The Most Famous
EXTREMISTS from France
This page contains a list of the greatest French Extremists. The pantheon dataset contains 209 Extremists, 9 of which were born in France. This makes France the birth place of the 5th most number of Extremists behind Germany and Italy.
Top 9
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary French Extremists of all time. This list of famous French Extremists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.
1. Gilles de Rais (1405 - 1440)
With an HPI of 72.60, Gilles de Rais is the most famous French Extremist. His biography has been translated into 35 different languages on wikipedia.
Gilles de Rais (c. 1405 – 26 October 1440), Baron de Rais, was a knight and lord from Brittany, Anjou and Poitou, a leader in the French army, and a companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc. He is best known for his reputation and later conviction as a confessed serial killer of children. A member of the House of Montmorency-Laval, Gilles de Rais was raised by his maternal grandfather Jean de Craon. He earned the favour of the Duke of Brittany and was admitted to the French court. From 1427 to 1435, Rais served as a commander in the French army and fought in the Hundred Years' War. In 1429, he formed an alliance with his cousin Georges de La Trémoille, the prominent Grand Chamberlain of France. The same year, he was appointed Marshal of France after the successful military campaigns alongside Joan of Arc, but little is known about the relationship between the two comrades in arms. After the death of Jean de Craon in 1432 and Georges de La Trémoille's fall from grace in 1433, he gradually withdrew from the war. His family, and in particular his younger brother René de La Suze, accused him of squandering his patrimony by selling off his lands to the highest bidder to offset his lavish expenses, a profligacy that led to his being placed under interdict by King Charles VII of France on July 1435. In May 1440, he assaulted cleric Jean Le Ferron in the church of Saint-Étienne-de-Mer-Morte before seizing the local castle, thereby violating ecclesiastical immunities and undermining the majesty of his suzerain, John V, Duke of Brittany. Arrested on 15 September 1440 at his castle in Machecoul, he was taken to the Duchy of Brittany. In October 1440, he was tried by the ecclesiastical court of Nantes for heresy, sodomy and the murder of "one hundred and forty or more children". At the same time, he was condemned to be hanged and burned at the stake by the secular court of Nantes for his act of force at Saint-Étienne-de-Mer-Morte, as well as for crimes committed against "several small children", without specifying their number. On 26 October 1440, he was sent to the scaffold with two of his servants convicted of murder. Modern historians have not sought to exonerate him or reconstitute some kind of judicial truth, and are also wary of reading the records of his trials at face value. Medievalists Jacques Chiffoleau and Claude Gauvard note the need to contextualize historical documents by studying the inquisitorial procedure employed. Thus, they question the defendants' confessions in the light of the judges' expectations and conceptions, while also examining the role of rumor in the development of Gilles de Rais' fama (reputation). However, these historians do not disregard some detailed testimonies concerning the disappearance of children, or certain confessions describing murderous and sadistic rituals unparalleled in the judicial archives of the time. Furthermore, Rais is sometimes believed to be an inspiration for Charles Perrault's "Bluebeard" literary fairy tale (1697), but this assumption is controversial as being too uncertain. Whatever the case, a popular confusion between the historical character and the mythical wife-murderer has been documented since the early 19th century.
2. Henri Désiré Landru (1869 - 1922)
With an HPI of 62.42, Henri Désiré Landru is the 2nd most famous French Extremist. His biography has been translated into 21 different languages.
Henri Désiré Landru (12 April 1869 – 25 February 1922) (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃ʁi deziʁe lɑ̃dʁy]) was a French serial killer, nicknamed the Bluebeard of Gambais. He murdered at least seven women in the village of Gambais between December 1915 and January 1919. Landru also killed at least three other women and a young man in the house he rented from December 1914 to August 1915 in the town of Vernouillet, a town 35 kilometres (22 mi) northwest of Paris. The true number of Landru's victims is suspected to be higher. Landru was arrested on 12 April 1919 at an apartment near Paris's Gare du Nord, which he shared with his 24-year-old mistress Fernande Segret. The police eventually concluded that Landru had met or been in romantic correspondence with 283 women during the First World War. Seventy-two were never traced. In December 1919, Landru's wife Marie-Catherine, 51, and his eldest son Maurice, 25, were arrested on suspicion of complicity in Landru's thefts from his victims. Both denied any knowledge of Landru's criminal activities. Marie-Catherine was released without charge in July 1920 due to health reasons. Maurice was released on the same day because the authorities could not establish his guilt. Landru continued to protest his innocence during the yearlong investigation. He was charged with the murders at Vernouillet and Gambais. This included the murders of ten women and his first victim's teenage son. Landru's trial in November 1921 at Versailles was attended by leading French celebrities, including the novelist Colette, and the actor and singer Maurice Chevalier. On 30 November, Landru was found guilty by a majority verdict of all eleven murders and sentenced to death. He was executed by guillotine on 25 February 1922.
3. Madame de Brinvilliers (1630 - 1676)
With an HPI of 61.97, Madame de Brinvilliers is the 3rd most famous French Extremist. Her biography has been translated into 16 different languages.
Marie-Madeleine d'Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers (22 July 1630 – 16 July 1676) was a French aristocrat who was accused and convicted of murdering her father and two of her brothers in order to inherit their estates. After her death, there was speculation that she tested her poisons on upwards of 30 sick people in hospitals, but these rumours were never confirmed. Her alleged crimes were discovered after the death of her lover and co-conspirator, Captain Godin de Sainte-Croix, who saved letters detailing dealings of poisonings between the two. After being arrested, she was tortured, forced to confess, and finally executed. Her trial and death spawned the onset of the Affair of the Poisons, a major scandal during the reign of Louis XIV accusing aristocrats of practising witchcraft and poisoning people. Components of her life have been adapted into various media including short stories, poems, and songs to name a few.
4. Jean II, Duke of Alençon (1409 - 1476)
With an HPI of 59.84, Jean II, Duke of Alençon is the 4th most famous French Extremist. His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.
John II of Alençon (Jean II d’Alençon) (2 March 1409 – 8 September 1476) was a French nobleman. He succeeded his father as Duke of Alençon and Count of Perche as a minor in 1415, after the latter's death at the Battle of Agincourt. He is best known as a general in the last phase of the Hundred Years' War and for his role as a comrade-in-arms of Joan of Arc.
5. Robert-François Damiens (1715 - 1757)
With an HPI of 59.04, Robert-François Damiens is the 5th most famous French Extremist. His biography has been translated into 23 different languages.
Robert-François Damiens (French pronunciation: [ʁɔbɛʁ fʁɑ̃swa damjɛ̃]; surname also recorded as Damier; 9 January 1715 – 28 March 1757) was a French domestic servant whose attempted assassination of King Louis XV in 1757 culminated in his public execution. He was the last person to be executed in France by dismemberment, the traditional form of death penalty reserved for regicides.
6. Michel Fourniret (1942 - 2021)
With an HPI of 57.07, Michel Fourniret is the 6th most famous French Extremist. His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.
Michel Paul Fourniret (4 April 1942 – 10 May 2021) was a French serial killer who confessed to killing 12 people in France and Belgium between 1987 and 2003. After he was arrested in June 2003 for the attempted kidnapping of a teenage girl in Ciney, Fourniret confessed in 2004 to killing nine people — eight females and one male — having been informed on by his then-wife, Monique Pierrette Olivier (born 31 October 1948). Fourniret was convicted of seven of these murders on 28 May 2008 and sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole, while Olivier was given life with a minimum term of 28 years for complicity. In February 2018, Fourniret confessed to killing two more women. On 16 November 2018, Fourniret and Olivier were convicted of the murder of Farida Hammiche, the last of the eight women that Fourniret confessed to killing in 2004. Fourniret was given a second life sentence and Olivier was sentenced to a further 20 years of imprisonment. In March 2020, Fourniret confessed to killing Estelle Mouzin, who disappeared from Guermantes in 2003.
7. Jacques Mesrine (1936 - 1979)
With an HPI of 56.89, Jacques Mesrine is the 7th most famous French Extremist. His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.
Jacques Mesrine (French pronunciation: [ʒak mɛʁin, mɛsʁin]; 28 December 1936 – 2 November 1979) was a French criminal responsible for numerous murders, bank robberies, burglaries, and kidnappings in France, the US, and Canada. Mesrine repeatedly escaped from prison and made international headlines during a final period as a fugitive when his exploits included trying to kidnap the judge who had previously sentenced him. An aptitude for disguise earned him the moniker "The Man of a Thousand Faces" and enabled him to remain at large while receiving massive publicity as a wanted man. Mesrine was widely seen as an anti-establishment Robin Hood figure. In keeping with his charismatic image, he was rarely without a glamorous female companion. A two-part film, Mesrine, which came out in 2008, was based on Mesrine's life.
8. Édouard Vaillant (1840 - 1915)
With an HPI of 46.54, Édouard Vaillant is the 8th most famous French Extremist. His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.
Marie Édouard Vaillant (26 January 1840 – 18 December 1915) was a French politician. Born in Vierzon, Cher, son of a lawyer, Édouard Vaillant studied engineering at the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, graduating in 1862, and then law at the Sorbonne. In Paris he knew Charles Longuet, Louis-Auguste Rogeard, and Jules Vallès. A reader of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's writings, he met Proudhon, and joined the International Workingmen's Association. He went to study in Germany in 1866. At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 he returned to Paris. It was during the Siege of Paris that Vaillant met Auguste Blanqui. Vaillant opposed the Government of National Defence, and took part in the revolts on 31 October 1870 and 22 January 1871. He was one of the four editors of the Affiche Rouge (red poster) calling for the creation of the Paris Commune. In the elections of February 1871 he stood as a revolutionary socialist candidate for the National Assembly but was not elected. In March 1871 he was elected by the 20th arrondissement to the council of the Commune where he oversaw work on education. Following the bloody suppression of the Commune in late May 1871, Vaillant fled France with Eugène Baudin for Great Britain where he was part of the Blanquist tendency of the First International. He was sentenced to death in absentia in July 1872 and did not return to France until the general amnesty of 1880. Active in socialist politics, Vaillant was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1893, representing the 20th arrondissement. Although he had earlier been a convinced revolutionary, in the Chamber he generally followed a middle ground between the "revolutionaries" represented by Jules Guesde and the "reformists" represented by Jean Jaurès. He was among the founder members of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), a socialist party uniting revolutionary and reformist groups. Vaillant supported a general strike to prevent French participation in the First World War, but following the assassination of Jaurès and the outbreak of war, he joined the majority of socialists in supporting the Union sacrée and harshly criticised pacifist members of the SFIO in his speeches. Édouard Vaillant died in Paris on 18 December 1915. Schools in his birthplace of Vierzon, and in Gennevilliers, are named in his honour.
9. Zacarias Moussaoui (1968 - )
With an HPI of 46.51, Zacarias Moussaoui is the 9th most famous French Extremist. His biography has been translated into 21 different languages.
Zacarias Moussaoui (Arabic: زكريا موسوي, Zakariyyā Mūsawī; born 30 May 1968) is a French member of al-Qaeda who pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court to conspiring to kill citizens of the United States as part of the 9/11 attacks. He is serving life imprisonment without the possibility of parole at the Federal ADX Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. Moussaoui is the only person ever convicted in U.S. court in connection with the 11 September attacks.
Pantheon has 9 people classified as extremists born between 1405 and 1968. Of these 9, 1 (11.11%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living extremists include Zacarias Moussaoui. The most famous deceased extremists include Gilles de Rais, Henri Désiré Landru, and Madame de Brinvilliers.
Living Extremists
Go to all RankingsDeceased Extremists
Go to all Rankings
Gilles de Rais
1405 - 1440
HPI: 72.60
Henri Désiré Landru
1869 - 1922
HPI: 62.42
Madame de Brinvilliers
1630 - 1676
HPI: 61.97
Jean II, Duke of Alençon
1409 - 1476
HPI: 59.84
Robert-François Damiens
1715 - 1757
HPI: 59.04
Michel Fourniret
1942 - 2021
HPI: 57.07
Jacques Mesrine
1936 - 1979
HPI: 56.89
Édouard Vaillant
1840 - 1915
HPI: 46.54
Which Extremists were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 5 most globally memorable Extremists since 1700.
