Nouveaux Philosophes to Estates General 1977–1979 305
Today, neither among those philosophers who are in the slight-
est bit awake, nor among those who have even just a little bit
lost their innocence and have trained themselves to a degree of
discernment in these areas (publishing, the press, television),
would anybody dare to speak up for the vitality or rigour of
philosophy by referring to a big part, the major part, one might
say, of what has been for some time exhibited on the most
prominent shelves, what noisily claims to be philosophy in
every sort of studio. Since a relatively recent and very defi nite
date, the loudest speakers have been given the loudest loud-
speakers without (in the best cases) wondering why, all of a
sudden, newspaper columns and airwaves were being handed
over to them so that they could talk like this and say just that.^14A reply soon materialized. The Saturday afternoon and Sunday
morning were devoted to work in groups, but the Sunday afternoon
was taken up by a new plenary session meant to bring it all together
and reach some conclusions. It was during this session, chaired by
Jean-Luc Nancy, that a major incident was to occur.
Bernard-Henri Lévy arrived with a small group of friends, includ-
ing Dominique Grisoni, who in 1976 had brought out the collective
book Politiques de la philosophie to which Derrida has contributed,
together with Châtelet, Foucault, Lyotard, and Serres. By Lévy’s
own admission, they were not interested in the Haby Reform. They
had come to the Estates General spoiling for a fi ght. ‘Most of those
people had continually taken sides against me for two years,’ he
relates. ‘I considered them to be my enemies. I said to myself that
there were two diff erent ways of defending philosophy. This was
the theme of many of my interventions of that time. So I was at war
with the university system. And the university system paid me back
by being at total war with me.’^15 Dominique Grisoni was the fi rst to
move: he interrupted Derrida from the back of the hall. It was sug-
gested that he speak using a microphone, like the other participants,
but the audience, most of whom wanted to carry on with the pro-
ceedings as planned, immediately started to boo him. Since Grisoni
could not make himself heard, BHL tried to ‘avenge his comrade’. ‘I
came down and moved towards the podium. They tried to stop me
speaking. I wanted to get onto the podium to take the microphone,
and pushed my opponents out of the way. Derrida came down in
person to give them a hand, and we came to blows, like in the time
of his teenage brawls, and mine.’^16
After this moment of confusion, Jean-Luc Nancy announced that
‘Bernard-Henri Lévy can speak as soon as the assembly is ready to
hear him,’, but he had to insist that the people on the podium agree
to leave it. The following exchanges, which were recorded in the
volume published shortly afterwards, are worth quoting: