The philosopher, writer and academic Michel Serres died on Saturday June 1 at the age of 88, reports FRANCE 24.
His publishing house Le Pommier made the announcement on Saturday evening. “He died peacefully at 7pm, surrounded by family,” said his editor Sophie Bancquart.
Serres was an extremely prolific writer and public figure in France, and was elected to the Académie française – a highly selective and somewhat grand French institution that issues edicts on the proper usage of the French language.
Serres was born in 1930 in Agen, a town situated in the south-west of France between Bordeaux and Toulouse. He graduated from France’s elite university, the École Normale Supérieure, with a degree in philosophy in 1955, after having studied at a naval academy.
He worked as a naval officer for a few years before becoming an assistant professor in philosophy at the same faculty as Michel Foucault.