September 7, 2001

France Takes Its Intellectuals to Heart, Even as They Doubt Themselves

By LOIS OPPENHEIM

Shortly after George W. Bush was sworn in, The New York Times published an open letter to Bill Clinton in which the author, a senior research fellow at the French National Center for Scientific Research at the Sorbonne, invited him to run for the presidency of France. "Under Section 5 of Article 21-19 of the French civil code," Patrick Weil wrote, "citizens of states or territories over which France has ever exercised sovereignty or extended a mandate or protectorate may apply immediately for

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