In the year 2000, Le Débat will have reached the age of twenty and published more than one hundred issues. For a review this is not the first blush of youth, even if, for those who have put it out since the beginning (Marcel Gauchet and myself, assisted by Krzystof Pomian), every issue is always the first issue. But, from the outset, Le Débat was meant to be — I dare not say a "great" review, which would be presumptuous — at least an ambitious review, one made to last. Perhaps this is because it was conceived in relation to its illustrious predecessor, La Nouvelle Revue française, within the same illustrious publishing house, Gallimard. With one important difference : the NRF gave birth to a publishing house, which has borne this name until the present day, whereas in the case of Le Débat it was the other way round.