The Citoyen ([sito̯aˈjɛ̃ː]; French citoyen to old French citeain, a derivative of cité 'city', this from Latin civitas 'citizenship', 'state') is a member of a social class, that arose in the 17th century. It was particularly characterized by the fact that it participates in the formation of the community in the spirit of the Enlightenment. Therefore, the Citoyen can be understood as a kind of French intellectual and cultural elite, comparable to the German Bildungsbürgertum and the Eastern European Intelligentsia ^[1].

Definition

Even if the term appeared on the "Plan de Truschet et Hoyau" in 1550 ^[2], it was largely coined by the Swiss philosopher Jean-Jaques Rousseau. He described the citoyen in his work " The Social Contract" as follows: "Le citoyen est un être éminemment politique (la cité) qui exprime non pas son intérêt individuel mais l’intérêt général. Cet intérêt général ne se résume pas à la somme des volontés particulières mais la dépasse. (The Citoyen is a highly political being who does not express his individual interest but the common interest. This common interest is not limited to the sum of the individual expressions of will, but goes beyond them)".

Due to the similarity to the educated middle class in Germany, the citoyen can be said to have a classical or humanist education, although it is based more on Rousseau's pedagogy from his work ' Emile'. ^[3].