Despite the collapse of Soviet-style socialism, the spectre of Marx still haunts the French imagination. This is no accident, in a country whose intellectual life and political history have long been marked by his multiple presences.

This volume offers a historical and sociological insight into the way his thought has been received in the French context, from his own lifetime to the present. Analysing Marx's place and influence in the French intellectual, political and artistic debate - across the political spectrum and even in the French-speaking colonial world - it helps us understand the uses and misuses of an oeuvre of paramount importance.