I wake up at 5.30am. I have no problem getting out of bed. The first thing I need is a cup of tea, usually lapsang souchong. I dress as lightly as possible. I often wear a shirt open down to under my chest, but not out of vanity. The truth is, I find clothes suffocating. I want to live as much as possible in the open air, in the sun. I’ve never worn a tie in my life. That caused problems a couple of times: once at the Elysée Palace when I was invited to a lunch with the then president, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, and once at the Vatican at a private audience with Pope John Paul II. I put my foot down both times. The Vatican let me not wear one on the spurious grounds I suffered from a serious handicap.

At 6am I’m at my desk. My offices in all my homes are virtually identical. The length and width of the desks are the same. My papers are piled up in the same spot. It’s important — it’s like building the space where I write. First I write with a felt-tip pen, then I type the text into the computer.

My wife gets up later than I do, but occasionally I wake her up. Sometimes it’s to ask her about my writing. She’s my first reader. She’s severe and demanding. Even when she doesn’t master a topic, she has a radar which spots something wrong. She’s almost always right.

I stop for breakfast at about 9am. In St-Paul-de-Vence, where I spend a lot of the year, I walk to a nearby hotel, the Colombe d’Or, where I’ve been a regular for 40 years. I buy the newspapers on the way, then I have my breakfast. Then it’s back to writing. I work less in Paris. There are too many distractions there. Moving from one home to another helps me write. It prevents me from getting stuck in a rut.

My latest book, American Vertigo, is an account of a journey I took through the US. I wrote it because I thought that for a European intellectual there was nothing more important than to understand what was happening in America, to go and tell the Americans what was wrong with their society.

I’m not anti-American — I can’t stand the French prejudice against America.

I consider myself a philosophe engagé — a philosopher who gets involved. I like to think I manage to change things. Like any successful intellectual, I reckon I’m 99% misunderstood and 1% understood. That’s quite good. For instance, I think I helped to persuade Jacques Chirac to bomb the Serb positions around Sarajevo and thus stop a massacre.

I’ll let you into a secret: I never, never eat at home. I know it’s odd, but I find the idea of eating at home repugnant.

I don’t cook, and my wife doesn’t cook either. The only time I would serve food at home would be if I had to meet someone as discreetly as possible. That happens once a year at most, and even then I don’t eat.

In Paris I’ll have lunch at the Café de Flore, near my home. I always have a salad and scrambled eggs with cheese. No wine. Even if I see people I know, I prefer to sit on my own. Sounds a bit austere, doesn’t it? But the life of a writer is a solitary one, and when I’m writing I don’t want to unplug. Writing is electricity; you have to avoid a short circuit. I spend the afternoon writing too. The only break is for swimming. In the south of France it’s either at Cap d’Antibes or in the Colombe d’Or pool.

I travel a lot to write articles. This summer I was in northern Israel at the start of the war against Hezbollah. On that kind of assignment I’m scared all the time.
Being in the empty town of Qiryat Shemona on the Lebanese border as the Hezbollah rockets fell was no joke. I hate war — it scares and disgusts me, and it leaves me bitter and sad.

I get quite a bit of stick in France. People write books against me. I find these very boring and repetitive. I’ve learnt to live with these critics, and with the publicity my marriage gets.

My wife and I don’t use the familiar tu form of address when we talk to each other. We use the more formal vous. That’s her idea: she’s a bit old-fashioned that way. I think unconsciously she wants to create distance between us. All theoreticians of eroticism know that when there is no distance, there is no border; when there is no border, there is no taboo; when there is no taboo there is no transgression; and when there is no transgression there is no desire.

Despite our jobs, my wife and I see a lot of each other. I’m sure she’d like to see more of me, though. She’s more generous and less self-centred than me.

In the evening we’ll go out for dinner. After dinner it’s back to work. I usually make notes for the next day. I don’t like going for a walk, or going to the cinema or concerts. I like writing and being with my family and a few friends. I believe part of life is played out in the written word. I’m slightly obsessive.

I go to bed as late as possible, after 1am. I sleep little, but I sleep well. I’m obsessed by the idea I must sleep as little as possible. The only thing I won’t talk to you about are my dreams. If I did, you’d enter into my engine room, and I don’t want that. Maybe I’m worried you’ll find a failing. In any case, writers are much less intelligent than their books. What do I want to do in future? Write more books than I have the time to write.

Bernard-Henri Lévy’s new book, American Vertigo, is out now

Interview by John Follain.
Portrait by Alastair Miller

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