French director and Palme d'Or winner Laurent Cantet has died due to illness on Thursday morning. He was 63.

Cantet's agency, UBBA, has confirmed his death.

Cantet won Palme d'Or award for The Class (Entre les murs) at the Cannes Film Festival on 2008. The Class became the first French film to win the award since 1987. It also was nominated for Oscars under the category of Best Foreign Language Film.

Born in 1961 to schoolteacher parents in Melle in France, Laurent Cantent studied photography at a university in Marseille and graduated from the Institut des Hates Etudes Cinematographiques (IDHEC) in 1986. He worked in television at first, then assisted Marcel Ophuls for Veillees dd'armes (1994). Cantet also made short films in collaboration with film school colleagues.

Cantent made his first feature film Human Resources (Ressources humaines) in 1999. His last film was Arthur Rambo (2021).