He was about the same age as Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Simone Weil. Not only did he outlive his own generation, he outlived the generation that overthrew his, in intellectual movement terms. That's amazing.
Also, that photograph of Sarkozy visiting Lévi-Strauss is quintessentially French.
I was kind of surprised that he was still alive. I don't think his stuffs are completed threw out. Even when you are working on post modernism, post structuralism, his stuffs still are classics to be read as reference frame.
I remember 20 years ago when I read "The Raw and the Cooked". It was still a pretty decent work to be read.
Sarkozy's visit to Lévi-Strauss is similar to Wen Jiabao's visit to Qian Xuesen. But you see, French is more philosophy oriented and Chinese is engineering oriented....
Also, that photograph of Sarkozy visiting Lévi-Strauss is quintessentially French.