The French term intellectuels first came into common usage during the Dreyfus affair, when it was applied by Clemenceau to those ‘men of ideas, scholarship and creativity’, such as Seignobos and Anatole France, who signed a manifesto in support of Zola's article ‘J'accuse’. Then as now, the term could be two-edged, attracting the scorn of Barrès among others. Although the concept might be applied retrospectively, without too great distortion, to such groups as the philosophers of the Enlightenment or to renowned academics like Michelet, it is most often used of 20th-c. groups or individuals and usually implies a high level of formal education. French intellectuals have often taken full advantage of the privileged position of philosophy within the school curriculum. But the term also bears the mark of its origins: it tends to imply both a certain collective identity, often created by membership of institutions such as the universities or the École Normale Supérieure, and a willingness, sometimes interpreted as a duty, publicly to express opinions on issues of the time [See Engagement]. Benda, in La Trahison des clercs, argued by contrast that it was not the role of this educated ‘clerisy’ to descend into the forum, but his advice was mostly honoured in the breach: Barthes later described the intellectual as ‘à mi-chemin entre le militant et l'écrivain’. Examples of self-conscious collective action by intellectuals, apart from the petitions signed for and against Dreyfus, are the anti-fascist committee in the 1930s and the petitions against the Algerian War. Although historically more associated with the Left than with the Right, French intellectuals have ranged across the political spectrum [see Existentialism; Marxism; Occupation and Resistance; Nouveaux Philosophes]. The growth of the broadcast media and the expansion of higher education have lately blurred the edges of what was once an identifiable (and largely male) élite.
[Sian Reynolds]
