Suzanne Lehn

Latest posts by Suzanne Lehn

France : Who is French and who is not?

  28 February 2012

Abdellali Hajjat, author of the book The Boundires of National Identity: The Injunction to Assimilation in France and its Territories, explains in an interview [fr] on the blog Contretemps the ideological seeds of Islamophobia and the institutional logic that reinforces it. “Racism needs a crutch to provide the principle of...

France : Dozens of Anti-ACTA Protests

  15 February 2012

Despite freezing temperatures, a few thousand netizens joined the Saturday Feb. 11 worldwide protests against ACTA, in Paris and some 40 other cities in France. One can find pictures on clubic.com, a video of the protests [fr] on Madmax's blog, an  Anti – Acta France Facebook page and the  details [fr] of a petition on the Gizmodo blog.

France: A Drone Campaigning… for President

  10 February 2012

Dédé l'Abeillaud (another name for a drone – a male bee in a colony of social bees, which inspires his costume) is the self-proclaimed candidate of biodiversity for the French presidential election of 2012. He boasts of winning over 300 promised votes for local officials, as much as the National...

France : Strike against the RFI – France 24 merger project

  5 December 2011

The blog Écrans, published on the online version of the daily French newspaper Libération, explains the issues [fr] of the merger of the RFI radio and the TV channel France 24 [fr] and its impact on the French public broadcasting system for international news. The RFI staff, worried about the radio...

World: “Faithbook”, a Project Against Religious Intolerance

  3 December 2011

Two young “faith-trotters” Anne-Laure and Frederic launched  “faithbook” [fr],  a project that will take them across the world to meet  similar pro-peace initiatives. They look to start a dialogue between people of faith who believe in peaceful coexistence through initiatives in various domains such as sports, education, culture and environment. They will shortly...

New Caledonia: Controversy around the 1988 Ouvéa Hostage Taking Movie

  17 November 2011

French filmmaker Mathieu Kassovitz's movie “L'ordre et la  morale” (“Order and morality”), that recounts the tragic 1988 hostage taking at the Ouvéa cave, is not welcome in New Caledonia. The blog Ecran Noir (‘Black Screen’) describes the local controversy around the film's release, here and here [fr]. After New Caledonia's one and...

France: A tribute to Author Hubert Nyssen

  17 November 2011

French writer and publisher Hubert Nyssen [fr], who founded the publishing house Actes Sud, died on Nov. 12. 2011. Among the many tributes to this lover of foreign litteratures and eulogist of translation as a form of art, one can find Sabrina's post that retraces [fr] his biography, an unabridged version...

France: A Criticism of the “Imperialist Consensus”

  19 October 2011

“The televised debate between (presidential candidates) Hollande and Aubry showed us that, for the most part, the Socialist Party shares the opinions of the right on foreign policy,” writes [fr] the blog Le Petit Blanquiste, for whom the positions of the Socialist Party on Afganistan, Palestine, Iran, nuclear strategy and arms, and...

France : Two Moroccan Actresses Turned Away

Two Moroccan actresses, invited to the Cannes Film Festival for Leila Kilani's movie “Sur la planche” [On a Plank]” were turned away at Nice airport on Thursday, May 19. They were authorized to return afterwards. In Morocco, blogger kechmania commented [fr] : “In a perfect world, official apologies would have...

Tunisia: Deputy Minister Slim Amamou Resigned

On May 23, Tunisian blogger Slim Amamou announced [fr] on Twitter his resignation as  Secrétaire d'état [deputy minister] for Sports and Youth. Amamou was known to livetweet cabinet meetings on his personal Twitter account @slim404 [fr]. He explains why he has resigned  here and here [fr].

North Africa: Manifesto for a Maghreb of Cinema

The Arab revolution has also impacted the cinema world. Filmmakers from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia have just launched on their blog Maghreb du cinéma [fr], a suggestion box to reinvigorate the creation, production and distribution of their work. Their manifesto can be signed here [fr].