François Simiand

Who was François Simiand?

François Joseph Charles Simiand was a French sociologist and economist best known as a participant in the Année Sociologique. As a member of the French Historical School of economics, Simiand predicated a rigorous factual and statistical basis for theoretical models and policies. His contribution to French social science was recognized in 1931 when, at the age of 58, he was elected to the faculty of the Collège de France and accepted the chair in labor history.

Simiand's career was unusual. Like many destined to become influential academics in France, he entered the École Normale Supérieure and graduated in philosophy at the top of his class in 1896. However, he quickly became interested in law and economics and submitted a thesis on the wages of coal miners in France to the faculty of law rather than becoming an academic. As a result, he foreclosed forever the possibility of a prominent university appointment. Thus in 1901 he became the librarian for the French Ministries of Commerce and Labor, a post he held until the outbreak of World War I.