23 October 2026
“Police Violence Is Deeply Entrenched in France”
France has been gripped by protests and violence for weeks. One of our authors witnessed last Saturday’s demonstrations firsthand. Carina Bury is a German-French legal scholar who completed her PhD in Hamburg and teaches at the Universities of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and Paris Nanterre. We spoke with her about the ongoing protests, the response of the justice system, and the role of the police in French society. Continue reading >>
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22 October 2026
Repression and Resistance
In less than a month, high school protests over a lack of resources in the Paris suburbs have escalated into a striking wave of police violence and mass arrests. How did a student demonstration over school conditions transform into a major public order crisis? The violence is primarily the result of a political choice by the Ministry of the Interior – prioritising arrests over negotiation – enabled by expanded pre-emptive offences and a hostile image of youth. Continue reading >>09 October 2026
Too Young for Rights, Old Enough to Be Maimed
For weeks, French students taking to the streets for better schools have faced relentless police crackdowns near their classroom gates. Emergency bans and mass arrests have replaced open debate, exposing a glaring contradiction at the heart of French law: a system that uses youth as a pretext to curtail freedom, while offering zero protection from state force. Continue reading >>
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16 July 2026
When Lady Justice Lifts Her Blindfold, Briefly
Justice, one could say, did not take off her blindfold on July 7th – but she did lift it, just a fraction, long enough to check in with political reality. Paris’s court of appeal upheld Marine Le Pen’s conviction for misappropriating public funds, yet softened the 2025 ban on her running for office just enough to keep a presidential bid in 2027 on the table. The guilty verdict stands – it is the sentence that now intrudes less directly into the democratic arena. Continue reading >>
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12 May 2026
Sex Workers in the Paris Senate
Legal frameworks for remunerated sexual services often reveal a weakness in our democracies: how to protect sex workers as a marginalized group without patronizing them. A bill recently introduced in the French Senate proposes to replace the current End-Demand legislation with full decriminalization. Drafted by a mixed group of interdisciplinary researchers and sex workers of different backgrounds, the bill tackles this weakness head-on – and turned out nuanced and detailed. Continue reading >>04 March 2026
Setting It in Stone
Is "business as usual" in conflict zones officially a crime? As France’s Court of Cassation prepares to rule on the Lafarge case, the legal focus shifts from the company’s commercial motives to its operational awareness. By prioritizing "knowledge" over "criminal purpose," this landmark decision could dismantle the final legal shield for corporations operating alongside atrocity crimes. Continue reading >>
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27 November 2025
How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb Legacy
The Pacific is becoming the most important geostrategic hotspot in the world. European powers are struggling to keep up, and have recently deployed naval forces to contain China. Yet, given the Polynesia’s nuclear past, where France conducted decades of nuclear weapon testing and hundreds of thousands of EU citizens still await compensation for radioactive fallout, addressing this legacy and providing adequate redress to affected military and civilian population is mandatory for any French or European attempts to legitimise their presence in the Pacific. Continue reading >>
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08 October 2025
The Conviction of Nicolas Sarkozy
France often takes pride in calling itself a Republic. Invoking the Republic has even become a political mantra, repeated across the entire political spectrum. Yet the sheer frequency of these references has emptied the term of much of its meaning. The reactions to Nicolas Sarkozy’s conviction suggest that many journalists, politicians, and citizens still struggle to grasp what it truly means to be “republican”. Although the judgment of the Paris Criminal Court is particularly thorough, it has provoked widespread controversy, reopening the enduring debate on political justice in France – while also appearing as a sign of the strengthening of the republican ideal. Continue reading >>
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01 August 2025
A State Without Statehood
One year after New Caledonia was tormented by violent demonstrations, resulting in the deaths of 14 people and causing over 2 billion euros worth of damage, representatives of New Caledonia and the French State signed the Bougival Accord to bring an end to the situation and pave the way for peace. While Emmanuel Macron hails the Accord as “historic”, the overseas minister Manuel Valls celebrates it as “the best response to the fear”. However, a closer look at the agreement reveals that the Accord continues to entrench the French hold on the island and renders New Caledonian independence more elusive than ever. Continue reading >>
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25 July 2025
Pullbacks in the Channel
Last week, negotiations for a new UK–France agreement culminated in the announcement of a 'one in, one out' pilot scheme, under which the UK will return small boat arrivals to France while accepting asylum seekers selected from France who can demonstrate family ties in Britain. The agreement signals a sui generis evolution in European migration control. For the first time, rather than pushing asylum seekers back to third countries to avoid legal responsibilities under EU and international law, an EU Member State is directly preventing departures from its own territory. Continue reading >>
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