The articles traces the changing positions of Jewish intellectuals during the forward march of emancipation in France from the end of the eighteenth century onwards. In particular, it considers the reflections of the main representatives of the Jewish school of thought in Paris (Emmanual Levinas, André Neher, Léon Askénazi) on the conditions of an emancipation that can meet the challenge of reconstructing a Jewish life and thought in France in the aftermath of the Second World War.