The Issues
Cahiers & Visual Essays
Each essay is a short, sourced visual read built around timelines, comparisons and key terms, so a complex topic can be understood at a glance — organized by theme.
Media, Free Expression & Platform Censorship
Protests, Civil Liberties & State Power
- Les Gilets Jaunes · Act 1: October 17, 2026The day the yellow vests returned, from morning to night, and the four rival languages that named the crowd.Read the visual essay
- Les Gilets Jaunes · Act 2: Who Gets Protection?A restricted route, returning crowds and far-right violence under the eyes of the police.Read the visual essay
- Les Gilets Jaunes · Act 3: Halloween Under CurfewCostumes, court challenges, peripheral routes and the right to remain in the street.Read the visual essay
- Can France Ban a Protest?From notifying a march to restricting it—and the courts that can draw the line back.Read the visual essay
- Who Are the CRS?A national mobile police reserve, a chain of command, and the distance between protective doctrine and a damaging encounter.Read the visual essay
- How Many People Really Protested?One procession, competing measurements—and a political struggle over the size of “the people.”Read the visual essay
- Who Pays for a Broken Window—and a Broken Life?A €10,000 liability mechanism, irreversible protest injuries, and the political choice of what to protect first.Read the visual essay
- How Could France’s Protests Affect 2027?The demonstrations can change the agenda without translating neatly into votes for politicians who claim them.Read the visual essay
- Trappes Terrorist Attack: A Racist Attack in the Paris Suburbs and How a Protest Movement Was BlamedA racist terrorist attack, the words reported behind it, and how coverage of a movement can turn into collective blame.Read the visual essay
Social Justice, Purchasing Power & Higher Education
- The 2026 Lycée Movement CompanionYour starting point: how the 2026 movement began and spread, who said what, and the episodes to hear.Read the visual essay
- From May 1968 to 2026: Timeline of Student MovementsWhich student movements won, which failed, and which past one 2026 really resembles.Read the visual essay
- French vs. U.S. Student ProtestsWhy one decision in Paris hits every campus at once, while U.S. protests are fought university by university.Read the visual essay
- What Is Parcoursup?Ten choices, waiting lists and short deadlines: the admissions algorithm behind much of the anger.Read the visual essay
- Why Are Prices Rising in France?Read the receipt, distinguish a rate from a level, and see why an average can miss a household’s squeeze.Read the visual essay
Memory & Identity
- Who Gets to Define “Extreme” in French Politics?Before a political argument can be won, someone has already named its participants. Watch what that naming makes easier to see, and easier to ignore.Read the visual essay
- Does France Have an Obsession with Islam? Yes.How ordinary objects become tests of national belonging, and what disappears when a political problem is reduced to a suspicious identity.Read the visual essay
- France Has Not Worked Through Its Colonial Past: Memory, Denial, and the Politics of Moving OnA hierarchy of rights once organized empire. The question today is not whether every inequality is identical to colonialism, but how that history enters citizenship, memory and political possibility.Read the visual essay
- Everyone Wants the French Revolution. Nobody Wants the Whole Inheritance.The Republic’s vocabulary is not a museum collection. Its promises remain standards against which political power can be tested.Read the visual essay
- Everyone Claims de Gaulle. Which de Gaulle Are They Claiming?One historical figure. Several incompatible political inheritances. Follow the selection before accepting the succession.Read the visual essay
Power & Voting
- Le barrage républicain (The Republican Barrier): Voting for Someone, or Against Someone Else?66.10%. Then 58.55%. Macron’s two runoff victories were decisive results, not surveys of unconditional enthusiasm.Read the visual essay
- France’s President and Prime Minister: Who Governs, and How Do They Share Power?The Élysée is powerful. It is not a machine that turns every campaign sentence into law.Read the visual essay
- Why Are People Protesting in France?The image of a burning object can become the whole event. A serious account keeps demands, crowd estimates, police actions and violence in separate fields.Read the visual essay
- French Political Parties: Beyond Left, Right, and “The Center”Republican does not mean Republican. Liberal does not always mean liberal. Start with the institutions and the disagreements, not an imported translation.Read the visual essay
- How Does France Finance Presidential Campaigns?Donations, spending limits and public reimbursement in France’s presidential election.Read the visual essay
Political Realignment
- How the Socialist Party Lost Its Presidential Electorate, and LFI Became the Main Challenger on the LeftSeparating a presidential candidate, a political movement, elected representatives and a project for a different republic.Read the visual essay
- Marine Le Pen, Jordan Bardella, and the Right’s Changing Centre of GravityA party’s image, organization and proposals can change at different speeds. The RN must be examined on all three, not judged by a logo or a surname.Read the visual essay
- After Macron: Who Inherits Macronism?The individual must leave. A governing language, institutional habits and competing claims to competence do not necessarily leave with him.Read the visual essay
- Reconquête! and the Politics of Contradiction: From Television Provocation to Presidential ProgramAn attention-grabbing statement and a workable law have different obligations. Put the program through the second test.Read the visual essay
Media & Polls
- What Do the Polls Say? French Presidential Election Polls, and How They Frame the RaceBefore a percentage becomes a headline, somebody chooses the candidates, the question, the sample, and the story. Follow the production process.Read the visual essay
- Who Owns French Media? Democracy, Editorial Independence, and the Power to InformOwnership matters. So do sourcing, vocabulary, newsroom rules and the difference between reporting a claim and endorsing it.Read the visual essay
Topics & Searches
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Teaching and learning
Intended audience: Undergraduate students in French studies, history, political science and related fields; independent adult learners.
Suggested uses: Guided reading, seminar discussion, comparative political analysis and media-literacy activities.
After using this resource, learners should be able to:
- Explain the historical and institutional context of the political issue examined.
- Distinguish sourced facts and official data from interpretation.
- Analyze how language, images and historical references shape political narratives.
- Support a comparative argument using evidence from the resource.
Use the objectives that correspond to the material available on this page. Collection pages provide entry points to individual resources; unfinished or unavailable material is not a completed learning activity.
Original materials © Dr. Amine Zidouh / French Politics, licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0 unless otherwise indicated. When sharing or reproducing covered material, credit Dr. Amine Zidouh and French Politics, link to the source and license, and identify changes. Images, protest signs, artworks and other third-party materials are excluded. See Rights, Credits & Educational Reuse for scope, attribution and the as-is disclaimer.