Philippe Meyer

Philippe Meyer, is a journalist, chronicler, a humorist, a writer, a man of French radio and television. Meyer animated "the next time I'll sing it” on France Inter and L'Esprit public on France Culture until the summer of 2017.

Meyer was born on December 25, 1947 in Germersheim, Germany.  In 1965 Meyer began studying law and sociology in Nanterre. During his studies, he worked as an educator in a juvenile crime prevention club in Paris. In Nanterre, he chaired the strike committee in November 1967, in which he managed to bring together unionized students (led by Yves Stourdzé and Jean-François Godchau) and non-union members. In May 1968, he and Paul Ricœur, emblematic figure of the reform of the University, led a group of activists of Christian origin and members of an action committee which became the movement "We are in march"(1968-1972) and publish a libertarian-inspired radical bulletin. After "events", he became more and more interested in sociology.

In the fall of 1968, thanks to a scholarship from the Franco-Quebec Office for Youth, he spent several months in Quebec studying the answers to the questions raised by delinquency, especially juvenile. He is passionate about the transformations that this country is going through, his song, his cinema, his literature, his poetry. He connected with the founders of the Parti Quebecois like René Lévesque, filmmakers like Denys Arcand, trade unionists like Michel Chartrand or singers like Gilles Vigneault. For 15 years, he returns to Montreal one or more times a year.

As Louis Joinet, a jurist and high magistrate, advisor of several ministries, reported in the program of Jean Lebrun The March of the History of January 10, 2013, Philippe Meyer went to settle some time in Chile to support the Chilean left under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. He had been hired to conduct a fisheries study. He also denounces the use of psychiatry by the police in communist states.

In 1977, under the direction of Annie Kriegel and Philippe Ariès, he defended his doctoral dissertation, "L'Enfant et raison d'État", a history and sociology of public policies dealing with irregular childhood (delinquents, mentally ill, etc.). He is also a researcher at the Philippe Paumelle Mental Health Center. In 1980, in disagreement with the reform led by Alice Saunier-Seïté which resulted in the deletion of the status of researchers "out-of-status" (independent), he declined an invitation to enter the CNRS and became a journalist.

 For several years, he animated the Journal with several voices of the magazine Esprit and collaborates successively with L'Express (1980-1986), with Point, with the Event of Thursday (1991-1994) and again with Point (1994- 2002).

On the radio, he has been working since March 1982 for public service stations. He has hosted numerous shows on France Culture, France Inter and France Musique, sometimes simultaneously, on a wide variety of themes (classical music and songs, history of ideas, deciphering information, media and news).

On television, he hosted on M6 a show devoted to classical music from 1986 to 1988 (Come back when you want), then on Arte , Anicroches . For a few months (2000-2001), he became a portraitist of the guest of the show L'Heure de vérité, developing his sense of the formula and his pamphleteering talent. He has also collaborated on documentaries for television, including the famous De Nuremberg Nuremberg by Frederic Rossif, which he wrote and recorded the text.

From 1984 to 2007, he was a lecturer at Sciences Po, where he first taught the sociology of the media and where, from 1997, he led a seminar devoted to Paris, its history and contemporary urban issues. In 2016-2017, he directs a seminar on Paris at the Ecole nationale supérieure des mines in Paris.

Actor in the cinema ( It begins today Bertrand Tavernier , The Case Picpus Jacques Fansten ) and on television ( Maigret television series, episodes A failure of Maigret and Signed Picpus ), Philippe Meyer also interprets his own texts on the stage : Causerie , a monologue on the humor played at the Théâtre Mouffetard in 1997, then at the Théâtre de la Ville in 1999; Paris la Grande (2001), a show of texts and songs dedicated to Paris, written at the request of the Théâtre de la Ville 9 ; The Place du coeur (with a view on the back) , a play on the theme of absence, directed by Jean-Claude Penchenat. For the French Comedy (Studio Theater), he writes and directs in October 2010 Songs of days with and songs of the days without, then Songs defended and, at the Theater ephemeral Our best memories.

He presented his candidacy for the French Academy for the election to chair 40 December 8, 2011 and got 10 votes in the first round, leading, then going to 3 and 5 in the next two rounds, while the election is finally white; he renewed his candidacy for the chair 33 on April 18, 2013 and met 8 votes to 15 to Dominique Bona, who was elected in the first round. He was a candidate for the third time in 2014 at François Jacob's chair, but only gets two votes in the third round, Marc Lambron being elected.