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.

The Motivations Behind Jihad

Théo Blanc — 2025-02-25T05:00:00Z

Why did 5,000 Europeans join the jihad in Syria? The volunteers who left between 2011 and 2014 displayed a form of religious solidarity and a desire for revolution, which were later exploited by Daesh.

The Intelligence of the Wicked

Vincent Boyer — 2018-04-12T07:00:00Z

Is it rational to act justly? Contemporary moral philosophy would appear to think so, but there is room for doubt: reason often urges us to serve our own interests first and foremost, even if that means being unjust. And much more is therefore required to convince the wicked than the mere force of reason.

Fighting Terrorism with Emergency Legislation

Florent Guénard — 2017-01-09T08:00:00Z

The state of exception has a long history in France. Intended as a measure for dealing with crises of any sort, it is now used as a response to terrorism. According to legal expert François Saint-Bonnet, however, there is no evidence that it is the right solution to the kind of terrorism that strikes today.

The Origins of the Islamic State

Marieke Louis — 2016-04-28T07:00:00Z

The Islamic State (IS) was not born miraculously in the summer of 2014. Its origins lie in the intertwined histories of Iraq and Syria over the past twenty years. Loulouwa Al Rachid and Matthieu Rey untangle IS's complex heritage, bequeathed to it both by Baathist authoritarianism and the United States' intervention in Iraq.

To Be or Not to Be Charlie?

2015-09-03T05:30:00Z

Last January, the attack on Charlie Hebdo sparked - among other issues - a renewed interest in the appropriate response to blasphemy, itself symbolized by the concurring social media trends #jesuischarlie and #jenesuispascharlie. Taking a comparative approach, Mathilde Groppo analyses French and English law to address the following questions: is blasphemy the last frontier for freedom of expression?

American Wars, Barely Visible to Americans

Michael Sherry — 2015-03-30T05:30:00Z

In 2001, the US launched a War on Terror the failures of which were not altogether unpredictable. More surprising has been how little the war has been visible to the American public, despite the occasional scandal. This invisibility was not foisted on the US by the necessities of war. It is the product of phenomena with old roots in American history.

Terrorism from Robespierre to Al-Qaida

Perrine Simon-Nahum — 2013-09-12T07:13:16Z

Adopting an original double perspective, the legal scholar Mireille Delmas-Marty and the historian Henry Laurens summon history to the service of law in defining the elusive phenomenon of terrorism. They identify its past forms in order to shed light on its contemporary specificities.

Seeing Double

Gérôme Truc — 2010-09-16T13:33:20Z

Why is the photographic record of 9/11, the most photographed event in history, limited to an endlessly repeated loop of a handful of images? In a book as rich as it is concise, Clément Chéroux, a historian of photography and a curator at the Pompidou Center, dissects this “9/11 paradox”.