Guillaume Métayer traces Nietzsche's debt to Voltaire

In his book "Nietzsche et Voltaire", Guillaume Métayer argues that the intellectual kinship between the two philosophers has been systematically overlooked. He contends that Voltaire's influence on Nietzsche is far deeper than the few famous tributes suggest, amounting to a genuine filiation. Métayer shows that Nietzsche saw in Voltaire a master of style, courage, and aristocratic gaiety—a liberator of the spirit. The book examines how this connection was suppressed: by German nationalists who claimed Nietzsche for their own, by French readers who emphasized his novelty, and by later Marxists and structuralists who ignored Voltaire as dépassé. Métayer traces thematic, rhetorical, and formal parallels between their works, arguing that both fought against Christianity, obscurantism, and moral fanaticism with a shared spirit of freedom, health, and humor. The study is published by Flammarion.