Career

A former student of the École normale supérieure, agrégé d'histoire and a member of the École française de Rome from 1957 to 1959, he was a professor of ancient history at the University of Tunis, Caen University then de Paris-I Panthéon-Sorbonne, and emeritus director of studies from 1997 at the École pratique des hautes études. Elected a member of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres in 1986, he was director of the École française de Rome from 1992 to 1995.

Ministerial advisor

He made a short political career as a member of Pierre Mendès France's cabinet in 1956. He was secretary, then editor-in- chief of the Cahiers de la République, and assigned to the office of Jean-Pierre Chevènement, between 1984 and 2002, on civic education.

He showed anxiety throughout his life to articulate his republican commitment and his career as a historian. This contributed to the originality of his work, straddling between ancient Rome and contemporary times, especially around the functioning of society and political institutions. As Catherine Virlouvet pointed out, "it is the same questioning that unites Le métier de citoyen dans la Rome antique (1976) and L'idée républicaine en France.^[3]

The republican idea in France

According to Céline Spector,^[4] Nicolet's work L'idée républicaine en France (1982) contributed to the return of the Republican idea in the 1980s. According to him, it was Rousseau who provided the theoretical basis for the notion of a republic as it is understood in France. In particular, it resumed its concept of sovereignty and its theory of law to the citizen of Geneva. Nicolet writes:

The great affair of the Republicans is, of course, Rousseau. The man and his work have been, by themselves, so intimately connected, and they are, moreover, so contradictory in appearance, and so coherent in reality, that we can not be surprised that Rousseau was, century-long - and perhaps more - both the inevitable reference and the most striking sign of division among the French republicans, as well as some others.^[5]