Francois-Henri de Virieu

François-Henri de Virieu, marquis de Virieu (18 December 1931 – 27 October 1997) was a French journalist and television presenter.

François-Henri de Virieu was born in Paris, son of the marquis Xavier de Virieu (1898–1953), colonel who was known for his acts of resistance during the Maquis du Vercors, and of Marie-Françoise de Brugière de Barante (1906–2004). He graduated with a degree of agricultural engineering at the École supérieure d'agricultures d'Angers. Five centuries before, Jean de Fay, seigneur de Virieu, one of his ancestors, was already interested in agriculture and accepted to convert to Roman Catholicism to protect the Italian immigrant Pierre Benay who imported from Bologne silk mills for the weavers of Lyon. François-Henri de Virieu comes from a very ancient family of the French nobility. His is also the direct descendant of François Henri, comte de Virieu (1754–1793).

François-Henri de Virieu began as an advisor for agricultural cooperatives. He became in 1956 an editor-in-chief for publications of the Centre d'Études des Techniques Agricoles. He was attached at the Institut d'Organisation Scientifique du Travail Agricole as an agricultural advisor. As a great-grandson of one of the founders Le Pèlerin, he presents himself at La Croix, but despite the great welcome of Jean Gélamur, he prefers to attempt his chance at Le Monde where the contact with Hubert Beuve-Méry is promoted due to the same belonging of this one at the same resistance field of the one that belonged his father.