A complement. Collins online has the conjunction and provides two use cases, avec valeur d'opposition (opposing value ; yet, but), and introduisant un fait nouveau (a new idea, some novel thing ; now). Larousse Fr-En labels its register as soutenu for whatever reason and provides examples with now/but. For the origin see its etymology (from latin, deriving from hā horā etc.), "Adv. de l'articulation du discours, marque un point important dans l'enchaînement de la pensée, le passage d'une phrase à une autre (succession logique), cet emploi conduisant vers celui de conj. de coordination" (TLFi) (leading to the coordination conjunction). From alors/donc in Chrétiens de Troyes (12th) to 1580 when it's used to add an element to a reasoning (ex. Montaigne). It is unrelated to gold.
For an explanation instead of a translation, one should read the lexicographic entry on the TLFi. There is reference to the novel idea enabling further the argument, with or without an opposing value, but it need not only be that, and it can introduce a full on contradiction, an instance value, a generalization value, etc. The TLFi only labels it rare and literary when it "Introduit un fait significatif qui entraîne dans le récit une pause, voire sa clôture" (introduces a significant event to the story triggering its pause or even the story ending) as with "Paulina avait déjà connaissance du sujet de l'Ombra, elle en était émerveillée, elle naissait au sentiment de la poésie. Or c'était elle qui enfantait la poésie" (Jouve, Paulina). Larousse further says that : "Sa présence correspond à l'oral à une pause qui marque une nouvelle étape dans la pensée." (approx. is like a pause highlighting a new step in the thought process.). Unsurprisingly, it services the intellect (logic) as it also introduces the mineure (minor premise) to a syllogism :
L'exécution soulage et délivre. (...) On meurt parce qu'on est
coupable. On est coupable parce qu'on est sujet de Caligula. Or,
tout le monde est sujet de Caligula. Donc, tout le monde est coupable.
[ Camus, Caligula, 1944, II, 9, p.47 ds. TLFi (Trésor de la langue
française informatisé) ]
Finally if by intellectual you mean someone leveraging reasoning and language to connect ideas in a text, and by elegant you mean the default register used by such a person when doing that, then yes it is. Those are the tools of the trade, yet they are not restricted to Le Monde employees as college students arguably use such words in a standard dissertation. This is about the basic fabric of discourse when connecting things together such as ideas expressed through words, sentences etc.