as a nurse during the First World War. A brilliant student who mastered six foreign languages and had excellent critical thinking skills, she graduated with honours in 1921, fifth in her section.

Thérèse Ehlers-Holstebroe was committed to women’s education and to progress in medicine and health. She worked in Danish medical institutions, helping to improve prevention and care systems for the population through her reports, study trips and bequests to hospitals and nursing schools.

Renowned for his contribution to French chanson, Léo Ferré graduated from the École Libre des Sciences Politiques in 1939.

Léo Ferré enrolled in the administrative section of the École Libre des Sciences Politiques in 1935, his father having encouraged him to become a lawyer. But he was not destined to flourish there, preferring the cellars of Saint-Germain-des-Prés to the Boutmy amphitheatre. After four years of study, he obtained his degree but opted for an artistic career.

The eminent economist Jean-Paul Fitoussi was a Professor Emeritus at Sciences Po and Chairman of the Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques (French Economic Observatory) from 1989–2010.

Born in Tunisia, a doctor of economics with a ‘doctorat d’etat’ and full professor, Jean-Paul Fitoussi began his career in 1971, teaching at the University of Strasbourg and then at the University Institute of Florence. He joined Sciences Po in 1982, where he was Chairman of the French Economic Observatory, Chairman of the Scientific Council and member of the Board of Directors of the Fondation nationale des sciences politiques (FNSP) for 20 years. A neo-keynesian, he worked on theories of unemployment, inflation and the role of macroeconomic policies.

Claude Garnier graduated from the general section of the École Libre des Sciences Politiques in 1939. He became an officer at the École de Cavalerie (the Cavalry School) at Saumur in 1940, where he joined the fighting. After a daring escape in 1943, he became second lieutenant in the First Foreign Cavalry Regiment. His brave actions as a reconnaissance officer during the Alsace campaign in the winter of 1944-45 distinguished him. In April 1945 he was mortally wounded, near Stuttgart. He was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre.

In 1920, Miriam Jaffé became the first woman to graduate from the École Libre des Sciences Politiques. She was a talented pioneer.

Born in Grodno (formerly in Poland, now in Belarus), she emigrated with her family to Palestine in 1909, no doubt fleeing persecution and the double exclusion - numerus clausus (quotas) - that female Jewish students were subjected to within the Russian Empire.

At the start of the 1919–1920 academic year, Miriam Jaffé, then aged 23, was one of the first six women to be admitted to the École Libre des Sciences Politiques. Her academic achievements were dazzling – she graduated with first-class honours in the economic and social section in one year rather than two. Although little is known of her career during the interwar period, in the 1950s she worked for the Israeli Ministry of Labour in the field of social affairs, in which she had been trained.

A student in the public finance section of the École Libre des Sciences Politiques, from which he graduated in 1930, Michel Jobbe-Duval was a lieutenant in the 124th infantry regiment during the Battle of France. Commended for his acts of bravery, he died in June 1940 after refusing to surrender at Proussy, in Calvados. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre and made a Knight of the Legion of Honour.

A student at the École Libre des Sciences Politiques during the Second World War, François d'Humières was a key figure in the French Resistance.

François d’Humières joined the diplomatic section of the École Libre des Sciences Politiques in 1941, and in 1942 began organising Resistance groups among his fellow students. In 1943 he founded the Organisation Civile et Militaire des Jeunes (Civil and Military Youth Organisation) (OCMJ), which worked on propaganda, military preparation and resistance against the STO - Service du Travail Obligatoire (Compulsory Work Service). He also founded, edited, and distributed the underground student newspaper Essor.

His actions, emblematic of the commitment of young people, earned him an invitation from the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF) to head a delegation to London to meet Winston Churchill and the King.

Having distinguished himself by his acts of bravery during the Liberation of Paris, he continued to fight and died aged 22 on 31 January 1945 during the battle of Alsace.

François d'Humières was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour and, on 17 November, 1945, a Companion of the Liberation, and was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre.

Jean Kammerer studied at the École Libre des Sciences Politiques from 1932–35, graduating with a degree in law. Having reached London in 1942, in 1943 he became General de Gaulle's regional military delegate for Normandy and Brittany, where he organised intelligence operations and weapons supplies for the Resistance. He was arrested by the Germans on 23 June, 1944, and deported to Dachau.

He was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour and a Companion of the Liberation, and posthumously received the Croix de Guerre.

A graduate of ELSP, she distinguished herself in the Resistance.

Colette Langlois, born in 1923, was admitted to the École Libre des Sciences Politiques in occupied Paris in 1942, where she studied in the general section. A member of the Organisation de Résistance de l’Armée (Army Resistance Organisation) (ORA), she carried out a mission to Canada for the Ministry of Information, acting as liaison officer. It was on 3 June 1944, while carrying out this task that she was arrested, just a few days before D-Day. Imprisoned at Fresnes, she was freed at the last minute on 12 August, during the Liberation of Paris. Awarded the Croix de Guerre, she completed her studies in 1945.

A student at the École Libre des Sciences Politiques and a colonial infantry officer cadet, Henry Lemaignen displayed acts of bravery during campaigns in France, Alsace, and Germany. He volunteered for the Far East campaign and died of his wounds in May 1946. He was awarded the Military Medal and the Croix de Guerre.

Clément Méric symbolises student political engagement and the anti-fascist struggle. He was killed in a brawl with far-right skinheads at the age of 19, while studying at Sciences Po. 

A native of Brest and an excellent student despite serious health problems, Clément Méric enrolled at Sciences Po at the start of the 2012 academic year. A militant anarcho-syndicalist since high school, he was involved in the anti-racist and anti-homophobic struggle in Paris, alongside Solidaires Étudiant-e-s and Action antifasciste Paris Banlieue. His tragic death plunged the Sciences Po communities into mourning, and they came together to pay tribute. 

A specialist in the political and cultural history of contemporary Italy and in international relations, Pierre Milza founded and directed the Centre d'histoire de l'Europe de Vingtième Siècle (Centre for Twentieth Century European History) at Sciences Po.

Doctor of History and full professor, Pierre Milza was a formidable teacher and pedagogue, as evidenced by his lectures, the editorial collections he directed, and the many textbooks he wrote with his friend and colleague Serge Berstein, which are still a reference for Sciences Po students today.

He was recruited as an associate professor at the IEP de Paris (Sciences Po) in 1968, and promoted to full professor in 1978. In 1984, he founded the Centre d’histoire de Sciences Po (the Sciences Po Centre for History), which includes the Contemporary History Archives service. He directed the Centre until 2000.

The first woman to head the Centre d'étude de la vie politique française (Centre for Political Research at Sciences Po) (CEVIPOF), Annick Percheron was also a pioneer in introducing the field of political socialisation into French political science.

A postgraduate student in Political Studies at Sciences Po from 1965–7, her doctoral thesis (1973) and her postdoctoral research (1984) were devoted to the political attitudes of children and adolescents.

Annick Percheron joined the Centre d'étude de la vie politique française (Centre for Political Research at Sciences Po) or CEVIPOF in 1967 as a research assistant and then as a National Scientific Research Council (CNRS) research fellow. She became the first woman to head not one, but two research laboratories at Sciences Po – the Observatoire Interrégional du Politique (Interregional Political Observatory) (OIP), which she founded in 1985 with Alain Lancelot and directed until 1991, and the CEVIPOF, which she directed from 1987 to 1991. She was also Associate Dean of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the CNRS (1982–1987). Annick Percheron was educated at Sciences Po and in the United States, and worked not only on the mechanisms for transmitting values and shaping the identities (political, religious, gender) of children and adolescents, but also on the effects of age on political socialisation and the emergence of the regionalization methods, developing pioneering survey methodologies.

A student in the Economie Privée section of the École Libre des Sciences Politiques from 1941 to 1943, he was a member of the SNCF (French national railway company) Resistance groups. He escaped and was killed during the battle of Mont-Cassin.

A student in the Economie Privée section of the École Libre des Sciences Politiques, Georges Schlumberger was a corporal in the Chasseur Shock Battalion, and took part in the invasion of Elba in June 1944. He died in the Battle of the Vosges and was awarded the Croix de Guerre.

A graduate of the École Libre des Sciences Politiques, Bernadette Thieblin distinguished herself during the Second World War.

Bernadette Thieblin was born in 1915 and graduated from the general section of the ELSP in 1939. An ambulance driver in the army's mobile health division, her acts of bravery in helping wounded soldiers and civilians earned her the Croix de Guerre. 

A student at the Undergraduate College on the Paris campus and then at the Sciences Po School of Public Affairs from 2016 to 2019, (Master's in Public Policy, specialising in culture), Maguelone Vivès was a committed student activist in the service of her classmates.

Maguelone Vivès was involved in several student associations, including Sciences Po Zéro Fossile, and was elected vice-president and then president of UNEF-Sciences Po (the Sciences Po branch of the National Union of Students of France) in 2017-2018. She became a member of both the IEP’s Board of Directors and the FNSP’s Board of Directors in 2018. Her battles were many: discrimination, tuition fees, student mental health, the feminisation of syllabuses and faculty. In particular, she campaigned for the distribution of sanitary protection products to be introduced, and called for an increase in the student welfare budget. She died of leukaemia at the age of 20, and remains an example of commitment and living life to the full.