His mother was born Gilberte Tordjman[1] and his father, Edmond Enthoven, was a businessman who made his fortune in real estate and cinema management.
His family was linked to the Oranese notably with philosopher André Bénichou, director of the Descartes course which many French academics attended during the Algerian War.
The latter noticed him among the heads of the class and made him meet Gabriel Marcel but especially Pierre Boutang whose influence plunged him for a time into "self-hatred".
Falling under the spell of the normalien, he presented him in the autumn of 1974 to his friend Gilles Hertzog,[3] who thus participated in the life of the ephemeral daily L'Imprévu (January–February 1975).
Despite the failure of Bernard-Henri Lévy's daily, the trio's friendship grew stronger around him to the point of appearing to be a true "sibling"[4] where Jean-Paul Enthoven would, in his own words, be "Bernard's Minister of the Interior, and Gilles, his State Secretary for Foreign Affairs".
Close to Maurice Clavel - whom he occasionally replaces for his television column - he is nonetheless much appreciated by the editor of the newspaper who consults him for the choice of a word in his editorial[7] or the ongoing debates in the Parisian microcosm.
Witness at his wedding (like Gilles Hertzog), having breakfast every Saturday morning with him, he shares his passions as his concern for aesthetic appearance.
Jean-Paul Enthoven, divorced from Corinne Pécas, is today the husband of the Italian-Argentine journalist Patricia Della Giovampaola,[10] widow of Rodolphe de Belzunce d'Arenberg.