(Blida, Algeria, 1920). A French journalist and writer, he is founder and executive director of Le Nouvel Observateur and deemed to be one of Europe's most influential intellectuals. Of Jewish origins, he studied in Algeria and Paris where he obtained a degree in Philosophy. During the Second World War he was a sergeant-major in the Leclerc Division and participated in the campaigns of Normandy and Alsace and in the liberation of Paris. He has taught in the universities of Paris and Oran (Algeria) and played an outstanding role in French cultural life in the latter half of the twentieth century. He has written for Express, the US publication The New Republic and Le Monde and, in 1964, he and André Gorz founded Le Nouvel Observateur, of which he has been director since 1978. In 2004 he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Communication and the Humanities.