Jules Régis Debray, a French philosopher, journalist, former government official, and academic, was born on September 2, 1940. He is renowned for his groundbreaking work on mediology, a critical theory of the long-term transmission of cultural meaning in human society. Debray's association with Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara in Bolivia in 1967 and his support for Salvador Allende's presidency in Chile in the early 1970s have also made significant contributions to his reputation.
Debray studied at the École Normale Supérieure, where he was taught by the influential philosopher Louis Althusser. He appeared in the cinema verité film Chronique d'un été, directed by Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin, in 1960. Debray earned the prestigious title of "agrégé de philosophie" in 1965.
As a professor of philosophy at the University of Havana in Cuba, Debray became an associate of Che Guevara in Bolivia. He co-authored the book Revolution in the Revolution?, which analyzed the tactical and strategic doctrines prevalent among militant socialist movements in Latin America. This book served as a handbook for guerrilla warfare, supplementing Guevara's own manual on the topic.
Guevara was captured in Bolivia in October 1967, and Debray was arrested on April 20, 1967, in the small town of Muyupampa, Bolivia. Convicted of being part of Guevara's guerrilla group, Debray was sentenced to 30 years in prison on November 17. He was released in 1970 after an international campaign for his release, which included appeals from notable figures such as Jean-Paul Sartre, André Malraux, General Charles de Gaulle, and Pope Paul VI.
Debray sought refuge in Chile, where he wrote The Chilean Revolution (1972) after conducting interviews with Salvador Allende. Following the coup by Augusto Pinochet in Chile, Debray returned to France in 1973.
After François Mitterrand's election as President of France in 1981, Debray became an official adviser on Foreign Affairs. In this capacity, he developed policies aimed at increasing France's freedom of action in the world, reducing its dependence on the United States, and promoting closeness with former colonies. Debray was also involved in the development of official ceremonies and recognition of the bicentennial of the French Revolution. He resigned in 1988.
Throughout the 1990s, Debray held various official positions in France, including an honorary counselorship at the Conseil d'État, France's supreme administrative court. In 1996, he published a memoir of his life, which was later translated into English as Régis Debray, Praised Be Our Lords (Verso, 2007).
