Using American literature in translation as an example, the author sketches the socio-cultural and economic context of translation in France. He explores the infracultural reasons for the vogue of the American novel in France since the beginning of the sixties, conditioned by the "intellectual terrorism" of the "Noveau Roman' and he points out the undesirable consquences of the continuing commercialisation and increasing economic concentration in French publishing on translation and the métier of the translator.