I just learned that Paul Deheuvels died last week. He was head of the statistics department at Université Pierre & Marie Curie when I was a lecturer there (1987-1992). And a professor of statistics and probability there for his entire career, from 1974 to 2013. While we were working on completely different topics, and had divergent political views, we kept an amicable connection throughout the years, as we were living close enough to meet once in a while at the local farmers’ market and have a quick chat. When I was considering my options for pursuing a PhD, while writing a Master thesis on commutative Lie algebras with his father, René Deheuvels, he was one of the people who offered to supervise me (on a topic related with empirical processes, which were his forte). Later, he suggested I wrote a very short introduction to Bayesian statistics in the Que sais-je? collection (where he published three books) and, when my manuscript was found too theoretical, he proposed to publish an expanded version in the Economica collection, which ended up being the French version of The Bayesian Choice. I also remember a very kind email he sent me while I was recovering from my climbing accident, in 2013, as a fellow climber. (For a long while, he would drive to Fontainebleau once or twice a week for bouldering.) As alluded (to) above, Deheuvels’ political views were very conservative, with a proximity to the far-right Club de l’Horloge and a mix of vieille France traditionalism and libertarianism positions. For sure, he never was shy from embarking in controversies, from defending Allègre’s climato-scepticism to backing Séralini’s controversial study on the cancerogenic effects of Mosanto’s transgenic maize.
Archive for Bourg-la-Reine
Paul Deheuvels (1948-2026)
Posted in Books, Mountains, University life with tags Bayesian Choice, Bayesian statistics, Book, bouldering, Bourg-la-Reine, climatosceptic, climbing accident, Club de l'Horloge, Economica, empirical process, Fontainebleau, functional estimation, Jussieu, Monsanto, obituary, Paris, Paris 6, Paul Deheuvels, Que sais-je?, The Bayesian Choice, thumb, transgenic corn, UMPC, Université Pierre et Marie Curie on February 5, 2026 by xi'annoctureine 2023 [16/6/23, 20h40, 10k, 41’54”, 29⁰, 48th/295, 1st M5/11]
Posted in pictures, Running with tags 10k, BBQ, Bourg-la-Reine, Evariste Galois, Grand Masters, M5M, race, urban race on June 24, 2023 by xi'an
Noctureine 2023
Posted in Statistics with tags 10k, Bourg-la-Reine, Evariste Galois, Hauts de Seine, Noctureine, road race, urban race on June 16, 2023 by xi'an
Noctureine [5K – 21:13 – 15/86]
Posted in Running with tags 5K, Bourg-la-Reine, Hauts de Seine, long distance running, road race on June 23, 2022 by xi'an
my neighbourhood in the New Yorker
Posted in Books, pictures, Travel with tags 1968, Bourg-la-Reine, France, Kapital, Kenilworth, May 68, Paris, Paris suburbs, sociology, The New Yorker on October 14, 2020 by xi'an
While I was reading (part of) a recent issue of The New Yorker over breakfast, I was surprised to find my neighbourhood city of Bourg-la-Reine (twin city, Kenilworth!) mentioned in a tribune! It was about interviewing the local authors of a boardgame called Kapital! which is presented there as a form of (French) anti-Monopoly, authors who were both CNRS researchers in sociology until they retired. And who produced (even) more militant ouput since then, including this boardgame. The (unintended?) fun in the tribune is the opposition between the May 68 style class warfare denounced by the authors and their apparently well-off conditions (no BBQ in the street there!).
