French Literature Reviews - 2026

A. Badiou, A. Finkielkraut, L'Explication: Conversation with Aude Lancelin
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas

Alain Badiou and Alain Finkielkraut

L'Explication: Conversation with Aude Lancelin

Lignes

176 pp.

ISBN: 978-2-35526-052-0

17 euros

Publisher's description:

The two "adversaries" brought together here represent, in the debate of ideas, two irreconcilable visions. Everything in their respective stances separates them: Alain Badiou, the thinker of a renewed communism, and Alain Finkielkraut, the despondent observer of the loss of values. The passionate conversation resulting from their meeting—initiated by Aude Lancelin—often takes on the highly spirited tone of a "reckoning," touching upon the debate over national identity, Judaism and Israel, May '68, as well as the return to favor of the idea of communism. However, this volume is not merely the sum of their disagreements. For ultimately, neither is satisfied with the state of our society or the direction in which its political representatives persist in steering it. If their strong, distinct voices briefly adopt a nearly identical tone, it is on this point alone.

This exceptional face-to-face encounter highlights the main fault lines of French politics and thought, which the political-media arena usually exposes only to obscure them further. Herein lies the double meaning of the title "L'Explication": a spirited conversation where distant or irreconcilable viewpoints clash, alongside a joint effort toward clarification.

Alain Badiou and Alain Finkielkraut embody two diametrically opposed political and theoretical visions. Their meetings, held at the invitation of Aude Lancelin for the Nouvel Observateur and subsequently to prepare this volume, focused primarily on the government's decision to make "national identity" a campaign theme once again (a decision championed by Éric Besson which, as is well known, led to debates organized in prefectures in late 2009 and early 2010). Regarding identity, Alain Finkielkraut belongs to the camp of those who believe that France is facing a profound crisis, which, in his view, takes the form of an "abhorrence [...] of France among a significant portion of the new French population," adding preemptively: "One must live sheltered from reality to consider this militant Francophobia a response to state racism or the stigmatization of foreigners." For Alain Badiou, on the contrary, it is the government's hijacking of the debate on "national identity" that is worrying. He sees in it the implementation of an unjustifiable, nauseating policy that validates the term "transcendental Pétainism," which he used as early as 2007 in his book De quoi Sarkozy est-il le nom? to describe Nicolas Sarkozy's politics. For, as he asserts today, "a government-organized discussion on 'French identity' can only be a search for administrative criteria for 'who is a good Frenchman and who is not'."

The rest of their conversation highlights the fact that the concept of identity, even when removed from the immediate issue of this famous "national debate" (which has since fizzled out), continues to sharply divide the two opponents. This is true for each of the other political themes addressed in the volume: May '68; Judaism and Israel; the idea of communism. Alain Finkielkraut's thinking is indeed organized around his professed loyalty to a singular sense of belonging transmitted by cultural heritage or the Republican school (a unified identity, based on the perpetuation of traditional referents and respect for a number of symbols that are allegedly flouted today: the flag, the national anthem, the authority of teachers, etc.). Alain Badiou opposes this conception, which he deems "narrow-minded," with the following view: identity (assuming one accepts the category) must, in his view, be immediately transmissible in a universal way, resulting from a personal choice and, above all, kept separate from the State. In essence, politics must be able to accommodate multiple identities and organize independently of national borders. While Alain Finkielkraut deplores "the loss of things" (and thus wishes for a return to an old order), he also grieves over "the devastation of the earth, [the] progress of ugliness, [the] destruction of the faculty of attention, [the] disappearance of silence, [and] the entry into the technical age of the liquefaction of everything." Alain Badiou, meanwhile, puts forward a vision of an open world where the new development is that "the general proletarianization of the world has extended beyond our continent [...] while the world today is everywhere in the hands of extremely narrow financial and media oligarchies that impose a rigid model of development, doing so at the cost of incessant crises and wars." In such a world, he asserts, "believing that the key issue is whether or not girls should wear headscarves seems downright extravagant."

Writer, philosopher, and professor emeritus at the École normale supérieure (rue d'Ulm), Alain Badiou recently published Éloge de l'amour (Flammarion, 2009).

Alain Finkielkraut is a professor at the École polytechnique. He hosts the show "Répliques" on France Culture. He recently published Un coeur intelligent (Stock/Flammarion, 2009).

Aude Lancelin is a journalist at the Nouvel Observateur. She published Les Philosophes et l'amour (with M. Lemonnier, Plon, 2008).

This volume captures a pivotal moment in contemporary French intellectual history, illustrating the deep ideological divisions that have shaped the country's public discourse since the late twentieth century. Alain Badiou represents the radical left tradition, rooted in the revolutionary heritage of May '68 and a universalist, neo-communist philosophy. Conversely, Alain Finkielkraut embodies a conservative republicanism, heavily influenced by a concern for cultural transmission, national heritage, and the perceived decline of traditional institutions like the school system. By bringing these two influential figures into direct dialogue, the book maps the essential fault lines of modern French political thought.

Readers interested in political philosophy, French society, and the role of intellectuals in public life will find this exchange highly illuminating. The text addresses fundamental questions about the nature of citizenship, the definition of national identity, and the challenges of globalization. It clarifies key concepts such as universalism versus particularism and explores how historical events continue to influence contemporary debates. Ultimately, L'Explication serves as an accessible yet rigorous introduction to the major philosophical conflicts of our time, offering valuable insights for students and scholars of modern European politics and culture.