When Bernard-Henri Lévy can’t sleep – Maurice Ulrich’s post – January 13, 2025

Bernard-Henri Lévy is insomniac. It was worth a full page in le Figaro Monday, ten minutes of interview on France Inter in the morning. We expect four pages in Paris-Matchmaybe… But he’s not the basic insomniac, BHL, no, he’s like Kafka, Lautréamont, Pessoa “and Proust, of course”.

At night he exchanges text messages with another insomniac, Emmanuel Macron. It’s not given to everyone. Sleep may be a learning experience of death, but insomnia is “a more feverish, more intense presence in the world”. I like awakening, he said, “vigilance, being alert to things and others”. Well, he made a book about it, sleepless night (Grasset). Not sure if we read it before going to sleep.

At night he thinks of the children of Gaza for example, but above all of Israel whose victory is « yes vital »… He thinks of Mélenchon and the anti-Semites of the far left, fascists, worse than Le Pen was. On the radio he quotes Goya “the sleep of reason breeds monsters”. And the lack of sleep?