Etre antiaméricain, c'est être antilibéral... Sounds almost like a French equivalent of the Euston Manifesto. The left-wing daily Libération runs a relatively even-handed piece on intellectuals and activists - including philosophers André Glucksmann and Pierre-André Targuieff - who have come together to combat anti-Americanism and radical Islam. Their group, Le Cercle d'Oratoire, takes its name from the Parisian chapel where members have met over the last three years.
They're against demonization of Israel too. Interesting quote from a Muslim member, Mohammed Abdi, general-secretary of the campaigning organisation Ni Putes Ni Soumises:
"J'ai manifesté contre la guerre en Irak, je suis propalestinien, mais je reconnais Israël et je pense qu'il faut avoir le courage de discuter avec le sionisme. Et puis, en tant que militant des banlieues, j'ai été très blessé par l'émergence de l'antisémitisme dans les quartiers."
Libé's article is firewalled, but you can read the full text on this French site. (More, in English, here.) Note that the young journalist who is a member of the group prefers to remain anonymous; unconventional opinions are no help to a career in the French media.
As for the Establishment Left, it hasn't been a good week for Libé's editor:
Serge July, 63, a Sorbonne-educated, one-time Maoist revolutionary and veteran of France's 1968 student rebellion, called journalists together at 10am after the paper's daily news conference. The editor, who older colleagues call "the father", announced that he had been asked to leave by the newspaper's major shareholder, Edouard de Rothschild, who would not pump any more money into the ailing title while July still held the reins.
Journalists... described it as the end of an era and said the future of the title needed to be secured in a slumping print market... It became the voice of its generation, but as that aged, so did its readership. Libé was accused by media analysts of failing to attract readers beyond its core market aged between 45 and 55, middle class, liberal and, for a nation that loves acronyms, "bobo" which stands for "bourgeois bohème".