Bernard-Henri Lévy is a LeftBank intellectual with a personal fortune

Scandal on
the Seine
H
e is a French intellectual enjoyed the added advantages of his appealing
known for his suave looks. The Frenchman he most closely
good looks and inherited resembled back in the 1970s was the beetlewealth. Indeed, Bernard- browed romantic singer Charles Aznavour.
Henri Lévy is so famous Indeed, you can cut out a picture of Aznavour’s
in France that he is features, place it over a picture of BHL and
referred to merely by hardly tell the difference. And his signature
the acronym BHL. She sartorial uniform of black suit and white shirt
is an Anglo-Irish aristocrat and fashion muse does not come cheap. Both are from Charvet,
known for her outlandish but imaginative taste a swanky French tailor. Those shirts are
(and inherited wealth). BHL once told Daphne specially designed so that their collars never
Guinness: ‘You’re no longer a person, you’re curl and they cost £265 each.
a concept.’ Until recently, she was the lady he
Francis Wheen, the biographer of Karl Marx,
spent time with when he was away from Paris. watched BHL in action at an Intelligence
But now her status may be about to change, for Squared debate in London. ‘His opponent,
BHL has let it be known that he is parting from Christopher Hitchens, made a point of thankhis wife of two decades, the French film actress ing all the men who had attended because
and singer Arielle Dombasle. Will Daphne they would serve as a counterweight to all the
step up to the role of official consort? And women swooning over BHL. He’s everybody’s
how will Parisian society greet
fantasy of what a French intellecher – with froideur, indifférence
tual should look like. He is vain
‘You’re no
or rapturous enthusiasm?
and self-regarding, of course. He
longer a
In Paris, of course, it will always
already had a torrid love life and
person, you’re having a British aristocrat as a
be BHL who looms larger. He has
been part of French public life
mistress adds to that. He’s not an
a concept,’
ever since his appearance in 1977,
ivory-tower person, he travels to
BHL told
as a young academic attacking the
dangerous places – he was at the
Daphne
inherent corruption of Marxism,
siege of Sarajevo, for example. All
on the television discussion
French intellectuals are thought
programme Apostrophes. You can find bootleg to be Marxist, but BHL isn’t from the tradition
video footage of this historic moment on the of Sartre. He’s non-Marxist and non-Maoist.’
internet. Wearing a white open-neck shirt, its
Lévy was born in Algeria in 1948, but moved
collar spread across the lapels of his black to Paris with his parents a few months later.
jacket, with his chest exposed and a lit His father André, a Sephardic Jew, had fought
cigarette in his hand, this nouveau philosophe with the Free French Forces in Italy during the
cut a dashing figure. His flowing locks, Second World War and afterwards founded a
aquiline nose, delicate features, dark eyes, company, Becob, which specialised in importperfect complexion and cool, serene gaze put ing rare African woods. Bernard-Henri was
one in mind of a French aristocrat at the court educated at the university for the French elite,
of Louis XIV rather than a Left Bank socialist the Ecole Normale Supérieur, where he studied
intellectual. The programme moderator’s under the philosophers Louis Althusser and
daughter reported back to her father that all Jacques Derrida. But from early on he felt the
her friends thought the 28-year-old Lévy was need to be engaged in the world; his first book
the new Rimbaud, the late 19th-century poet (he has written more than 30) was a work of
and libertine who achieved renown at an even reportage about the Bangladesh civil war.
younger age. The myth of BHL was born.
Through his books and newspaper columns,
Although the toad-like visage of Jean-Paul BHL has adopted many courageous and nuanced
Sartre, the ultimate French public intellectual, positions, variously attacking the French
never deterred female admirers, BHL has predilections for fascism and anti-Semitism on
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the Right and for ideological conformity and
anti-Americanism on the Left. He has spoken
up against fascism in Argentina, communism
in Poland, genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda,
and Islamic terrorists everywhere. He has
defended the state of Israel while pressing for a
Palestinian state, and he supported the war in
Iraq. He has lambasted the US government for
its pursuit of the director Roman Polanski over
a sex crime with a 13-year-old girl, arguing
that Polanski had already served a six-week
sentence 33 years ago, only fleeing the jurisdiction when the judge reneged on a deal.
A
fter his father’s death in 1995, BHL
ran the family wood-importing
business for a couple of years
before selling it for hundreds of
millions of francs to François
Pinault, the owner of Christie’s and Gucci.
According to Capital magazine, Lévy is among
the 100 richest people in France. He has a
lifestyle to match, with a Sri Lankan butler and,
since he has never passed his test, a chauffeur
to drive his Daimler. There is also a palatial,
fully staffed house in Marrakech.
His main job, the one he has held for the
longest time, since 1973, has been at the
publishing house Editions Grasset, where he
commissions books from leading public figures.
He has also benefited from the patronage of
politicians. A favourite of President Mitterand
for several years, he launched SOS Racisme, an
anti-racist body that was seen by some as a
means of garnering votes for the Socialist
party, and for which he was rewarded in 1991
with the chairmanship of the government
commission that hands out subsidies to French
film-makers, giving him considerable power
over his peers. Two years later, after courting
the conservative prime minister Edouard
Balladur, he was made chairman of the highbrow state TV channel Arte. His roles as
recipient or dispenser of patronage seem to
suit him equally well.
But there is a dark side to BHL. A biography
published in 2006 by two investigative journalists, entitled A French Impostor, challenged
his intellectual credentials and questioned his
g e t t y i m ag e s . r e x f e at u r e s . c a m e r a p r e s s . a l a n dav i d s o n . k e y s to n e f r a n c e . g o f f p h oto s . r e u t e r s . U r l i / s t i l l s / g a m m a- r a p h o / c a m e r a p r e s s
Bernard-Henri Lévy is a Left Bank intellectual with a personal fortune
and a perfectly coiffed mane, whose affair with the avant-garde aristocrat
Daphne Guinness has shocked le tout Paris. Christopher Silvester on an
intriguing tale of couture, philosophy, scorned wives and amour fou
Homme d’affaires,
clockwise from above:
Les derniers jours de
Charles Baudelaire
manuscript by
Bernard-Henri Lévy;
the wedding of
Daphne Guinness
and Spyros Niarchos
in Paris, 1987;
BHL and Daphne
Guinness in Nice, 2010;
BHL meets President
Jacques Chirac to
discuss Afghanistan at
the Elysée Palace, 2002
The name is Lévy,
Bernard-Henri Lévy,
clockwise from above:
BHL in Paris in 1979;
BHL on a diplomatic
mission to Afghanistan
in 2002; his future wife
Arielle Dombasle, in
1981; BHL and Arielle
at a Vanity Fair party
during the Cannes
Film Festival 2007;
on their wedding day
on the Côte d’Azur
in 1993
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After a month’s separation, and after he had poolside at the Beverly Hills Hotel – not exactly
hired a private investigator to check her out, where one goes if one intends to be discreet.
BHL began a surreptitious affair with Arielle Several more sightings followed, in Toronto,
– ‘Elevators and barmen were our only friends,’ London and New York, though significantly
each has said. It lasted seven years, until they not in Paris. At the beginning of this year,
eventually married in 1993. A few years later, David Patrick Columbia, who edits the New
she starred in a film Lévy had directed called York Social Diary website, noticed Daphne
Le Jour et La Nuit, with Alain Delon co-starring and BHL lunching at the Grill Room of the
as a character based partly on BHL, partly on Four Seasons Hotel in Manhattan. According
Arielle’s father and partly on Ernest Hemingway. to a witness seated at the neighbouring table,
It was a horror as far as the
the golden couple had stared at
French critics were concerned.
each other through sunglasses
The golden
The distinguished magazine
for a full five minutes before
couple stared
Cahiers du Cinema called it the
exchanging a word. Columbia
at each other
worst French film for decades
had already seen them a few
and BHL provoked laughter
months earlier at Michael’s, a
for a full five
when he tried to explain what
Midtown restaurant favoured
minutes
before
the film was about to an audiby media big-shots. On each
exchanging
ence at the Berlin Film Festival.
occasion they were a source of
‘Bernard and Arielle are where
fascination to the other patrons.
a word
fact and fiction meet,’ declared
‘People as clearly defined
the fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg. intellectually and fashion-wise as this couple,’
Today, the Paris-based American fashion Columbia wrote, ‘are rarely unaware of their
commentator Mary Deschamps sees them as surroundings.’ Only a couple of weeks ago they
‘the intellectual Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie both attended the Another Magazine dinner at
of France’. ‘He’s part of what is referred to as the Istancool Festival, which was held in the
la gauche caviar,’ she explains. ‘Meaning Left grounds of Istanbul’s Topkapi Palace. BHL
idealism but spending on bling-bling. He’s looked on admiringly as the ‘concept’ that is
greatly admired as a champion of many causes. Daphne went on stage to discuss the art of
She’s kind of a ditzy blonde, totally redone hat-making with Philip Treacy.
cosmetically. They’ve been together for years
‘Hopefully for her, he’s in love,’ says
and they were in all the magazines, but every- Deschamps. ‘In any case, it looks like yet
one sort of makes fun of them – the intellectual another display of trophy lovers. People are
and the blonde bombshell.’
going to be pretty cynical. It’s the classic story.
He’s dumped Arielle for a younger, prettier,
he new bombshell in BHL’s life, richer girl. It goes back to the King of France. If
Daphne Guinness, 42, is sometimes the King could do it, others could, too. But I
described as a brewery heiress, think this might mar his reputation as an
although her family have been intellectual. What will the French think? I don’t
more involved in ownership of think the French are going to think much.’
land and other assets for many years. She is
Some commentators I spoke to declined to
a peroxide blonde who has worn two dark offer an opinion about the change in BHL’s
badger stripes in her hair ever since her 1999 domestic arrangements, possibly because they
divorce from the Greek shipping heir Spyros feared upsetting him or Arielle or Daphne, or out
Niarchos, to whom she was married for 12 of the traditional Gallic respect for the privacy
years and with whom she has three children. of the bedchamber. One French commentator
She is said to have received £20 million in her would only say there was unlikely to be much of
divorce settlement in addition to her own a reaction in Paris because ‘the French still don’t
family money. Her mother was French and care about public figures’ private lives’. BHL is
counted the artists Salvador Dali and Marcel unlikely to be bothered either way. ‘I took the
Duchamp among her friends, while Daphne measure of the absurdity of the judgement of
prefers the world of haute couture fashion. Paris a long time ago,’ he once said. ‘Whether
With her slim figure, much-fêted poise and it’s good or bad, it’s the same either way.’
penchant for avant-garde creations, she was a
In his 2003 book about the murder in
muse to the late fashion designer Alexander Pakistan of the American journalist Daniel
McQueen and recently bought the entire Pearl, BHL wrote a novelistic passage in which
clothing collection of her fellow muse, the late he speculated about Pearl’s last thoughts about
Isabella Blow, rather than let it be auctioned by his wife. ‘He thinks of Mariane, that last night,
Christie’s. She has given her name to a Comme so desirable, so beautiful – what do women
des Garçons fragrance and has inspired a want, deep down? Passion? Eternity?’ BHL
make-up line. Her use of such words as ‘crikey’ and Daphne will no doubt have many years of
and ‘gosh’ in interviews betrays her upper- passionate interchange ahead, but perhaps she
class origins, but one interviewer, Jim Reginato should avoid adopting wifely status. The late
of American fashion magazine W, testified to Sir James Goldsmith, who for many years had
her innate style and intelligence, saying that a wife in London and a mistress in Paris, once
‘she does diamonds and particle physics’.
averred that a man who marries his mistress
In October 2008, the New York Post reported creates a job vacancy. Arielle should underthat BHL and Daphne had been ‘making out’ stand. After all, she was once the mistress.
T
g e t t y i m ag e s
ethics. His scholarship is sometimes dubious.
Years ago he was derided for suggesting that
Himmler had stood trial at Nuremberg six
months after his suicide and earlier this year
he was mocked for citing the 20th-century
philosopher Jean-Baptiste Botul in a book
about the 18th-century philosopher Immanuel
Kant – the trouble was that Botul and Botulism
were a satirical invention of literary journalist
Frédéric Pagès. A proposed indictment against
him for tax evasion was quashed by Nicolas
Sarkozy back when he was Minister of
Finance. Although BHL refused to endorse
Sarkozy for the presidency in 2007 – claiming
that he still considers the Left to be his famille
– he has always been careful to avoid directly
criticising him.
It is BHL’s private life that has burnished his
allure. By the late 1980s he was married to
his first wife but leading the life of a libertine,
sleeping with as many as three women in a
single night according to a friend quoted in a
magazine interview in 2003. He only requires
four hours of actual sleep. When his current
wife, Arielle Dombasle, first saw a picture of
him, by her own account she thought he was
Jesus Christ; and when he first met her, at a
book signing, he was, to use his own words,
‘thunderstruck’ by her beauty.
A strawberry blonde actress who was born
in America, Arielle’s father was a silk manufacturing heir from Lyon, who indulged his
interest in archaeology. After the premature
death of her mother, Arielle was raised by her
maternal grandparents in Mexico, where her
grandfather served as de Gaulle’s
ambassador. Her grandmother
was a poet who lived to the age of
101 and it is from her that Arielle
took her professional surname.
By the age of ten, she could drive
a car, water-ski, parachute and
scuba dive. Fluent in four
languages, she trained as a
classical singer in Paris but
switched to acting instead
and in the course of a
career that has encompassed more than 100 film
and TV roles, she has
worked with major
arthouse directors,
though
especially
with Eric Rohmer,
while also recording
several albums of
songs in different styles.
Two years after their
first meeting, during
which time BHL had
divorced his first and
married his second wife,
Arielle met him again
in Milan and they spent
a passionate night together.
She, too, was married –
The fourth Mme BHL?
Daphne Guinness,
to a society dentist some
June 2009
30 years her senior.