From the landmark Bobigny abortion trial to the Affaire du Siècle climate justice campaign, can the law serve as an effective political tool for social struggles? Countering the image of a fundamentally conservative law, the sociologist Liora Israël looks back at the strategic uses of the law by the French left after 1968.
Do individuals have absolute rights to the things they have labored on? It would seem to go without saying that the answer is “yes” – and yet, this principle can be called into question. A definition of private property requires us to be in agreement with each other – and therefore to share a set of common values.
What if the impending ecological crisis required a recommitment to republicanism? This is Serge Audier’s thesis: we must not respond to environmental challenges with an anti-modern or anti-statist reflex, but with a new conception of the general interest.
