An intense collimated light beam of frequency&ohgr;tincident on a quiescent plasma with plasma frequency&ohgr;pe ≪ &ohgr;tcan couple with electron plasma waves, to enhance their level well above the equilibrium value. As a consequence, the spectrum of the scattered light “reddens,” and a part of the beam energy is transferred to the plasma. For a bandwidth&Dgr;&ohgr; < &ohgr;peof the beam, two basic regimes are important: one where the enhanced fluctuations travel at large angles to the light beam and which is the equivalent at high intensities of the equilibrium collective scattering, and a second, where electromagnetic and plasma waves have phase velocity nearly parallel and of the same order which seems suited for an important absorption of the light. Competing processes such as instability of the scattered light, and decay of plasma waves into ion‐acoustic waves, become important in certain ranges of the beam and plasma parameters. All the mentioned processes are investigated in detail in the framework of lowest‐order mode coupling using a corrected random‐phase approximation. The results indicate that nonlinearly enhanced scattering should be detectable for a beam of laser light passing through a laser‐produced plasma, whereas it seems doubtful that the considered mechanism can produce an appreciable anomalous absorption.