Guy Sitbon, born Isaac Shetboun in Monastir, former correspondent for Le Monde in Tunis and The New York Times, co-founded La Nef, Le Nouvel Observateur, Le Matin de Paris, Le Magazine Littéraire and Jeune Afrique.

At 30, you traveled without a passport and worked without appointments. When Claude Perdriel, who did not have a journalistic mindset, invited you to join Le Nouvel Observateur, including in unexpected roles such as commercial director, was it precisely this ability to step outside the usual framework—to move between writing, fieldwork, and strategy—that shaped your place in this editorial venture?

GS: The founder was Jean Daniel. Claude Perdriel supported him; they were close. I had covered Algeria’s independence from 1962 to 1964 before I arrived in France looking for work and went straight to L’Express, then the leading left-leaning publication. Françoise Giroud and Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber recognized my byline from Le Monde and hired me immediately. At the time, tensions grew between Jean Daniel and Servan-Schreiber—partly political, partly personal. Jean Daniel embodied a revolutionary, anti-capitalist left. In the early ’60s, that was the norm. The French left only began embracing capitalism in the 1990s.

Claude Perdriel, like Françoise Sagan, preferred being deceived to being distrustful: his partners were taken by his editors-in-chief; he was replaced at the last minute by André Rousselet during François Mitterrand’s 1974 campaign; or manipulated by the criminal jealousy of his brother Roland, who did not hesitate to use his name to take out fraudulent loans. Was there also rivalry with Jacques Attali ?

GS: Yes, but it was about influence, not ideology. Le Nouvel Observateur remained editorially independent. Perdriel stayed largely removed from the newsroom. My role as commercial director was a way to integrate me more deeply without direct interference. I handled distribution and visual identity. With Robert Delpire, we created bold covers, sometimes bypassing Jean Daniel for artistic reasons, and introducing circles and squares in the style of Jasper Johns, the father of Pop Art. It had to do also with the omnipresence of Folon, who produced a considerable number of covers.

You later created Le Magazine Littéraire.

GS: Yes, with Jean-Jacques Brochier, who arrived slightly later, having just been released from prison. Strangely, Dominique de Roux, the somewhat controversial publisher, was his close friend. He had a brother who was looking for work, and I hired him as an office assistant in the editorial team. We were a bande de salauds. I........

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