Letters

摘要

Your review of a book on French intellectualism asks what is it about the French that makes them speak and think like this ("They think, therefore they are", June 13th)? The answer is that they don't. Disappointing as it may be to Anglo-Saxons, the French do not sit around shooting the breeze about Derrida, Barthes and Foucault in the Cafe de Flore. Most of them have never heard of these luminaries. They do not even have any time for Thomas Piketty.Just because such names are dropped by the media-politico microcosm do not assume that anyone pays any attention. That is what is called here: prendre ses desirs pour des realties.