WSerge Elisséeff was a Russian-French scholar, Japanologist, and professor at Harvard University. He was one of the first Westerners to study Japanese at a university in Japan. He began studying Japanese at the University of Berlin, then transferred to Tokyo Imperial University in 1912, becoming the first Westerner to graduate from Tokyo Imperial University in Japanese as well as its first Western graduate student.
WNicolas Bernard Fiévé is a French historian of Japanese Architecture; he was born in Paris in 1959 and is the son of the cinema decorator, Bernard Fiévé. In 1993, he became a member of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and in 1996 he joined the Collège de France’s Japanese Civilization research team. In 2007, he was elected Professor at the Historical and Philological Sciences Department at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), where he teaches the history of pre-modern Japanese urbanism, architecture and gardens. He is a member of the Accademia Ambrosiana, Milan.
WLouis-Frédéric Nussbaum, also known as Louis Frédéric or Louis-Frédéric (1923–1996), was a French scholar, art historian, writer and editor. He was a specialist in the cultures of Asia, especially India and Japan.
WBruno Gollnisch is a French academic and politician, a member of the National Front (FN) far-right party. He was a member of the European Parliament and was chairman of the European Parliamentary group 'Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty' in 2007, which was dissolved in November 2007 following the defection of the Greater Romania Party. He was thereafter a Non-Inscrit. Gollnisch has also been the executive vice-president of the FN from 2007 to 2011. He was also a councillor of the Rhône-Alpes région of France. Because of his public comments, and his position in the National Front he is a controversial figure in France.
WEugène-Emmanuel Mermet-Cachon, was a French priest and Roman Catholic missionary in Bakumatsu period Japan, who served as interpreter for and advisor to French diplomatic missions, playing crucial role in the development of a special relationship between the French government and the Tokugawa shogunate.
WNoël Péri was a French Catholic priest. A missionary and author, he was responsible for translating the Gospels into Japanese and published the first research journal devoted to Japanese topics. He read and wrote broadly about Japanese culture, including studies of Buddhist history and mythology, and as a result came into conflict with some members of the Catholic missionary community. A trained musician, he also taught Western music in Japan and wrote early Western works on Japanese opera and music theory, and Noh drama.
WJean-Noël Alexandre Robert is a French orientalist, specialist of the history of Buddhism in Japan and of its Chinese predecessors. His work particularly focus on Tendai and the philology of Sino-Japanese Buddhist texts. He is the author of the French translation of the Lotus Sūtra, seminal text of Mahayana 大乘, from the ancient Chinese text.
WAndrzej Aleksander Włodarczyk, known as André Wlodarczyk, is a Polish-French linguist.