Léo Ferré (24 August 1916 – 14 July 1993) was a Monegasque poet, composer and a dynamic and controversial live performer whose career in France dominated the years after the Second World War until his death. He released some forty albums over this period, composing the music and the majority of the lyrics. He released many hit singles, particularly between 1960 and the mid-seventies. Some of his songs have become classics of the French chanson repertoire, such as Avec le temps, C’est extra, Jolie Môme or Paris canaille.

Along with Serge Gainsbourg, Jacques Brel and Georges Brassens, he is considered one of the greatest French language singer-songwriters of all time, but unlike Brel and Gainsbourg, or even Charles Aznavour, his songs are very little known in the English-speaking world. Ferré was an anarchist; he may be the greatest French protest singer ever.