Founded by Pierre Nora[1] and Marcel Gauchet, and associated with French left-wing politics,[2] it was characterised as the "single most influential intellectual periodical" of late-twentieth-century France.
[3] The first issue of Le Débat appeared on the day of the funeral of Jean-Paul Sartre.
As editor, Pierre Nora announced that the review would exemplify a new, post-partisan, role for French intellectuals: free from commitment to revolutionary politics, they would concentrate on the exercise of 'reflective judgement'.
[5] Past editors include Raymond Aron, Georges Dumézil, François Jacob, Michel Foucault, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, François Furet and Jacques Le Goff.
According to Christopher Caldwell, the magazine had fallen into disrepute with younger left-wing intellectuals, who disparaged the French tradition of egalitarianism and who rejected the criticism of U.S.-style identity politics represented in Le Débat as reactionary.