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News

News: January/February 2008

Intellectuals vs Politicians • Philosophers are weird • Babies evaluate behaviour — News reports by Sue Roberts

Wisdom and Sarkasm

President Sarkozy clashed with France’s revered intellectual elite in December, dismissing critics of his human rights record as “coffee-sipping windbags who prefer talk to results.” This broadside is said to have been aimed at the philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, who had denounced a proposed visit to France by Col. Gaddafi. Interviewed by Britain ’s Daily Telegraph, Levy responded: “Every time a French politician is embarrassed by an avalanche of criticism he lays into the intellectuals.” Referring to Sarkozy’s success in securing the release of six foreign medics held in a Libyan jail last year, Levy quoted Sartre in saying “the end never justifies the means.

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