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France’s importation of Husserlian phenomenology between 1930 and 1950 can be understood only against the background of the constitution of «German philosophy» as a (quasi) theoretical label. Since the turn of the century, this field had been dominated by a single orientation: «rationalistic idealism», embodied by a key figure of the «New Sorbonne», Léon Brunschvicg: this was an alliance between academic tradition, science and democracy. For the mediators who fostered the importation of phenomenology and German philosophy, the «anti-scientistic» dimension was essential: to the object constructed by the intellect, they opposed the «concrete », «things themselves», the originaire; because of this, other aspects of Husserl’s work were ignored or minimized. This can be seen in the discourses of major figures of this labor of importation who, being of foreign origin and/or occupying marginal positions, combined a specific linguistic capital with a philosophical capital which did not permit them to expect full academic recognition: these outsiders were therefore predisposed to instigate a «conservative revolution» in philosophy, to be sure in an attenuated version adapted to the conditions of an intellectual as well as political order then reigning in France. Husserl’s position in the space of «German philosophy», moreover, needs to be compared with that of Hegel, who at the same moment was predisposed to embody the secular pole, more open to existential and historical questions.