Posts tagged: france

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  On Freedom of Expression

  In the aftermath of the assassination of Samuel Paty, Jacques Ranciere demands that we rethink the relationship between the state, secularism and the freedom of expression.

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  Wars and Terrorism: End the Denial

  This open letter, signed among others by Virginie Despentes, Adèle Haenel, Annie Ernaux, Jean-François Bayart and Alexis Jenni, deplores the fact that the link between Western military interventions and terrorist attacks is never questioned.

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  There really is a state Islamophobia in France, whether people like the term or not

  Jean-François Bayart, professor of political sociology, argues that the denunciation of ‘Islamo-leftism’ rests on a misunderstanding of history and reveals the consolidation of a ‘republican McCarthyism’ at the heart of the state and the media.

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  ‘We Have to Break Bourgeois Right’

  In an interview Alain Badiou considers the possibilities of a politics outside the state and the problem of power

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  ‘Only democracy can allow us to accept the lack of control over our history’

  Jean-Luc Nancy and Jean-François Bouthors on the revolutionary potential of the pandemic

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  The Gilet Noirs navigate the lockdown

  Luke Butterly charts the plight of undocumented migrants in France, the Gilet Noirs, during the COVID-19 crisis

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  The Politics of Disaster: Frédéric Gros

  In an new preface from Disobey!, Frédéric Gros observes the gilet jaunes and proposes a new way of thinking about protest, and government's response to it.

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  ‘Why are you acting the Marxist?' Frédéric Lordon on Thomas Piketty’s 'Capital and Ideology'

  On 31 January, at the Bourse du travail in Paris, Frédéric Lordon debated with Thomas Piketty on his book Capital and Ideology, at the invitation of Les Amis de L’Humanité. The following text is Frédéric Lordon's opening speech, with minimal revisions. Translated by David Fernbach

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  ‘Grévolution’: first round of a general strike

  Since the middle of December, France has been gripped by a wave of large scale strikes. In this article the French collective Plateforme d’Enquêtes Militantes analyses the composition of the strikes, and the potential for its continued escalation.

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  Last Month in France: An Islamophobia Diary

  On the 10th November, around 13,500 people marched through Paris to demand an end to anti-Muslim speech, discrimination against Muslim women, and anti-Muslim violence in French politics and society. Yet, the month leading up to the demonstration, as Musab Younis charts in this article, showed just how deep Islamophobia runs in contemporary France.

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  "We will go until the end, on lachera rien!": Interview with Gilets Noirs

  In this interview, conducted by the collective Plateforme Enquête Militante in the summer of 2019, members of the Gilets Noirs and the supporting collective La Chapelle Debout go back over the origins of the movement, its practical modes of organisation, and its horizons

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  “We work here, we live here, and we’re not going anywhere!”

  On the 1st October, undocumented migrant workers at 12 companies in Paris went on strike. The strikes called for improvements to pay and the exploitative conditions of work, but the unifying call across all sites, though, was that they be given the right to live and work legally in France. Luke Butterly reports on the organising campaign, and the struggles of undocumented workers in Paris.