Commentaire

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Commentaire is a French quarterly magazine, created in 1978 by Raymond Aron and Jean-Claude Casanova. Aron's previous journal venture, started in 1970 and titled Contrepoint, had been terminated in 1976 following disagreements among its founders and its owner Patrick Devedjian. In a wide-ranging 2008 interview, Casanova described the decision to create Commentaire as having been made in late 1977 and involving, besides Aron and himself, a group of common friends that included Annie Kriegel, Jean Baechler, Alain Besançon, François Bourricaud, and Kostas Papaïoannou. The journal's motto, a quote from Pericles, was suggested by Papaioannou: Il n’y a pas de bonheur sans liberté, ni de liberté sans vaillance ("there can be neither happiness without liberty, nor liberty without courage"). Pierre Manent was the author of a manifesto explaining the journal's purpose in the first issue. Among the journal's avowedly liberal inspirations, Casanova cited Montesquieu, Benjamin Constant, Alexis de Tocqueville, Élie Halévy, and Aron himself. The journal relies largely on volunteer work and a small administrative staff. In 2008, it printed 6,000 copies and had 3,800 subscribers, the rest being sold in bookstores and news shops. A specific feature is the abundance of selected quotes in each of the journal's issues. A section titled sans commentaire ("no comment") includes involuntary comical quotes, often from political leaders or ideological commentators. In 2017, Commentaire made all its past published articles available online. Like its center-left peer Esprit, it is self-published and not dependent on a large publishing house.