Jacques Joseph Victor Higelin (18 October 1940 – 6 April 2018) was a French pop singer who rose to prominence in the early 1970s. Early in his career, many of Higelin's songs were effectively blacklisted from French radio because of his controversial left-wing political beliefs and his association with left-wing advocacy groups.
Higelin was born on 18 October 1940. His father, Paul, a railway worker and musician of Alsatian descent, introduced his two sons to various forms of music, while his mother, Renée, of Belgian descent, raised them both.
Higelin's entertainment career began at age 14, when he left school to work as a stunt double. While playing a number of minor roles in motion pictures, Higelin was taught to play the guitar by Henri Crolla, a French-Italian jazz guitarist and a composer of film scores. By the early 1960s, Higelin was attending the René Simon drama school, where he won the François Perier award.