Born into a family of Italian immigrants, Mascolo worked at several small jobs when he found himself in charge of a family after his father's death. Shortly before the
German occupation of France,
Gaston Gallimard hired him as a
publisher's reader for his publishing house
Éditions Gallimard. There he met, among others,
Marguerite Duras and her later husband
Robert Antelme. With them, Mascolo then founded the
groupe de la rue Saint-Benoît and thus joined the
Résistance under
François Mitterrand using the
nom du guerre Lieutenant Masse. After the
liberation of France, he returned to
Paris with
Edgar Morin, among others. The following year, Mascolo joined the
French Communist Party (PCF), but was expelled again in 1949 for his "behavior detrimental to the party". Shortly after Marguerite Duras divorced Robert Antelme in 1947, she married Mascolo in Paris. The two had a son, Jean, in 1947 and separated again as early as 1956. When French President
René Coty nominated
Charles de Gaulle as prime minister in 1958, Mascolo founded together with
Jean Schuster the journal
Le 14 juillet; as a mouthpiece of a strengthening
Anti-Gaullism. A vehement opponent of French
colonial policy, especially the
Algerian War, Mascolo was among the signatories of the
Manifesto of the 121 in September 1960. == Reception ==