Serge Bimpage will lead the reading and discussion, facilitating audience exchange and textual analysis around Alain Renoult’s prose and themes.

The novel tells of a mother who abandons her child and flees beyond time; the child, left alone in the apartment, sustains an interior monologue that seeks reassurance and imagines the worst. The session examines themes of abandonment, temporality, trauma and narrative voice, and investigates how language conveys psychological depth.

In French.

Geoffroy de Lagasnerie, sociologist and author, presents critical reflections on contemporary democratic theory. The session is moderated by Nicolas Tavaglione, political scientist and philosopher.

He examines the taboo around criticizing democracy, questioning assumptions of majority rule, voting, representation, popular sovereignty, parliamentarism and electoral adjudication. The discussion explores alternative bases for legitimizing governance, investigating more rational and just mechanisms to authorize political authority and renew democratic imaginaries.

In French.

StopMicro, a grassroots association bringing together activists, journalists and academics, presents the book Anatomie d’une puce. The discussion is moderated by Philippe de Rougemont.

The conversation examines the limits of semiconductor “relocalization”, demonstrating that chips are produced through intensive extractivism and colonial practices and travel vast distances before reaching consumer devices. It explores supply-chain realities, environmental impacts and the political rhetoric surrounding technological sovereignty.

In French.