Jean-Paul Enthoven was born on January 11, 1949, in Mascara, near Oran, French Algeria, to a bourgeois Jewish family. His mother, Gilberte Tordjman, and father, Edmond Enthoven, a businessman, instilled in him a strong sense of morality and social responsibility.
Enthoven's family was close to the intellectual elite of Oran, including philosopher André Bénichou, who became a mentor to him. He was later introduced to Pierre Nora, who helped him when he became a boarder at Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux.
Enthoven attended the lycée Buffon and later the lycée Janson-de-Sailly, where he studied philosophy under Maurice Clavel. He was a top student and was noticed by Clavel, who introduced him to Gabriel Marcel and Pierre Boutang. However, Boutang's influence led Enthoven to experience a period of self-doubt.
After completing his secondary education, Enthoven studied at the Faculty of Letters at Paris-Sorbonne and the Faculté de droit de Paris. He earned a degree in history, a diploma from the Institute of Political Studies, and a DES in public law and political science.
Although Enthoven was drawn to the left, he missed the May 1968 events, preferring to focus on literature rather than ideological debates. He began working at Éditions Gallimard around 1971/1972, where he met Raymond Aron, who helped him move away from Marxism.
Enthoven became an assistant to Maurice Duverger at the Sorbonne in 1973 and later worked as an assistant at the university Paris I - Panthéon Sorbonne from 1973 to 1975. During this time, he met Bernard-Henri Lévy, a young philosopher who had just returned from Bangladesh. The two became close friends, and Enthoven introduced Lévy to his friend Gilles Hertzog, who was involved in the short-lived daily L'Imprévu.
Enthoven's friendship with Lévy and Hertzog continued to grow, with Enthoven describing himself as Lévy's "Minister of the Interior" and Hertzog as his "State Secretary for Foreign Affairs." His connections with Pierre Nora also led him to meet Jean Daniel and the staff of Le Nouvel Observateur.
