With 1,702 civilian laureates rewarded, the traditional January 1 promotion of the Legion of Honor, published on Saturday January 18 in the Official Journal, is a little special. It indeed includes a special Notre-Dame de Paris promotion and the promotion of the National Order of Merit usually published in November and delayed due to ministerial changes.
Among the winners of the Notre-Dame special promotion, Philippe Jost, head of the public establishment responsible for the restoration project of the cathedral, devastated by a fire in 2019, is distinguished “commander” within the Legion of honor. This senior official succeeded General Jean-Louis Georgelin, who died in 2023 and himself a Grand Cross, the highest grade of this award founded by Napoleon Bonaparte.
Alongside him, around a hundred craftsmen, contractors, work supervisors and operations directors were named “knights” (33 to the Legion of Honor and 67 to the National Order of Merit).
Among the promotion of the Legion of Honor, the actresses Camille Cottin or Mélanie Thierry, the singer Etienne Daho, the comedian Laurent Gerra and the former ministers Rima Abdul Malak, Clément Beaune, Olivier Dussopt, Marlène Schiappa and Amélie Oudéa-Castéra. Ministers cannot be appointed or promoted to the Legion of Honor during the duration of their ministerial function.
-The personalities named “officers” of the Legion of Honor include Odette Bergoffen, former resistance fighter, Dominique Erignac, president of the Claude Erignac association (former prefect of Corsica assassinated in office in 1998, Editor's note), Jacques-Charles Fombonne, president of the SPA, or Bixente Lizarazu, former footballer and sports consultant.
The Nobel Prize winner in economics Jean Tirole and the new CEO of the Dassault group Eric Trappier are distinguished “commander”, the journalist and novelist Philippe Labro becomes “grand officer” and Jacques de Larosière, economist and honorary governor of the Bank of France, member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, is elevated to the rank of “Grand Cross”.
Among the personalities enshrined in the National Order of Merit are the speaker and former deportee Lili Leignel (“commander”), the actress Marie-Christine Barrault and the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Boris Cyrulnik (both “grand officer”).
