The reception of Rawls in France has been an extremely complex story where forces of innovation have been, in the end, overwhelmed by the resistance of 'philosophical nationalism'. This is surprising as, in many ways, France was going through tremendous changes and modernization at the time of the translation of A Theory of Justice in 1987. In that context, Rawls's project seemed to have something useful and suggestive to offer: bridging the gap between freedom and equality in a new version of social democracy, combining social justice and market efficiency, respecting the plurality of values within civil society and creating a consensus on democratic legitimacy. But the intellectual obstacles, represented mostly by the French idiosyncratic brand of republicanism, were to prove too strong to allow for a true 'liberalization' of French intellectual and political life. Whereas a number of lawyers, economists and political scientists as well as proportion of the French civil service saw all the benefits of a rigorous engagement with Rawls, philosophers and the intelligentsia on the whole, with the exception of Paul Ricoeur, reacted negatively to Rawls.The French translation of A Theory of Justice appeared in 1987 at a crucial time, when the old certainties were collapsing and the need to redefine social justice was deeply felt. There are many reasons why Rawls's work should have been positively received. First, his reference to the 'social contract tradition' should have been popular in the country of Rousseau. Similarly, his reference to Kantian constructivism would have ranked him closer to continental thinkers than most of his American colleagues. Then, his egalitarianism and his critique of liberal equality should have appealed to French social democrats. Finally, his 'political liberalism' shares many dimensions of the French republican tradition: neutrality of the state, separation of the public and the private spheres, priority of the right over the good, the value of citizenship and public reason.But on all these counts, the failure to make a real impact seems now clear. Rawls