Emile Chabal

I'm not sure what to say about French politics anymore. First as tragedy, then as farce, then as some Czech surrealist movie, then as Sébastien Lecornu..?

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Dear Immigrant. When you’ve finished your night shift at A&E, please spend a couple of hours picking litter in the park or we’ll kick you out. Yours, the Labour Party

I really did love this article I edited! (To see more editorial recommendations, check out the Contemporary European History editorial digest here: tinyurl.com/38p3yxky)

Honestly, there has been enough of UK governments playing political games with immigrants' status. That's what paved the way to the Windrush Scandal. For a Labour government, having pledged to learn the lessons of Windrush, to be doing the same is really bad www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-t...

Our collaborative book couldn't be more topical in the light of the recent announcement about digital ID cards. Mike's work on the UK is particularly relevant in thinking about why the UK doesn't have ID cards and what could happen if it tries to implement them.

Sarkozy will actually go to jail? Bloody hell, things are *happening* in French politics. Never a dull moment!

PS. It's OK, I can't follow Sarko's dozens of corruption scandals either.

Sébastien Lecornu? What a yawnfest. Somehow this end-of-reign Macron regime is managing to be totally unexpected and totally boring all at once.

If you want to reduce small boat crossings, find ways to support the arrival of family members of refugees in the UK so they won't cross irregularly (like existed for family already in the EU pre-Brexit, via the Dublin system). Instead the government is doing something that will worsen the problem

Avec la chute annoncée de François Bayrou, Emmanuel Macron face au risque d’un mandat déstabilisé Bien qu’il ait repoussé le scénario d’une dissolution – qu’une partie de son camp juge inéluctable – et celui de sa démission, la pression des oppositions, le spectre d’un mouvement social d’ampleur e...

There's no other way to say it: Macron boxed himself entirely into a corner by calling snap elections in 2024. Sure, there are structural conditions at work, but the responsibility here to a remarkable degree lies with him alone.

www.lemonde.fr/politique/ar...

Merci, Charles!

Even after all these years, holding a real book you've written never, ever gets old. Especially if it's your first book in French. Feeling très emu...

PS. The book is coming out in a few weeks - order from Amazon or anywhere else you get your Francophone books! www.amazon.fr/paradoxe-fra...

If you can't get beyond the paywall, link also here: emilechabal.com/files/mistra...

Icy blasts from the north have inspired French artists, writers and scientists For holidaymakers, the Mediterranean evokes sun, sea and sand. But, for those who live there, these clichés are tempered by a climatic phenomenon rarely

I wrote something for the @thetls.bsky.social about the most famous wind in France - the mistral - and an excellent little book that tries to tell a "windswept" history of modern France. www.the-tls.com/world/travel...

We're very proud of this - and we hope it'll help people find out more about the really cool things we publish!

Just in time for the new paperback edition of the book!

I had the privilege of leaning heavily on Dónal to produce this piece - it's brilliant, go read it!

Daytime running lights have been mandatory in Europe since mid-2010s. I can't understand why they're not mandatory everywhere.

Excerpt from an article Eric Hobsbawm wrote in 'New Society' upon his return from a stint as visiting professor at Birzeit University in the West Bank in 1983. Some of the anecdotes he recounted in the piece came directly from his rough field notes.

L’historien Pierre Nora est mort Historien, maître d’œuvre des « Lieux de mémoire », publiés en sept volumes à partir de 1984, le créateur de la revue « Le Débat » est mort le 2 juin, à l’âge de 93 ans.

Nora was one of the great French intellectual impresarios of the postwar period and truly representative of his generation - in all its imagination and dogmatism. www.lemonde.fr/disparitions...

This passage - from an anonymous academic - just sitting there in the middle of the article. Where do we go from here? What does one do with this statement, these thoughts?

Breathtaking: "I always asked myself why people stayed silent during the Second World War as the Jews were being exterminated. I know the answer now looking at Israel, looking at us: because we want to continue living our lives as before and it's too hard to look and speak".

En Israël, des universitaires tétanisés face à la guerre et à l’extrême droite : « Nous, libéraux, sommes dans une impasse » Si la voix de quelques figures du système académique a commencé à s’élever contre le nettoyage ethnique en cours dans la bande de Gaza, la grande majorité du corps administratif et enseignant répugne ...

Excellent, chilling reporting @lemonde.fr on neutralisation of criticism in Israel, focusing on universities. So much to unpack about complicity, power, silence. Struck also by comparisons with eg. Algerian War, Vietnam War, where campuses became hubs of resistance. www.lemonde.fr/internationa...

France spent €90,000 countering research into impact of Pacific nuclear tests Documents suggest campaign to discredit revelation that tests contaminated many more people than acknowledged

The longevity of France's nuclear testing in the South Pacific remains one of the Fifth Republic's great scandals. I'm glad the research is showing what we all knew about the cover-ups and the misinformation. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

Yes, please send us your ideas! We're always looking for blogs and we think we're a nice bunch :)

States of Ignorance Cambridge Core - European Studies - States of Ignorance

More info about the book here: www.cambridge.org/core/books/s...

States of ignorance: Governing irregular migrants in Western Europe Conversation with the editors & authors of "States of ignorance: Governing irregular migrants in Western Europe" (CUP, 2023)

Fancy learning more about the really cool book I co-authored on Western European states, irregular migration, and the politics of ignorance? Then tune in online to a panel discussion on the book in Birmingham on Thursday, 13:00-14:30 UK time. Sign up below! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/states-of-...

Lol to the fictitious pay figures. But also: the final salary scheme of the USS pension was closed to new entrants in 2011 and closed altogether in 2016.

If you're in Cambridge on Tuesday, come and argue with me about whether Hobsbawm had a theory of capitalism or not!

Can't wait to take this great collaborative book back on the road again!