Jean-Louis Michel is a French

French people

The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 oceanographer and engineer.

He discovered subsea intervention in 1969 with the French Navy

French Navy

The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...

 as an officer at the Groupe des Bathyscaphes headed by Captain Georges Houot. In 1985, Jean-Louis Michel (along with marine geologist Robert Ballard

Robert Ballard

Robert Duane Ballard is a former United States Navy officer and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is most noted for his work in underwater archaeology. He is most famous for the discoveries of the wrecks of the RMS Titanic in 1985, the battleship Bismarck in 1989,...

) led a team of French and American explorers who found the wreckage of the RMS Titanic.