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Régis Debray is a French intellectual, journalist, government official and professor.
Regis Debray studied at the Ecole Normale Superieur and became "agrégé de philosophie" in 1965.
In the 1960s he was a professor of philosophy at the University of Havana, and a friend of Che Guevara as a young man in the 1960s. He later wrote a book entitled Revolution in the Revolution?. This book critiqued the tactical and strategic doctrines then prevailing among militant socialist movements in Latin America, and acted as a handbook for guerilla warfare. When Guevara was captured in Bolivia, 1967, Debray (also in Bolivia at the time) was imprisoned, convicted of having been part of Guevara's guerilla group and sentenced to 30 years in prison, but was released 1970 after an international campaign for his release which included Jean-Paul Sartre and André Malraux.
He sought refuge in Chile, where he wrote The Chilean Revolution (1972) after interviews with Salvador Allende.
Debray returned to France in 1973. Following the election of Président François Mitterrand, in 1981, he became an adviser of the Président on foreign affairs. In this capacity he developed a policy that sought to increase France's freedom of action in the world, decrease dependence on the United States, and promote closeness with the former colonies. He was also involved in the development of the government's official ceremonies and recognition of the bicentennial of the French Revolution. Until the mid-1990s he held a number of official posts in France.
Founder of the discipline of médiologie or "mediology", which attempts to scientifically study mass media and power.
Debray was recently in the news for having come out in favor of the French ban on headscarves for female Muslim students in the public schools.
External link
- Personal website (http://www.regisdebray.com/)fr:Régis Debray