Books & ideas

Terrorists Under the Radar

Christian Chevandier — 2026-05-07T06:30:00Z

Alongside its Paris branch, the French terrorist group Action Directe also operated a Lyon branch, responsible for dozens of attacks and robberies, and marked by a crude ideology and domestic abuse within the group. We look back at far-left violence in the post-1968 era.

Marilyn Monroe does not exist

Élisa Goudin — 2026-02-12T08:30:00Z

From Salomé to Lolita, representations of “temptresses” haunt male fantasies. They entail a woman who has said “yes” before she has even been asked anything. And women who “fire up” men's desire must pay the price.

The Era of Victims

David El Kenz — 2025-12-09T07:37:00Z

Since the two World Wars, the victim has been raised to the status of a sacred and predominant figure in historical memory. The victim has become the new figure of the hero, thus setting a new and controversial example.

Urban vendettas

Mickaël Chelal — 2025-09-02T06:30:00Z

What are the reasons, a sociologist wonders, that gangs of young people get in “trouble”—that is, engage in rivalries that often lead to death?

A War of Signs

Alexandre Goderniaux — 2025-05-22T07:30:00Z

From 1562 to 1598, as the Wars of Religion deprived France of its reference points, strategies for mastering, disguising, and eliminating religious signs became necessary for survival. External markers of identity provide crucial insight into what civil wars do to a society.

The Pseudoscience that Shieldied Police Violence

Magda Boutros — 2025-04-03T07:29:00Z

“Excited delirium” is a diagnosis that was used to absolve police officers of responsibility for the deaths of Black and Brown men. For decades, it was legitimized by a network of forensic pathologists, law enforcement agencies, and private companies that sustained this pseudoscience.

The driving forces behind a massacre

David El Kenz — 2025-04-01T05:30:00Z

The ritual massacre perpetrated by the Natchez against several hundred French settlers in Louisiana on 28 November 1729 was the starting point of a colonial violence against a tribe that lasted until its near disappearance.

The Police Between Violence and Literature

Christian Chevandier — 2024-11-05T08:00:00Z

Around 1900, when Paris had absorbed its outlying communes and the city's lower depths were populated by a range of shady characters, police officers oscillated between repression and social chronicle. These bulwarks against crime were also painters of poverty, who did not shy away from poetry.

A micro-history of the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre

Thierry Amalou — 2024-03-19T08:00:00Z

Jérémie Foa has written a history of the “other side” of the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre. Nameless people, thrown into the Seine or buried in mass graves, succumbed to the blows of killers as well as to collective forgetting, which the historian seeks to remedy. This is an important book on mass violence.

Palestinians' mental and physical Health

Sélima Kebaïli — 2023-12-19T09:00:00Z

While mental health is usually assessed using objective health indicators, these measurements fail to address the intricate impact of persistent violence on Palestinians' lives.