Eugénie Bastié

Eugénie Bastié (born 18 November 1991) is a French journalist, columnist and essayist. A journalist in the debates and opinion department of Le Figaro, she is also a regular political commentator on French television (CNews) and radio (Europe 1). Her essays address contemporary feminism, the place of intellectuals in public life, cultural conflict and freedom of thought.

Early life and education

Eugénie Bastié was born in Toulouse on 18 November 1991.^[1] She is one of five children raised in a Catholic household,^[2] where her father worked as a landscaper and her mother specialised in nuclear medicine. She grew up in the village of Pibrac, near Toulouse.^[3]

Bastié was educated at the private, boarding school Saint Jean de Lectoure^[4] then attended the Paris Institute of Political Studies, graduating in 2014 with a Master in Public Affairs (MPA). She went on to earn a master's degree in Philosophy at Paris-Sorbonne University.^[5]

Career

While still a student at Sciences Po, Bastié began contributing to the French magazine Causeur, with her first article published in December 2012.^[6] She completed an internship at Figaro-Vox, the opinion and debate platform of Le Figaro newspaper where she was subsequently hired in 2014.^[7] In 2015, she co-launched Limite, a magazine dedicated to Integral Ecology, a central theme of Catholic Social Teaching.^[4]

In September 2015, Bastié made a notable appearance on the television program Ce soir (ou jamais!) where she engaged in a spirited debate against Jacques Attali, delving into the topic of refugees and immigration.^[8][7] In April 2016 she published her first essay Adieu, Mademoiselle (Goodbye, Mademoiselle: The defeat of women).^[4] In September 2016 she briefly joined the program AcTualiTy, on the French public TV channel France 2. During this time, she also contribute to Patrick Buisson's program Historiquement show on the TV channel Histoire and to 24h Pujadas on La Chaîne Info.^[7]

In April 2017 Bastié became a columnist on Le Figaro débats et opinions page. In October 2018 she published her second essay Le Porc émissaire : Terreur ou contre-révolution (The Scapepig: Terror or counterrevolution). While promoting the book on a France Inter radio program, she expressed her criticism of what she saw as "excessive victimisation" stemming from the MeToo movement.^[9] In 2019 she left Limite, the magazine that she co-founded.^[10]

During the 2019–20 season Bastié contributed to the program et en même temps on BFMTV as columnist, she also contributed to the program 19 h Ruth Elkrief, debating current affairs opposing Alain Duhamel.^[11] In July 2020 she left the network to become a political commentator on television news channel CNews; In May 2021 Bastié hosted her own show entitled Place aux idées. In September 2021 she joined Face à l'info with two other commentators in replacement of Eric Zemmour.^[12] In 2022 she launched a new program on Figaro TV titled Le Club des idées, and started a new program Revue des hebdos et des idées on the radio station Europe 1.^[13] In 2023 Bastié published a new essay called La dictature des ressentis (The dictatorship of feelings),^[14] and Sauver la différence des sexes (Save the difference between the sexes).^[1]

In July 2026, France Télévisions confirmed that Bastié would join the revived political interview programme L’Heure de vérité on France 2. Presented by Caroline Roux, the programme is intended to feature political figures expected to play a significant role in the debate surrounding the 2027 presidential election. Bastié will participate as one of the programme’s interviewers, representing Le Figaro, from September 2026.^[15][16]

Essays and intellectual work

Bastié’s essays focus on contemporary feminism, relations between the sexes, ideological conflict and the conditions of public debate. In La Guerre des idées: Enquête au cœur de l’intelligentsia française (2021), written after three years of research and interviews with around thirty thinkers from different political backgrounds, she examined the changing role of intellectuals in France and the fragmentation of the country’s intellectual life.^[17] In Sauver la différence des sexes and La Dictature des ressentis, both published in 2023, she continued her examination of sex, identity, emotion and individual experience in contemporary political discourse.

Reception

Bastié’s essays have attracted attention for their engagement with contemporary cultural and ideological disputes. Le Point described Le Porc émissaire as a “counter-current” examination of the consequences and perceived excesses of the #MeToo movement.^[18][19] Discussing La Guerre des idées, the magazine presented Bastié as an essayist with a taste for intellectual debate and described the book as an examination of French intellectual life that defended debate as a “conflictual conversation”. In a 2021 profile prompted by the same book, Le Temps praised the narrative force of her writing and compared aspects of her intellectual posture to that of Germaine de Staël.^[20] In an opinion column published by Le Figaro, Élisabeth Lévy described La Dictature des ressentis as “a small light in the night”.^[21] In March 2023, The Times described Bastié as a "leading French columnist" in its coverage of Sauver la différence des sexes, presenting the essay as part of a wider French debate over biological sex, gender identity and the influence of Anglo-American ideas.^[22] Later that month, philosopher Kathleen Stock, writing in UnHerd, discussed the essay in the context of French intellectual and political debates over the social significance of biological sex.^[23]

Publications

• La dictature des ressentis. Tribune libre (in French). Place des éditeurs. 2023. ISBN 978-2-259-31760-3.
• Sauver la différence des sexes. Tracts (Paris. 2019) (in French). Gallimard. 2023. ISBN 978-2-07-302545-6.
• La Guerre des idées - Enquête au coeur de l'intelligentsia française. Arion (in French). Groupe Robert Laffont. 2022. ISBN 978-2-221-26261-0.
• Le porc émissaire: Terreur ou contre-révolution (in French). Editions du Cerf. 2018. ISBN 978-2-204-12880-3.
• Adieu mademoiselle (in French). Editions du Cerf. 2016. ISBN 978-2-204-11124-9.

Credited as contributor

• Rester vivants: qu'est-ce qu'une civilisation après le coronavirus? (in French). Fayard. 2020. ISBN 978-2-213-71759-3. (with François-Xavier Bellamy, Mathieu Bock-Côté and more)
• Les grandes figures de la droite. Tempus (in French). Place des éditeurs. 2022. ISBN 978-2-262-09960-2.