The Meaning of Sarkozy

Alain Badiou, in this sharp and focused intervention, claims that, in and of itself, the election of Nicolas Sarkozy as President is not an event, nor is it the cause for wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth. To understand the significance of “Sarkozy,” we have to look behind the insignificance and vulgarity of the figure and ask what he represents, namely a reactionary tradition which goes back to the early nineteenth century. To escape from the ambience of depression and fear that currently envelops the Left, Badiou casts aside the slavish worship of electoral democracy and maps out a communist hypothesis that can lay the basis for emancipatory politics in the twenty-first century.

“One of the most important philosophers writing today.” — Joan Copjec

Praise for Ethics:“Scarcely any other moral thinker of our day is as politically clear-sighted and courageously polemical, so prepared to put notions of truth and universality back on the agenda. … Badiou has launched a transformative new intervention, which deserves to provoke a persisting response.” — Terry Eagleton

Alain Badiou teaches philosophy at the Ecole normale supérieure and the Collège international de philosophie in Paris. In addition to several novels, plays and political essays, he has published a number of major philosophical works, including Theory of the Subject, Being and Event, Manifesto for Philosophy, Conditions and Gilles Deleuze: The Clamour of Being. His Ethics, Metapolitics and Polemics are also available from Verso.