Jean-François Kahn

Jean-François Kahn was a French journalist and essayist.

Life and career

Family

Jean-François Kahn was born in the commune of Viroflay in Seine-et-Oise, a former department of France, on 12 June 1938 to Jewish father and a Catholic mother. Kahn had two brothers, geneticist Axel Kahn and chemist Olivier Kahn who were raised by his mother as opposed to him, who was raised by his father, after his parents separated in 1954. His father,, was of Alsatian Jewish origin, from a family from Bliesbruck who settled in Nancy after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. His father served as a teacher at the Godéchoux private school at the time. His mother, Camille Ferriot was daughter of a small wood industrialist and an antisemite teacher of Swiss German origins. His father died by suicide in 1970.
Having obtained a degree in history, he started work at a postal sorting office, then at a printing works. He soon moved into journalism and was sent to cover the war in Algeria, undertaking the journalistic investigation that became known as the ‘Ben Barka affair’. Kahn then worked as a reporter for Paris-Press, L'Express and Europe 1. He later moved to Le Monde as special correspondent for North Africa. In 1977, he became editor of the compilation of the ‘Nouvelles Littéraires’ and in 1983, was named editor of Matin de Paris. In 1984, he created L'Événement du Jeudi then in 1997, together with Maurice Szafran, started the weekly magazine, Marianne, where he was the editor in chief until 2007. He often wrote under the pseudonym of François Darras or Serge Maury.
Kahn took a clear position on many media subjects, including:

Denouncing economic liberalism in 1995.
Denouncing the intervention of NATO in Serbia in 1999.
Denouncing the American-led intervention in Iraq in 2003.
He adopted a positive position on the European Constitution in 2005 but denounced the failure of the press to provide a proper platform for those who opposed it.
In 2007, he actively supported UDF candidate François Bayrou for the presidency.
In 2011, he dismissed the allegations of sexual assault against Dominique Strauss-Kahn as un troussage de domestique. He later apologised and resigned from journalism.

Kahn also introduced the concept of Pensée unique.

Death

Kahn died on 22 January 2025, at the age 86 in Avallon. He was buried in the cemetery of Mussy-sur-Seine, Aube.

Partial bibliography

“God, How They Hated Him!”. 44. New York: Telos Press.La guerre civile, Seuil, 1982Et si on essayait autre chose?, Seuil, 1983Les Français sont formidables, Balland, 1987Esquisse d'une philosophie du mensonge, Flammarion, 1992Tout change parce que rien ne change, Fayard, 1994On prend les mêmes et on recommence, Grasset et Fasquelle, 1997Les poèmes politiques, Fayard, 1998Tout était faux, Fayard, 1998Demain la révolution, Flammarion, 1999Chacun son tour, Stock, 2000Complot contre la Démocratie, Denoël, 2000La pensée unique, Fayard, 2000Le retour de terre de Djid Andrew ; Critique de la raison capitaliste, Fayard, 2000Victor Hugo un révolutionnaire ; L'extraordinaire Metamorphose, Fayard 2001Moi, l'Autre et le loup, Fayard, 2001Les Rebelles, ceux et celles qui ont dit non, Plon, 2001Ce que Marianne en pense, éditions des Mille et une nuits, 2002Le camp de la guerre, Critique de la déraison impure, Fayard, 2004Dictionnaire incorrect, Plon, 2005Comme deux frères – mémoire et visions croisées, Stock, 2006Les bullocrates, Fayard, 2006