Biography

Luc Ferry (born 3 January 1951) is a French philosopher and politician, and a proponent of secular humanism. He is a former member of the Saint-Simon Foundation think-tank. He received an Agrégation de philosophie (1975), a Doctorate in Political science (1981), and an Agrégation in political science (1982). As a professor of political science and political philosophy, Luc Ferry taught at the Institut d'études politiques de Lyon (1982–1988)—during which time he also taught and directed graduate research at the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne—, then at the University of Caen (1989–96). He finally was a professor at Paris Diderot University from 1996 until he resigned in 2011 when asked to actually teach there. From 2002 and until 2004 he served as the Minister of Education on the cabinet led by the conservative Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin. During his tenure, he was the minister in charge of the implementation of the French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools. He received the award of Docteur honoris causa from the Université de Sherbrooke (Canada). He is the 2013 Telesio Galilei Academy of science Laureate for Philosophy. He was created Chevalier (Knight) of the Bacchanalian fraternity De La Dive Bouteille De Gaillac on the 20 March 2012 together with French mathematician Max Karoubi and Italian philosopher Francesco Fucilla. He is the creator of the comic book series La Sagesse des mythes which is based on Greek mythology and is published since 2016. Despite repeated efforts, Luc Ferry was rejected for the third time by the Académie Française, in January 2019.