Henri Georges de France (7 September 1911 Paris – 29 April 1986 Paris) was a pioneering French television inventor. His inventions include the 819 line French standard, the SECAM color system, and was apparently behind the HD-MAC high-definition standard. On December 6, 1931, De France founded the Compagnie Générale de Télévision in Le Havre, making television sets with a vertical definition of 60 lines. In February 1932, De France made several transmissions over a distance of 7km from the "Radio-Normandie" station in Fécamp. These signals were received by a few people located at over 100km away. In October 1932, he achieved a definition of 120 lines. In 1956 he patented the SECAM color television system. On October 1, 1967 at 2:15pm CET, la deuxième chaîne switched from black and white to color using SECAM. De France is interred at Jarnac, the same town where former president François Mitterrand is buried. The public passage near France Télévisions buildings in Paris is named Esplanade Henri de France.
