Lions was born in
Grasse in southern France. He attended
École normale supérieure in Paris in 1947 after being part of the
French Résistance in 1943 and 1944. Lions received his PhD under
Laurent Schwartz. He became a professor of mathematics at the
University of Nancy, the Faculty of Sciences of Paris, and the
École Polytechnique. In 1966 he sent an invitation to
Gury Marchuk, the soviet mathematician to visit Paris. This was hand delivered by
Général De Gaulle during his visit to
Akademgorodok in June of that year. He joined the prestigious
Collège de France as well as the French Academy of Sciences in 1973. In 1979, he was appointed director of the Institut National de la Recherche en Informatique et Automatique (
INRIA), where he taught and promoted the use of numerical simulations using finite elements integration. Throughout his career, Lions insisted on the use of mathematics in industry, with a particular involvement in the French space program, as well as in domains such as energy and the environment. This eventually led him to be appointed director of the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (
CNES) from 1984 to 1992. Lions was elected President of the
International Mathematical Union in 1991 and also received the
Japan Prize and the
Harvey Prize that same year. and numerous other foreign academies. Both father and son have received honorary doctorates from
Heriot-Watt University in 1986 and 1995 respectively. ==Books==