The New Philosophes

The political perversity of the French is often infuriating. It has been some time since their politicians have labored for a year without arousing great heaves of indignation from the other side of the Atlantic. It has been nearly as long since their intellectuals have provided any consolation; Sartre babbling his defense of the Russians has been the standard fare.

Now, just as a goodly portion of American newspapers are printing hymns to the wonders of Eurocommunism, along comes a group of young French writers, billing themselves as “Les Nouveaux Philosophes,” who have arrested the attention of France by denouncing the Left. To make the matter more perplexing, the writers are all alumni of May 1968—Marxist barricade-mounters, to be exact. Their discovery of anti-Communism has engineered a furor that has spread throughout all the major French newspapers. Not a week passes in which Le Figaro, Le Monde, or one of the other giants of the press does not publish some apoplectic denunciation of the upstarts. The Left is crying betrayal, the Right cannot understand why the heretics retain their antipathy to Gaullism. The writers most notable for their ill-temper have been Marxist professors from Paris and the provinces; they seem genuinely shocked by their pupils’ rejection of the true faith. The revolt of the New Philosophes promises to become one of the great issues in the National Assembly elections scheduled for early next year.

MR

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Mitchell S. Ross

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The political perversity of the French is often infuriating. It has been some time since their politicians have labored for a year without arousing great heaves of indignation from the other side of the Atlantic. It has been nearly as long since their intellectuals have provided any consolation; Sartre babbling his defense of the Russians has been the standard fare.

Now, just as a goodly portion of American newspapers are printing hymns to the wonders of Eurocommunism, along comes a group of young French writers, billing themselves as “Les Nouveaux Philosophes,” who have arrested the attention of France by denouncing the Left. To make the matter more perplexing, the writers are all alumni of May 1968—Marxist barricade-mounters, to be exact. Their discovery of anti-Communism has engineered a furor that has spread throughout all the major French newspapers. Not a week passes in which Le Figaro, Le Monde, or one of the other giants of the press does not publish some apoplectic denunciation of the upstarts. The Left is crying betrayal, the Right cannot understand why the heretics retain their antipathy to Gaullism. The writers most notable for their ill-temper have been Marxist professors from Paris and the provinces; they seem genuinely shocked by their pupils’ rejection of the true faith. The revolt of the New Philosophes promises to become one of the great issues in the National Assembly elections scheduled for early next year.