French Inventor of the smart card that made everything from modern driver's licenses to credit cards to mobile phone SIMs possible.
He worked as a clerk and then moved into journalism.
He received little international recognition for embedding microchips in cards, but it made him a national hero in France.
He married his wife Stephany Stolin in 1976. They had two daughters, Marianne and Julia.
He was a big Woody Allen fan, and he code-named his smart card project TMR after the film Take the Money and Run from 1969.
