74 Notable alumni of University of Paris 8

Olivier Zuchuat is a Swiss film director.

Joëlle Morosoli is a French-Canadian sculptor of French and Swiss descent. Her work takes the form either of installations or of architecturally integrated art in public buildings. Most of her works have moving parts, driven by mechanical systems.

Nathalie Amoratti-Blanc is a Monegasque politician. She is a national councilor and the president of the Commission on Women's and Family Rights in the National Council of Monaco.

Stéphane de Gérando is a French composer, conductor, multimedia artist, and researcher.

Kiyémis is a militant French Afro-feminist, poet and lecturer. The name she uses is a pseudonym, combining the first name of her mother with that of her grandmother. Realizing during the 2005 French riots that the police were treating Black people differently from the native French, she became interested in supporting their rights. In 2012, while at university she began...

Guy Berthiaume CM CQ is Librarian and Archivist of Canada Emeritus. A Canadian historian specialized in the study of Classical Antiquity, he served as chair and chief executive officer of Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec from June 22, 2009, to June 21, 2014, and, from June 23, 2014, to August 29, 2019, he served as Librarian and Archivist of...

Cristian-Sorin Dumitrescu is a Romanian politician.

Alain Bui is a French academic who is specialized in information technology, and is the current president of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines University.

Frédéric Regard is a professor of English Literature at Paris-Sorbonne University, where he teaches 19th-, 20th- and 21st-century literature and literary theory. He is a specialist in gender studies in France.

Pierre Pica is a research associate (Chargé de Recherche) at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris. Associated Professor with the Brain Institute of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, he is a specialist in theoretical linguistics and more specifically of comparative syntax.

Petros Th. Pizanias is an emeritus professor of history of the Ionian University.

Richard Stanley Kayne is an American linguist and professor at New York University.

Hamid Tibouchi is an Algerian painter and poet, born in 1951 Tibane, near Bejaia in the Kabylie region. He began painting at the age of ten and began writing in 1966. He studied at the High School in Kouba and became a friend of Taher Djaout, and taught English for a while near Algiers.

Cheikh Tidiane Gadio is a Senegalese political figure and diplomat currently serves as Special Envoy of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) to Mali (September 2020 – present) and Special Envoy for the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) for the Central African Republic.

Emmanuelle Pierre-Marie is a French politician of The Ecologists. Since 2020, she has served as mayor of the 12th arrondissement of Paris. She was a candidate for Paris's 8th constituency in the 2017 legislative election, and has been a member of the Council of Paris since 2020.

Claude Pujade-Renaud was a French writer, whose first novel Le Ventriloque appeared in 1978. She subsequently published over twenty novels, short-story and poetry collections, as well as combined creative works with long-time partner Daniel Zimmermann. She won the prix Goncourt des lycéens in 1994 for Belle mère, her novel on stepmothering, and was a recipient of the French Writer's Guild...

Max Petterson Monteiro is a Brazilian actor, YouTuber, entrepreneur and comedian. He currently lives in Paris, France. Max Petterson is known for moving to France in 2014 after getting a place at the Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis and documenting life in Paris on YouTube, with over 33 million views. Max received the most repercussions with a viral video about the...

Serge Le Tendre is a French comics writer known from his collaborations with Régis Loisel, Pierre Makyo, Christian Rossi and TaDuc. He wrote a number of series together with Rodolphe.

Michal Govrin is an Israeli author, poet and theater director.

Abla Farhoud was a Lebanese-born Canadian writer and playwright who lived in Quebec.

Aïcha Belarbi is a Moroccan sociologist, women's rights activist and diplomat. She was ambassador to the European Union from 2000 to 2008.

Tariq Teguia is an Algerian film director, screenwriter and producer.

Marina Cavazzana is a professor of Paediatric Immunology at the Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital and the Imagine Institute, as well as an academic at Paris Descartes University. She was awarded the Irène Joliot-Curie Prize in 2012 and elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2019.

Pascale Boistard is a French politician of the Socialist Party (PS) who served as State Secretary for Women's Rights. She represented the Somme's 1st constituency in the National Assembly of France.

Gabriel Rockhill is an American philosopher, writer, and cultural critic. He is Professor of Philosophy & Global Interdisciplinary Studies, Director of Cultural Studies, and Director of the Critical Theory Workshop at Villanova University, as well as former program director at the Collège International de Philosophie.

Jean François Mbaye is a Senegalese-born French politician of Renaissance who served as a member of the French National Assembly from 2017 to 2022, representing the department of Val-de-Marne.

Daniel Goossens is a French comics artist.

Tiphaine Samoyault is a French university lecturer, literary critic, and novelist, specializing in the work of Roland Barthes. She is the niece of harpsichordist Blandine Verlet and writer, academic and psychoanalyst Agnès Verlet. In 2015, she received the Grand Prize in Non-Fiction from the Société des gens de lettres.

Frédéric Vitoux is a French writer and journalist.

Hubert Sauper is an Austrian documentary filmmaker, director, writer, producer, and actor best known for Darwin's Nightmare (2004) which was nominated for an Academy Award.

Aristides Gomes is a Bissau-Guinean politician who was the Prime Minister of Guinea-Bissau from 8 November 2019 until 28 February 2020. He previously served as Prime Minister from April 2018 to October 2019, and again from 2 November 2005 to 13 April 2007. He has subsequently served as President of the Republican Party for Independence and Development (PRID).

Dani Kouyaté is a film director and jeli (griot) from Burkina Faso, which the BBC describes as "Africa's most important film-making country".

Alain Deneault is a French Canadian author from Quebec. He is known for his book Noir Canada: Pillage, corruption et criminalité en Afrique and the legal proceedings that followed its publishing.

Merwan Rim is a French actor and singer-songwriter.

Pascal Georges Dusapin is a French composer. His music is marked by its microtonality, tension, and energy.

Hèctor Parra i Esteve is a Spanish composer. Since 2002 he has lived in Paris.

Bénédicte Savoy is a French art historian, specialising in the critical enquiry of the provenance of works of art, including looted art and other forms of illegally acquired cultural objects.

André Juillard was a French comics artist.

Elia Zaharia, formerly Crown Princess Elia of Albania, is an Albanian actress, former singer, and the ex-wife of Leka, Prince of Albania.

Fatima Daas is a French writer. Her debut novel, The Last One (French: La Petite Dernière), follows the life of a young Muslim woman as she explores her sexuality, religion, and relationships while living in Clichy-sous-Bois, a suburb of Paris.

Gérard Noiriel is a French historian. He is director of studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences.

Chokri Belaïd, also transliterated as Shokri Belaïd, was a Tunisian politician and lawyer who was an opposition leader with the left-secular Democratic Patriots' Movement. Belaïd was a vocal critic of the Ben Ali regime prior to the 2011 Tunisian revolution and of the then Islamist-led Tunisian government. On 6 February 2013, he was fatally shot outside his house in El...

Katell Quillévéré is a French filmmaker.

Vladimir Pinheiro Safatle is a Brazilian philosopher, writer and musician. He is a professor of Theory of Human Sciences at the Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Human Sciences, University of São Paulo (FFLCH-USP). He became widely known to the general public primarily through his work as a columnist for the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo. His intellectual production focuses on...

Nadav Lapid is an Israeli screenwriter and film director. Most known for his political drama films Synonyms (2019) and Ahed's Knee (2021). Film critics consider him to be among the most internationally acclaimed filmmakers from Israel.

Franck Lepage is one of the founders of Workers' co-operative of popular education 'Le Pavé' in France. Franck was an activist of popular education, until 2000 director of programs at the French Federation of Youth and Culture Centers and associate research fellow at the National Institute of Youth and Popular Education.

Frédéric Encel is a French essayist and scholar of geopolitics. He received his DEA in geopolitics from the Centre of Geopolitical Analysis and Research (known in French as the Centre de recherches et d’analyses géopolitiques) at the University of Paris VIII in 1992. He remained there studying under Yves Lacoste and earned his doctorate in geopolitics in 1997. He teaches...

Faïza Guène is a French writer and director, best known for her two novels, Kiffe kiffe demain and Du rêve pour les oufs. She has also directed several short films, including Rien que des mots (2004).

Lauren Bastide is a French journalist, feminist, podcaster, spokesperson for the better representation of women and an activist on intersectional feminism.

Christophe Frédéric Durier, better known by his stage name Christophe Willem ( French: [kʁistɔf wilɛm]), is a French singer and the winner of the fourth edition of Nouvelle Star (French version of Pop Idol) in 2006.

Zoé Félix is a French actress.

Claudia Tagbo is a French-Ivorian actress, comedian and TV personality.

Élisabeth Roudinesco is a French scholar, historian and psychoanalyst. She conducts a seminar on the history of psychoanalysis at the École Normale Supérieure.

Santiago Auserón, also known as Juan Perro is a Spanish singer and lyricist. He was songwriter and vocalist of Spanish rock's Radio Futura. Auserón has been recognized with the Aragón Music Prize for Career Trajectory in 2017, Cubadisco Prize for the Best International Album in 2017 and Aragón Music Prize for the Best Soloist 2019.

Karl Olive is a French sports journalist, television producer, entrepreneur and politician who has represented the 12th constituency of the Yvelines department in the National Assembly since 2022. He is a former member of The Republicans (LR), which he left in 2019 prior to joining La République En Marche! (LREM, now Renaissance) in 2022.

Jérôme Fourquet is a French political scientist who specialises in the study of opinion polling. Since 2011, he has been the director of the "Public opinion and corporate strategy" department at the French polling organisation Institut français d'opinion publique (IFOP).

Gaspard Thomas Ulliel was a French actor and model. He was known for having portrayed the young Hannibal Lecter in Hannibal Rising (2007), fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent in the biopic Saint Laurent (2014), and for being the face of Chanel men's fragrance Bleu de Chanel for twelve years. He also voiced Jack Frost in the French version of Rise...

Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian neo-Marxist philosopher, cultural theorist and public intellectual.

Clémentine Autain is a French politician and journalist who has represented Seine-Saint-Denis's 11th constituency in the National Assembly since the 2017 French legislative election. Autain is the daughter of singer Yvan Dautin and actress Dominique Laffin. A feminist activist, she is co-editor of the monthly publication Regards with Roger Martelli and co-secretary of the Fondation Copernic, a "circle of reflection"...

David Herman is an American actor and comedian. He was an original cast member on MADtv from 1995 to 1997 and played Michael Bolton in Office Space.

Wu Chih-chung, also known by his French name François, is a Taiwanese political scientist and diplomat who has been the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs since August 2024. He previously served in the position from May 2016 to July 2018 and as the Ambassador of Taiwan in France from July 2018 to August 2024.

Mohed Altrad is a French-Syrian billionaire businessman, rugby chairman and writer, born c. March 1948. He was born to a very young mother and his father gave him away to his grandparents at age four following his mother's death. In 2015, Altrad was named Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur Of The Year.

Rama Thiaw is a Senegalese filmmaker and screenwriter. She is known for her 2009 documentary Boul Fallé, la Voie de la lutte and her most recent documentary The Revolution Won’t be Televised (2016).

Nicolas Tournadre is a professor at the University of Provence specializing in morphosyntax and typology. He is a member of the LACITO lab of the CNRS.

Jean-Christophe Attias is a French Jewish historian and scholar.

Esther Benbassa-Dudonney is a Turkish-Israeli-French historian and politician. She specializes in the history of Jews and other minorities. Between 2011 and 2023, Benbassa served as a French senator, representing Paris (2017–2023) and Val-de-Marne (2011–2017).

Cédric Klapisch is a French film director, screenwriter and film producer.

Dominique Hélène Bouzar, better known as Dounia Bouzar, is a French anthropologist, writer and educator who has worked towards better acceptance of Muslims, especially Muslim women, in France. She has held high-level posts where she has contributed to promoting the understanding of Muslims but has not always seen eye to eye with the authorities.

Julia Kristeva is a Bulgarian-French philosopher, literary critic, semiotician, psychoanalyst, feminist, and novelist who has lived in France since the mid-1960s. She has taught at Columbia University, and is now a professor emerita at Université Paris Cité. The author of more than 30 books, including Powers of Horror, Tales of Love, Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia, Proust and the Sense...

Ornela Vorpsi, is an Albanian writer and photographer from the Vorpsi family in Tirana. Ornela studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera in Milan, and has been living and working in Paris since 1997. An excerpt of her novel The Country Where One Never Dies was included in Best European Fiction 2010, edited by Aleksander Hemon and prefaced...

Alfredo Bryce Echenique is a Peruvian writer born in Lima. He has written numerous books and short stories.

Alcinda Manuel Honwana is a Mozambican anthropologist who is a Centennial Professor and the Strategic Director of the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research considers young people, social movements, political protests and social change. She served as a Senior Adviser for the United Nations in the Department of Economic and...

Ahmed Reda Benchemsi is a Moroccan journalist. He is the founder and was the publisher and editor of TelQuel and Nichane magazines.