S04E07: The French Pres­i­den­tial Elec­tion and the State of Democ­ra­cy in France

In this episode the focus is on the lat­est pres­i­den­tial elec­tions in France and the state of its democ­ra­cy. What were the sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ences between this elec­tion and the pre­vi­ous one? Is there a new wave of anti-intel­lec­tu­al sen­ti­ment spread­ing across the coun­try? It also delves upon how cur­rent polit­i­cal enti­ties manoeu­vre their way with­in the frame­work of the tra­di­tion­al right/​left divide: has Macron for­sak­en his lib­er­al val­ues and did that lead to reluc­tance among his vot­ers? Did Marine Le Pen’s strat­e­gy of de-demo­niza­tion work? How did the far-left fare and who did they vote for in the sec­ond round?

Guests fea­tured in this episode:

Éric Fassin, Pro­fes­sor of soci­ol­o­gy and co-chair of the Gen­der Stud­ies Depart­ment at Paris VIII. Uni­ver­si­ty, where he also estab­lished the Research Cen­ter on Gen­der and Sex­u­al­i­ty Stud­ies. His research address­es sex­u­al and racial pol­i­tics as well as immi­gra­tion issues, in France, Europe, and in the Unit­ed States in a com­par­a­tive per­spec­tive. He is cur­rent­ly work­ing on book project with his broth­er, Didi­er Fassin, on The Ris­ing Sig­nif­i­cance of Race in France, to be pub­lished the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go Press.

About

Shalini Randeria

Shalini Randeria is Rector and President of the Central European University (Vienna/Budapest). Before, she was Professor of Social Anthropology and Sociology at the Graduate Institute Geneva, and Rector of the Institute of Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna from 2014 to 2021. She has published widely on the anthropology of globalisation, law, the state and social movements. Her empirical research on India also addresses issues of post-coloniality and multiple modernities.