Marcel Gauchet

Marcel Gauchet (ɡoʃɛ; born 1946) is a French historian, philosopher, and sociologist. He is professor emeritus of the Centre de recherches politiques Raymond Aron at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and head of the periodical Le Débat. Gauchet is one of France's most prominent contemporary intellectuals. He has written widely on such issues as the political consequences of modern individualism, the relation between religion and democracy, and the dilemmas of globalisation. Two of Gauchet's books have been translated into English, including The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion. Gauchet was awarded the Prix européen de l'essai, fondation Charles Veillon in 2018. As the son of a Gaullist railway worker and a Catholic seamstress, Gauchet received both a Catholic education and a republican one in the French public schooling system. In 1961, he attended the teacher training college of Saint-Lô, after which he pursued additional teaching qualifications for secondary schooling. In 1962, he met Didier Anger, who was an active member of a union movement created by educators. Through him, Gauchet met anti-Stalinist left militants, quite different from the communists who dominated the colleges that were training primary school teachers. Gauchet then came into contact with Socialisme ou Barbarie, a radical socialist journal also of an anti-Stalinian ideological orientation. In his first protest, he demonstrated against violent police repression during the Algerian war, in reaction to the so-called Charonne metro station scandal. He then joined the Lycée Henri-IV to prepare for the competitive entry exam into the École normale supérieure de Fontenay-Saint-Cloud. However, he decided to end his education before sitting the exam, and returned to the Manche department to take up teaching once again. Gauchet later resumed his higher education studies. From 1966 to 1971, under the guidance of Claude Lefort, his professor at the University of Caen Normandy, Gauchet wrote his DESA thesis on Freud and Lacan.