Adele, Rafael Nadal, Keanu Reeves… These personalities appear in the annual list of the most influential people in the world according to Le Time. The magazine, which is one of the main news media in the United States, published its ranking on Monday, May 23. Apart from the presidents of a major world power or Oprah Winfrey (present 11 times), few are those to be quoted regularly. Few foreigners are also part of it. 3 French people are however in this top 100. Who are they?

Christine Lagarde is a regular on the list. This is the fifth time she has appeared there in 13 years. “Lawyer, then minister, then director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde followed an atypical path to become president of the European Central Bank, a role previously dominated by male academic economists,” said Ayesha Javed, a journalist from Time magazine. .

The ECB President, “elected” in the “Titans” category, managed to bring together political leaders historically divided on key issues “such as the review of the ECB’s strategy and giving national central bankers a greater great influence on politics,” said Ayesha Javed.

The former Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has also worked to make policymaking more inclusive.

What about the other two French? Here are those who were nominated in the “Pioneers” category.

First nomination for Valérie Masson-Delmotte, paleoclimatologist and co-chair of working group 1 of the IPCC. Last year, she also joined the Forbes list of 40 women of the year.

“In August 2021, the IPCC issued a dire warning when it released a report that made headlines around the world. This report is the result of a gargantuan collaboration between more than 200 climate scientists around the world and is based on more than 14,000 scientific papers Chinese climatologist Panmao Zhai and French climatologist Valérie Masson-Delmotte, co-chairs of IPCC Working Group 1, have carried out this enormous undertaking despite travel restrictions imposed by the COVID pandemic -19″, declared Bill McKibben, author and specialist in the environmental question, in the columns of Time magazine.

Third and last French to be present in the list, Stéphane Bancel. The CEO and owner of the American biotechnology company Moderna managed in 2020 to develop a vaccine against Covid-19 in record time, thanks to mRNA-Access. This program allows “the company’s scientists to share their knowledge, expertise and licenses with teams in countries with limited resources. The objective is to develop mRNA vaccines targeting 15 diseases that pose the greatest risks to the public health, including HIV and malaria,” notes Time.