Le Lisp was developed in the 1980s by a team led by Jerome Chailloux at Inria, the French national computer science laboratory. It was developed as the result of the need for a small, portable, efficient language for a VLSI design system. It ran on most major computer systems including SunOS, Solaris, Mac II, Apollo, Decstation, Vax, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Bull, PS/2, and of course major 386 systems (Windows, Solaris, Linux, macOS, FreeBSD).
It was marketed by several companies throughout Europe, including ILOG, Bull, the Sema Group and Eligis. Its technical evolution was assured by ILOG and INRIA until 2000 and by Eligis until 2020.