Jules Régis Debray

Debray, Régis (b. 1941). French intellectual and novelist. After studying at the École Normale Supérieure under Althusser, he travelled widely in Latin America, studying revolutionary strategies and eventually accepting a philosophy chair in Havana. He joined Che Guevara's guerillas in Bolivia, was arrested in 1967, and spent three years in prison. Debray has written prolifically, reformulating Marxist political theory, and in Le Pouvoir intellectuel en France (1979) and Le Scribe (1980) analysing the relation between intellectuals, the media, and the state. He was appointed political adviser to President Mitterrand in 1981. His novels, including La Neige brûle (1977), draw on his Latin American experiences and explore the connection between personal relations and political commitment.

— Michael Kelly

Debray, Jules Régis (zhül rāzhēs' dəbrā') , 1940–, French journalist and government official. He went to Cuba, taught philosophy at the Univ. of Havana, and, after lengthy conversations with Fidel Castro, wrote Revolution in the Revolution? (1967), a handbook on guerrilla warfare that offered a philosophical justification for the use of violence. In Apr., 1967, Debray was captured in Bolivia while accompanying a guerrilla force under Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Tried by a military tribunal, he first insisted that he had accompanied the guerrillas only as a journalist, but then abandoned his defense after learning of the capture and death of Guevara. He was sentenced (1967) to 30 years in prison. Such notables as Charles de Gaulle, Pope Paul VI, André Malraux, and Jean-Paul Sartre petitioned for his release, and he was pardoned in Dec., 1970. He sought refuge in Chile, where he wrote The Chilean Revolution (1972) after interviews with Salvador Allende. Later he became an adviser on foreign affairs to François Mitterrand and from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s held a number of official posts in the French president's office.