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Overton Joseph Paul (b. 1960-01-04 / d. 2003-06-30)
He was a senior vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. He held a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from Michigan Technological University and a Juris Doctor degree from the Thomas M. Cooley Law School. Overton is known for conceiving of the idea now known as the Overton window, the range of policies politically acceptable to the mainstream at a given time. He died at age 43 from injuries suffered in a crash while piloting an ultralight aircraft, soon after taking off from the Tuscola Area Airport near Caro, Michigan. Overton had just married a few weeks before the accident.
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78
Born 1946-09-30. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Stroke
Jochen Richard Mass was a German racing driver and broadcaster, who competed in Formula One from 1973 to 1982. Mass won the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix with McLaren. In endurance racing, Mass won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1989 with Sauber. Mass died in Cannes, France on 4 May 2025 due to complications from a stroke that he suffered in February of the same year.
43
Born 1981-08-29. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Cancer
Émilie Dequenne (French: [emili dəkɛn]) was a Belgian actress. She first gained recognition for her role in the Dardenne brothers' film Rosetta (1999), which earned her the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress. The film also won the Palme d'Or at the festival. She died at the Gustave-Roussy Hospital in Villejuif, France after being diagnosed with adrenocortical carcinoma. She was 43.
88
Born 1937-01-30. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Age
Boris Vasilievich Spassky was a Russian chess grandmaster who was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from 1969 to 1972. Spassky played three world championship matches: he lost to Tigran Petrosian in 1966; defeated Petrosian in 1969 to become world champion; then lost to Bobby Fischer in a famous match in 1972. Spassky emigrated to France in 1976 and became a French citizen in 1978. He continued to compete in tournaments, but was no longer a major contender for the world title. Spassky lost an unofficial rematch against Fischer in 1992. In 2012, he left France and returned to Russia. On October 1, 2006, Spassky suffered a minor stroke during a chess lecture in San Francisco. In his first major post-stroke play, he drew a six-game rapid match with Hungarian Grandmaster Lajos Portisch in April 2007. On March 27, 2010, at 73 years old, he became the oldest surviving former World Chess Champion following the death of Vasily Smyslov. On September 23, 2010, ChessBase reported that Spassky had suffered a more serious stroke that had left him paralysed on his left side. After that he returned to France for a long rehabilitation programme. On August 16, 2012, Spassky left France to return to Russia under disputed circumstances and took up residence in an apartment in Moscow. On September 25, 2016, he made a public speech at the opening of the Tal Memorial tournament. He said he had "the very brightest memories" of Mikhail Tal and told an anecdote from the 15th Chess Olympiad about Soviet analysis of an adjourned game between Fischer and Botvinnik. He was described by Chess24 as being 'sprightly'. Spassky died in Moscow at the age of 88.
87
Born 1937-03-31. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Age
Claude Allègre was a French politician and scientist. His work in the field of isotope geochemistry was recognised with the award of many senior medals, including the Crafoord Prize for geosciences in 1986 and the William Bowie Medal of the American Geophysical Union in 1995. His political service included a three-year term as Minister of Education in France, from 1997 to 2000.
60
Born 1964-07-13. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Unknown
Pascal Hervé was a French road racing cyclist. He competed in the individual road race at the 1992 Summer Olympics and raced as a professional from 1994 to 2001. At the time of his death Pascal resided in Montreal, where he was the co-owner of a training center that helps develop local athletes and amateurs of all ages. In between seasons, he held cycling trips in various locations such as the Pyrénées, the Vosges, the Alps, and, most recently, the region of Charlevoix. Hervé died at the age of 60. The cause of his death is unknown, although he reportedly underwent surgery last September for a stomach tumour. Hervé was expelled from the 1998 Tour de France in the Festina affair. Hervé tested positive for EPO after the prologue in 2001 Giro d'Italia.
75
Born 1949-02-08. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
Niels Arestrup was a French-Danish actor, film director and screenwriter. Arestrup died following a long illness in Ville-d'Avray, France.
76
Born 1948-03-30. Domain:Journalism. Cause of death:Age
Jean-Bernard Vincent , better known by the pen name of Éric Yung, was a French journalist who had previously worked as a police investigator. A member of the Search and Intervention Brigade, he turned to journalism in 1980 and worked for France Inter as well as several radio stations.
40
Born 1983-11-03. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Suicide
Simon Fieschi was a French webmaster and writer. He was wounded in the 2015 shooting at the Charlie Hebdo headquarters in Paris and left with severe injuries. On 7 January 2015, he was the first staff member injured in the shooting. A bullet from a Kalashnikov rifle perforated his lung and damaged his spinal cord. He was evacuated to hospital and spent a week in an induced coma. Having lost the use of his legs and hands, he remained in hospital for eight months, learning eventually to walk with the aid of crutches but never regaining full use of his fingers. Fieschi died in his hotel room in Paris, at the age of 40. An investigation was opened to determine the cause of death. He notably received tributes from President of France Emmanuel Macron, former president François Hollande, the cartoonist Coco, and the writer Yannick Haenel
80
Born 1944-01-17. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Cancer
Françoise Madeleine Hardy was a French singer-songwriter who was known for singing melancholic, sentimental ballads. Hardy rose to prominence in the early 1960s as a leading figure in French yé-yé music and became a cultural icon in France and internationally. In addition to her native French, she also sang in English, Italian, and German. Her musical career spanned more than 50 years, with over 30 studio albums released. She almost never performed on scene.
76
Born 1947-08-21. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Cancer
Frédéric Mitterrand was a French actor, screenwriter, producer, and politician who served as Minister of Culture and Communication of France from 2009 to 2012 under President Nicolas Sarkozy.
89
Born 1934-11-09. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Age
Jean-Pierre Soisson (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ pjɛʁ swasɔ̃]) was a French politician of the Union for a Popular Movement. He was a deputy in the National Assembly of France for the first district of Yonne for several terms between 1968 and 2012; mayor of Auxerre from 1971 to 1998; President of the Regional Council of Burgundy (1992–1993 and 1998–2004); and national minister of youth, labour, public administration and agriculture.
101
Born 1922-08-22. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
Micheline Presle (French pronunciation: [miʃlin pʁɛːl]; born Micheline Nicole Julia Émilienne Chassagne) was a French actress. She was sometimes billed as Micheline Prelle. Starting her career in 1937, she starred or appeared in over 150 films appearing first in productions in her native France and also in Hollywood during the era of Classical Hollywood Cinema, before returning again to Europe, especially French films from the mid-1960s until 2014.
95
Born 1928-03-30. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Age
Robert Badinter was a French lawyer, politician, and author who enacted the abolition of the death penalty in France in 1981, while serving as Minister of Justice under François Mitterrand. He also served in high-level appointed positions with national and international bodies working for justice and the rule of law.
74
Born 1949-04-19. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Age
Patrick Buisson was a French right-wing essayist, journalist and political advisor. He was a journalist for Minute, Valeurs Actuelles and Le Crapouillot as well as La Chaîne Info. He wrote several books about Vichy France, the Algerian War and the Indochina War. The founder and co-owner of Publifact, a polling agency, he was a key advisor to former President Nicolas Sarkozy from 2006 to 2012, during which time he surreptitiously recorded private conversations he had with the president. He was the co-presenter of Historiquement show, a television program on Histoire, a subsidiary of the TF1 Group, which he chaired.
79
Born 1944-07-22. Domain:TV/Radio. Cause of death:Age
Claude Villers, whose real name was Claude Marx, was born in Everly (Seine-et-Marne) and died in Mussidan (Dordogne), a French journalist and radio and television personality. He spent most of his radio career at France Inter, where he was successively sketch writer, host and producer. He is also a writer and traveler, with a passion for trains, ocean liners, travel and adventure.
60
Born 1963-08-08. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Suicide
Emmanuelle Debever was a French actress. In 1983, she landed the lead role in Un jeu brutal by Jean-Claude Brisseau, in which she starred opposite Bruno Cremer. The same year, she starred in Andrzej Wajda's Danton as Louison Danton, the young wife of revolutionary figure Georges Jacques Danton, played by Gérard Depardieu. She also played a supporting role in the comedy My Other Husband, by George Lautner, with Miou-Miou, followed by the telefilm thriller Quidam alongside Richard Bohringer. Debever died on 6 December 2023, at the age of 60. Her death was first reported by Libération, which initially reported the date as 7 December. The newspaper later issued a correction, citing Debever's sister. Debever died after a week of hospitalization following a suicide attempt in which she jumped off a bridge into the Seine. Debever had been reported missing by her partner on 29 November after disappearing from their home and leaving a concerning note. Her death came the day before the release of France 2's investigative news show Complément d'enquête in which she presented her allegations against Gérard Depardieu. Prosecutors in Paris have opened an investigation to determine the causes of her death.
50
Born 1973-03-09. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Cancer (lung)
Rona Hartner was a German-Romanian actress, painter and singer who was born in Bucharest. As an actress, she was best known for her role in Tony Gatlif's film Gadjo dilo. Hartner focused on her music career, specializing in Gypsy music. After a battle with lung and brain cancer, she died in Toulon at the age of 50. She had lived in France for over two decades at the time of her death.
94
Born 1929-07-19. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Age
Emmanuel Bernard Le Roy Ladurie was a French historian whose work was mainly focused upon Languedoc in the Ancien Régime, particularly the history of the peasantry. One of the leading historians of France, Le Roy Ladurie has been called the "standard-bearer" of the third generation of the Annales school and the "rock star of the medievalists", noted for his work in social history.
74
Born 1948-08-30. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Accident
Jean-Louis Georgelin was a French Army General who was Chief of the Defence Staff ("Chef d'état-major des armées", CEMA) between 4 October 2006 and 25 February 2010. From 9 June 2010 until 2016 he served as Great Chancellor of the French national order, the Légion d'honneur. On April 17, 2019, in the wake of the fire at Notre-Dame de Paris and with a view to rebuilding the cathedral, he was appointed by the Council of Ministers to head a special representative mission "to oversee the progress of the procedures and work that will be undertaken ". During an exchange at the National Assembly on November 13, 2019, he declared that he had asked Philippe Villeneuve, chief architect of historic monuments, "to shut the fuck up" (sic), while Villeneuve had on several occasions publicly stated his wish to rebuild the spire identically in compliance with the French Heritage Code and France's international commitments, and in accordance with the Venice Charter. His comments caused "astonishment", including at the Ministry of Culture. Jean-Louis Georgelin died while hiking in the commune of Bordes-Uchentein, Ariège. His body was found the next day by the high-mountain gendarmerie platoon on the slopes of Mont Valier.
90
Born 1932-08-30. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Age
Geneviève Suzanne Marie-Thérèse Mulmann, known professionally as Geneviève de Fontenay (French pronunciation: [ʒənvjɛv də fɔ̃tnɛ]), was a French businesswoman who served as the president of the Miss France Committee from 1981 until 2007. After leaving her position with Miss France, Fontenay created the beauty pageant Miss Prestige National in 2010, and served as its president until her retirement in 2016. On 2 August 2023, Fontenay's son announced that she had died in her sleep of cardiac arrest on the night of 1 August, at her Saint-Cloud home. She was 90. She had been growing weak in the time prior to her death, and spent her last moments with her brother and granddaughter.
96
Born 1927-03-24. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Age
Martin Walser (German: [ˈmaʁ.tiːn ˈvalˌzɐ]) was a German writer, especially known as a novelist. He began his career as journalist for Süddeutscher Rundfunk, where he wrote and directed audio plays, and travelled to England, France, Italy, Czechoslavakia and Poland as part of the job. He was part of Group 47 from 1953. Walser is regarded, along with Heinrich Böll, Günter Grass, and Siegfried Lenz, as one of Germany's most influential postwar authors. Walser died in Nussdorf at age 96.
72
Born 1950-09-23. Domain:Journalism. Cause of death:Age
Alexandre Adler was a French historian, journalist and expert of contemporary geopolitics, the former USSR, and the Middle East. He is a Chevalier de l'Ordre de la Légion d'Honneur (2002). A Maoist in his youth and then a member of the Communist Party (PCF), he shifted to the right at the end of the 1970s and has since become close to US neoconservatives, as did his wife Blandine Kriegel (daughter of the communist Resistant Maurice Kriegel-Valrimont). Adler was the counsellor of Roger Cukiermann, chairman of the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions juives de France (CRIF, Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France). Adler was one of the rare French intellectuals to defend George W. Bush's candidacy against Al Gore during the 2000 presidential election. He has qualified the altermondialist movement as an "enemy of freedom," and supported both the war in Afghanistan and the Iraq War. His positions have sometimes led to polemics, such as his qualification of France Inter radio journalist Daniel Mermet as a "Brejnevian journalist," head of Politis newspaper Bernard Langlois as a "repugnant journalist" (journaliste répugnant) and Rony Brauman, former president of Médecins Sans Frontières France as a "Jewish traitor" because of his criticisms of Israel and the US' policies.
94
Born 1929-04-01. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Age
Milan Kundera was a Czech-born French writer. Kundera went into exile in France in 1975, acquiring citizenship in 1981. His Czechoslovak citizenship was revoked in 1979 but he was granted Czech citizenship in 2019. He saw himself as a French writer and insisted his work should be studied as French literature and classified as such in book stores. Kundera's best-known work is The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Prior to the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the communist regime in Czechoslovakia banned his books. He led a low-profile life and rarely spoke to the media. He was thought to be a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was also a nominee for other awards. Kundera was awarded the 1985 Jerusalem Prize, in 1987 the Austrian State Prize for European Literature, and the 2000 Herder Prize. In 2021, he received the Golden Order of Merit from the president of Slovenia. Kundera died after a prolonged illness, in Paris, at the age of 94.
82
Born 1941-01-18. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Cancer
Denise Bombardier CM CQ (French pronunciation: [dəniz bɔ̃baʁdje]) was a Canadian journalist, essayist, novelist and media personality who worked for the French-language television network Radio-Canada for over 30 years. Bombardier was a defender of the international Francophonie and has often been invited by Bernard Pivot to discuss the psyche of the French and the situation of the French language in France. In 1990, during a television confrontation on a French book programme "Apostrophes", Bombardier said of the writer Gabriel Matzneff: "Some older men like to attract little children with sweets. Mr Matzneff does it with his reputation." Bombardier added, "How did they do afterward, these young girls?" At the time, she was insulted in the press by Josyane Savigneau. But, in January 2020, writer and editor Vanessa Springora "publishes a book, Le Consentement, a memoir of having been sexually abused by Matzneff between the ages of 14 and 16, when he was more than three times her age. It sparks an international furore, and Matzneff, driven from Paris, takes refuge on the Italian Riviera. The Paris prosecutor’s office opens an investigation after an "analysis" of the book. In 2019, Bombardier wrote the column "The Decline of the Whites." She started by noting the demographic fact that in many US cities, whites are already in the minority, and she stated that by 2050, in such countries as Canada, New Zealand and the US, whites could become a minority group.
100
Born 1922-10-27. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Age
Léon Gautier was a French soldier during the Second World War. He was France's last surviving veteran of D-Day.
73
Born 1949-12-19. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Age
Christian Dalger was a French professional footballer who played as a forward. He made six international caps for France, scoring two goals. During his career he played for clubs including SC Toulon (1962–1971) and AS Monaco (1971–1980), with whom he won the French title in 1978. He was a member of the France national team in the 1978 FIFA World Cup. After his professional career he became a football manager.
86
Born 1936-11-28. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Age
Philippe Sollers (French: [sɔˈlɛʁs]; born Philippe Joyaux) was a French writer and critic. In 1960 he founded the avant garde literary journal Tel Quel (along with writer and art critic Marcelin Pleynet), which was published by Le Seuil and ran until 1982. Sollers then created the journal L'Infini, published first by Denoel, then by Gallimard with Sollers remaining as sole editor. Sollers was at the heart of the period of intellectual fervour in the Paris of the 1960s and 1970s. He contributed to the publication of critics and thinkers such as Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Louis Althusser, and Roland Barthes. Some of them were later described in his novel Femmes (1983), alongside other figures of French intellectualism active before and after May 1968. His writings and approach to language were examined and praised by French critic Roland Barthes in his book Writer Sollers. In 1990, following a televised disagreement between Canadian novelist Denise Bombardier and the French writer Gabriel Matzneff over Matzneff's "recently published memoir, about his sexual conquests of very young women", a few days later, on the television channel France 3, Sollers referred to Bombardier as "a bitch".
93
Born 1929-04-01. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Age
Marcel Amont (French pronunciation: [maʁsɛl amɔ̃]; born Marcel Jean-Pierre Balthazar Miramon [maʁsɛl ʒɑ̃ pjɛʁ baltazaʁ miʁamɔ̃]) was a French singer and actor of the 1960s and 1970s. Amont also recorded in Occitan and promoted Bearn culture from the 1950s. He was a singer of great artistic career, being one of the most popular in France, and the most prolific of the French language with many years of career. He sold 300 million albums, recorded 30 albums, 79 singles 126 ep's, 11 compilations and about 1,000 songs in different languages (English, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, German, Irish and Spanish). He is famous for having performed songs by composers such as Georges Brassens, Léo Ferré and Georges Moustaki. Inspired by American pop and jazz in the style of Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Andy Williams. He recorded international hits such as "Bleu, blanc, blond", "L'amour ça fait passer le temps", "Ballade pour l'espagnol", "Le plus beau tango du monde" and "Cathy, fais-moi danser". His famous song entitled "Un Mexicain" reached number 1 on the charts in France. He also made films and was director of soundtracks.
91
Born 1931-04-13. Domain:Directing. Cause of death:Age
Michel Deville was a French film director and screenwriter. Deville started his filmmaking career in the late 1950s, paralleling the emergence of the French New Wave directors. He never achieved the level of critical and international recognition of some of his contemporaries such as François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and Claude Chabrol, possibly because of his more conventional filmmaking style. Nevertheless, his films, especially his comedies from the 1970s and 1980s, were popular in his native France. One of Deville's comedies, La Lectrice (The Reader) was probably his biggest success with international audiences. La Lectrice is about a woman (played by Miou-Miou), who finds work reading novels for the blind but gradually finds herself unwittingly attracting a clientele of fetishists who enjoyed being read to. At one time his films were difficult to find in North America but presently (2007) seven of his films are available in DVD in the U.S. His 1980 film Le Voyage en douce was entered into the 30th Berlin International Film Festival. Five years later, his film Death in a French Garden was entered into the 35th Berlin International Film Festival. A clip from his 1968 film Benjamin is included in Robert Bresson’s Une Femme Douce (1969). Deville died at the age of 91.
91
Born 1931-08-20. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Age
Alain Goraguer was a French jazz pianist, sideman of Boris Vian and Serge Gainsbourg, arranger and composer. Goraguer was a composer/arranger of music for Serge Gainsbourg, Jean Ferrat, Serge Reggiani and Nana Mouskouri. In 1965 he was the orchestra conductor for Luxembourg's winning entry in the Eurovision Song Contest, "Poupée de cire, poupée de son". (Though it represented Luxembourg, the song had an entirely French creative team behind it, as it was sung by France Gall, written by Gainsbourg, and conducted by Goraguer.) He composed some or all of the music for films including La Planète Sauvage (1973), La Vie de bohème (1992), Deux jours à tuer (2008) and Saint Laurent (2014). Goraguer died at the age of 91.