Jean-Christian Petitfils, born in Paris on December 25, 1944, is a French writer, historian and political scientist, as well as a banker until 2004.
He was the son of Pierre Petitfils[<nowiki/>] (1908-2001), a literary critic and author specializing in Rimbaud and Verlaine.
He studied at the Lycée Claude-Bernard, the Paris Faculty of Law, the Paris Institute of Political Studies (PES section, class of 1967) and the Sorbonne; he holds degrees in public law and history-geography, a doctorate in political science (1971) and a diploma from the IAE Paris Sorbonne Business School.
He spent most of his career in the private sector, first as an attorney-at-law (1977), then assistant manager (1983), then deputy manager (1990) at Bank of Suez and the Union of Mines[<nowiki/>], which became Banque Indosuez, then Crédit Agricole Indosuez. He became the executive director at Calyon Corporate and Investisment Banking (2004), where he headed the Legal Structuring of Financial Transactions Department, and general secretary of the Groupement pour la Modernisation de la Distribution (1976-1991). Jean retired in 2004.
He has, also, pursued a career as a historian and writer. After several essays and books on history and political science (La Droite en France, L'Extrême-Droite en France, Le Gaullisme, Les Socialismes utopiques) and biographies of Grand Siècle figures (Le Véritable d'Artagnan, Le Régent, Lauzun, Nicolas Fouquet, Madame de Montespan, Louise de La Vallière), Jean wrote a comprehensive work on Louis XIV, the fruit of twenty-five years work (1995).
The latter work combines political science of the Ancien Régime and classical biography, with particular emphasis on the mechanisms of loyalties, clans and clienteles, essential in a political system in the process of being nationalized. The book was a great success (55,000 copies). In the same vein, he continued with biographies of Louis XVI (70,000 copies), Louis XIII, Louis XV and, most recently, Henri IV. He is also interested in the historical figure of Jesus.
Overall, he is the author of over thirty historical works, essays and biographies, including, in addition to those mentioned above, Man in the Iron Mask, the Affair of the Poisons, and assassination of Henry IV[<nowiki/>].
He is, or has been, a contributor to the newspapers and magazines: Historia, L'Histoire, Marianne, Le Figaro littéraire[<nowiki/>], Le Figaro Magazine, Le Figaro - Histoire, and Le Point.
He was nominated for René Girard's seat at the Académie française on March 23, 2017.
As a specialist in the Ancien Régime, he is a regular contributor to France 3's Secrets d'histoire program, presented by Stéphane Bern.
Historian Fabrice d'Almeida considers Jean-Christian Petitfils, a former banker, to be representative of a recent tendency of certain non-historian writers to appropriate the style of professional history, thus blurring the boundaries between âÂÂamateur historyâ and academic history: âÂÂThrough the dissemination of historical culture and historiographical techniques, actors working outside the field of professional academic history have appropriated the codes of grand history to stage a re-enchantmentâÂÂ. In the case of Petitfils in particular, it is the sheer volume of documents used that serves as a âÂÂselling pointâÂÂ
Historian Jean-Baptiste Noé, âÂÂJean-Christian Petitfils writes with great style, which makes his books always enjoyable to read.â These writing qualities are also praised by the journal Hérodote. For far-right activist Dominique Venner in La Nouvelle Revue d'histoire, Petitfils is the âÂÂauthor of talented and authoritative studies, notably a Louis XIV and a very enlightening Louis XVI.â A similar assessment comes from legal historian Jacques de Saint Victor[<nowiki/>], who considers that âÂÂfor more than thirty years, he has written tirelessly and, through perseverance, has built up a colossal body of work that many professional academics can legitimately envy.âÂÂ
His work on the Regent is presented by Claude Lebédel as âÂÂa true history of the Regency.âÂÂ
His Louis XVI (2005) was praised by historian Emmanuel de Waresquiel[<nowiki/>], who described it as âÂÂan intelligent and lucid portrait of the decapitated kingâ and, in his opinion, Petitfils' best biography. For Marc Riglet of L'Express, Jean-Christian Petitfils has written a remarkable biography that is âÂÂfar from conventional wisdomâÂÂ. On the other hand, the book received a very mixed reception from some historians close to the Marxist conception of the Revolution, in the workshop of the Centre de recherches historiques: for Aurore Chéry, "supposed to be an innovative study, Petitfils' biography is more accurately a version of Girault de Coursac's work, improved by time and a trip across the Channel. The major difference, however, is that Petitfils, like Hardman, takes a much less virulent tone and treats Marie Antoinette with greater indulgence." The book is in line with the historical analyses of François Furet, of whom Jean-Christian Petitfils is a disciple.
Nathalie Brémand, in her Introduction: âÂÂUtopian socialists,â the misnamed criticizes Petitfils' book on utopian communities in the 19th century, a 2011 reissue of a work first published in 1982. According to her, "there are many negative prejudices associated with the concept of utopian socialism. A selection of these can be found in Jean-Christian Petitfils' book. "The book conveys âÂÂa completely outdated imageâ of âÂÂutopian socialism.âÂÂ
Petitfils writings on Jesus, while well received, received much criticism for a variety of reasons:
Jean-Christian Petitfils takes up the historian's hypothesis that denies the apostle John, son of Zebedee, authorship of the fourth gospel. Following many other authors (Oscar Cullmann, François Le Quéré, Joseph A. Grassi, James H. Charlesworth, Xavier Léon-Dufour, among others), he supports the theory of another âÂÂJohn.âÂÂ
According to Jean-Christian Petitfils, John belonged to the priestly aristocracy of the Temple of Jerusalem. In this work, these historical facts are attributed not to the apostle John, son of Zebedee, but to another John, a âÂÂpriestâ of the Temple priesthood (a function that disappeared in 70 AD with the destruction of the Temple and the capture of Jerusalem by the Roman armies of Titus). Papias, bishop of Hierapolis at the beginning of the second century, spoke of two Johns: John the Apostle and John the Presbyter, disciple of the Lord. Benedict XVI writes in his Jesus of Nazareth that he can âÂÂadhere with convictionâ to the conclusions of biblical scholars Peter Stuhlmacher, Eugen Ruckstuhl, and Peter Dschullnig, for whom John the Presbyter recorded in his gospel the memories of John, son of Zebedee. This priest would be considered his representative and spokesperson. For Jean-Christian Petitfils, the confusion between the two Johns dates back to the 3rd century.
He considers it unlikely that a humble fisherman's son like John, son of Zebedee, could have had the intellectual capacity to write the Apocalypse and the fourth gospel.
Jean-Christian Petitfils notes that the fourth gospel is largely focused on Jerusalem. John knows the Temple and its staff perfectly. Finally, and most importantly, the fourth gospel makes no mention of one of the major events that John of Zebedee is said to have witnessed with his brother James: the Transfiguration.