ing the recession-ridden summer of 1983, when Presi- dent Francois Mitterrand's two-year-old Socialist government was sagging in the opinion polls, the prestigious daily Le Monde took action. Its editors ran a series of front-page articles lamenting "the silence of the intellectuals."
Indeed, the lack of support for Mitterrand from Paris writers and thinkers was surprising. He not only had led the return to power of the Left, the historic home of the French intellectual, but, given his...