Henriette Mathieu-Faraggi

Henriette Faraggi (26 November 1915 – 6 April 1985) was a French nuclear physicist who became the first woman to lead the Société Française de Physique. It is proposed to add her name to the 72 leading men whose names are on the Eiffel Tower.

Faraggi was born on 26 November 1915 in Paris.

She studied under Nobel Laureate Irène Joliot-Curie at the Institut du radium.^[1]

In March 1950, Faraggi was elected to the national committee of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). In 1951, she joined the Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique (CEA), specialising in nuclear physics. Her work involved the use of autoradiographs and photographic emulsions. Her original work found applications in metallurgy and biology.^[1]

In 1971 the Société Française de Physique ended nearly a century of male Presidents when they elected Mathieu-Faraggi as their President. She was the first woman to lead the Society.^[1] At the end of her time in office, she made a speech which concluded "tf you find fault with some of my actions [...] in the past, don't say “it's because she's a woman”, but simply that I was not up to the task. And don't wait too long to call on other women to become president of our Society".^[2]

Faraggi was promoted to be Head of the Nuclear Physics Department at CEA in 1972, working in the role until 1978. She chaired the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics's nuclear physics committee during this time. In 1975, she was a key player in the decision to build the Grand Accélérateur National d’Ions Lourds (GANIL) - the large French accelerator - in Caen.^[2]

Faraggi died in 1985 in the 15th arrondissement of Paris.^[1][3]

In 2026, Henriette Mathieu-Faraggi was announced as one of 72 historical women in STEM whose names have been proposed to be added to the 72 men already celebrated on the Eiffel Tower. The plan was announced by the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo following the recommendations of a committee led by Isabelle Vauglin of Femmes et Sciences and Jean-François Martins, representing the operating company which runs the Eiffel Tower.^[4][5][6][2]