On 18 February 1977, in an article published in the French daily newspaper Le Monde, Altiero Spinelli, leader of the independent left-wing political group in the Italian Chamber of Deputies and Member of the Communist and Allies Group in the European Parliament, gives his response to the article by French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, published in the same newspaper on 10 February, in order to demonstrate his support for elections to the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage.