He was noted as a left-wing and Catholic thinker.
[1] Domenach was born in Lyon, where he studied at the Lycée du Parc.
[1] In 1949, he became an editor of Esprit, the literary and political journal of personalism and non-conformism founded in 1932 by Emmanuel Mounier.
He voluntarily retired from Esprit in 1977, at 54, and began writing and teaching at the university level.
[1] Opposed to torture during the Algerian War, he also held a meeting denouncing the 1961 Paris massacre.