On French Communists circa late 50's see a beautifully sad memoir, Departures : memoirs / Paul Zweig ; introduction by Morris Dickstein. New York : Harper & Row, c1986. B Z9195a2
On the delusions of French Communist intellectuals see, "Past Imperfect, " by Tony Judt, Cambridge Univ. Press, as supplented by Stefan Collini and Mark Poster books on the French left intelligentsia from Oxford U. Press and Princeton U. Press, respectively. http://www.igc.org/dissent/archive/spring99/shatz.html
REVIEWED IN THIS ESSAY The Red Atlantis: Communist Culture in the Absence of Communism by J. Hoberman