About Louis Armand
Louis François Armand (French: [lwi aʁmɑ̃]; 17 January 1905 – 30 August 1971) was a French engineer and senior civil servant who managed several public companies and had a significant role in World War II. He was an officer in the Resistance who was arrested by the Gestapo and then freed from jail during the liberation of Paris. He served as the first president of the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) from 1958 to 1959 before he was elected to the Académie Française in 1963. A station on Marseille Metro Line 1 opened in 2010 under Boulevard Louis-Armand bears his name. == Biography == === Early years === Louis Armand was born in Cruseilles, Haute-Savoie, and studied in Annecy and in Lyon at the Lycée du Parc. He graduated second in his class from the École Polytechnique (class of 1924), then joined the Corps des Mines and was major from École des Mines. He married his wife, Genevieve Gazel, in 1928. === Career === He joined the Compagnie du chemin de fer Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée (PLM) in 1934, transferring to the Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français (SNCF) when the PLM was nationalised in 1938. In 1940–1941 he invented a method for preventing the calcification, furring up, of engine boilers called the Traitement Integral Armand (TIA) water treatment process for steam locomotives. During the Second World War he organized and led the resistance group named Résistance-Fer from February 1943 onwards. He was arrested by the Gestapo on 25 June 1944.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.