Charles Devellennes
@cdevellennes.bsky.social
Political and social theorist. Author, Commentator on French politics, Sunday philosopher. All views my own etc.
https://charlesdevellennes.substack.com/
https://charlesdevellennes.substack.com/
I wrote a piece for Damage Magazine on why Bayrou's centrist gamble did not succeed. It lacked a fundamental ingredient of politics: imagination; and it lacked the ability to convince the French people to make this vision happen. You can read the full text here: damagemag.com/2025/09/17/t...
The Centrist Blackmail No Longer Works
On September 8th, François Bayrou became the first Prime Minister to have lost a confidence vote during the Fifth Republic. His demise is a clear indication that the centrist project lacks the imagina...
damagemag.com
September 18, 2025 at 5:53 AM
I wrote a piece for Damage Magazine on why Bayrou's centrist gamble did not succeed. It lacked a fundamental ingredient of politics: imagination; and it lacked the ability to convince the French people to make this vision happen. You can read the full text here: damagemag.com/2025/09/17/t...
As the holidays come to an end, I reflect on the meaning of the vacances for the French - and say "bye-bye Bayrou" after he committed political harakiri: charlesdevellennes.substack.com/p/bye-bayrou
Bye Bayrou
As Emmanuel Macron enters his ninth year in office, the fourth prime minister of his troubled second mandate is about to lose his post.
charlesdevellennes.substack.com
August 31, 2025 at 1:36 AM
As the holidays come to an end, I reflect on the meaning of the vacances for the French - and say "bye-bye Bayrou" after he committed political harakiri: charlesdevellennes.substack.com/p/bye-bayrou
I have a piece in Compact Magazine on the raids against RN offices last week, but also more widely on opposition politics in France. The dangers of Bonapartism: www.compactmag.com/article/how-...
How France Chokes Opposition Parties
On July 9, 2025, 20 armed French police raided the offices of the Rassemblement National (RN), France’s far right party. Two judges had opened a case against the party a year before, after receiving a...
www.compactmag.com
July 17, 2025 at 7:30 PM
I have a piece in Compact Magazine on the raids against RN offices last week, but also more widely on opposition politics in France. The dangers of Bonapartism: www.compactmag.com/article/how-...
Reposted by Charles Devellennes
JOBS! Two post-doctoral Research Fellowships with this Leverhulme-funded project on 'the impacts of New Labour on the lives and life-courses of those born around the year 2000'. I'm on the steering committee, and it's going to be great: jobs.nottingham.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...
Job Vacancy at the University of Nottingham: Research Fellow (Multiple positions, fixed term)
We are now recruiting 2 full time Research Fellows to work with Stephen Farrall and colleagues at Warwick (Emily Gray) and Queen Mary College, University of London (Maria Grasso) on their research int...
jobs.nottingham.ac.uk
July 7, 2025 at 11:45 AM
JOBS! Two post-doctoral Research Fellowships with this Leverhulme-funded project on 'the impacts of New Labour on the lives and life-courses of those born around the year 2000'. I'm on the steering committee, and it's going to be great: jobs.nottingham.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...
I have a short piece on hope as part of a series on emotions and freedom in the Green European Journal you can read here: www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/snapshots-gr...
Snapshots: Grief, Extended Reality, Hope
As our emotions are triggered and compromised in a changing world, what are the indications for our freedom?
www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu
June 12, 2025 at 2:10 PM
I have a short piece on hope as part of a series on emotions and freedom in the Green European Journal you can read here: www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/snapshots-gr...
Reposted by Charles Devellennes
📣 Come join us! 📣 A two-year postdoc in Enlightenment Studies @voltaire.ox.ac.uk and Oxford's lively community of researchers working on the long 18thC @oxhistoryfaculty.bsky.social, Modern Languages, and beyond. my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru... Applications welcome by 30 May.
April 24, 2025 at 12:57 PM
📣 Come join us! 📣 A two-year postdoc in Enlightenment Studies @voltaire.ox.ac.uk and Oxford's lively community of researchers working on the long 18thC @oxhistoryfaculty.bsky.social, Modern Languages, and beyond. my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru... Applications welcome by 30 May.
My Positive Atheism book was reviewed recently by Ruggero Sciuto in French Studies. I wrote a short reply to the review, along with other thoughts, here: open.substack.com/pub/charlesd...
Positive atheism reviewed
A short response to Sciuto
open.substack.com
April 17, 2025 at 11:00 AM
My Positive Atheism book was reviewed recently by Ruggero Sciuto in French Studies. I wrote a short reply to the review, along with other thoughts, here: open.substack.com/pub/charlesd...
Important read on the political reach of the French oligarchy
I wrote about Bernard Arnault, luxury and the trade war for @jacobinmag.bsky.social :
jacobin.com/2025/04/arna...
jacobin.com/2025/04/arna...
The Other Multibillionaire Courting Trump
Europe’s wealthiest individual, Bernard Arnault, is head of luxury goods empire LVMH — and has a lot to lose from a spiraling global trade war. His reported direct line to the Trump administration sho...
jacobin.com
April 16, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Important read on the political reach of the French oligarchy
Speaking tomorrow at this conference in Vercelli on ‘Diderot in Tahiti’.
April 15, 2025 at 9:59 AM
Speaking tomorrow at this conference in Vercelli on ‘Diderot in Tahiti’.
I wrote a short piece about Le Pen’s ineligibility and the problem of democracy here: open.substack.com/pub/charlesd...
Le Pen, ineligibility, and the problem of democracy
For years Marine Le Pen was positioning herself as the ‘Holy-than-Thou’ politician.
open.substack.com
April 1, 2025 at 4:06 PM
I wrote a short piece about Le Pen’s ineligibility and the problem of democracy here: open.substack.com/pub/charlesd...
My book, ‘The Gilets Jaunes and the New Social Contract’, is now available in Korean! With a new preface for the translation. Thrilled to have received my copy, with a cracking new cover. @brisunipress.bsky.social
March 19, 2025 at 10:03 AM
My book, ‘The Gilets Jaunes and the New Social Contract’, is now available in Korean! With a new preface for the translation. Thrilled to have received my copy, with a cracking new cover. @brisunipress.bsky.social
Reposted by Charles Devellennes
Parisiennes, Parisiens, un rappel pour vous. 20 mars, 19h30, Musée du Quai Branly, pour parler de la poussée souverainiste en Afrique de l'Ouest
Détails de l'événement - musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac
Arts et Civilisations d’Afrique, d’Asie, d’Océanie et des Amériques | Expositions, Spectacles,
Concerts, Colloques, Conférences et Université Populaire.
Du Niger au Burkina Faso en passant par le Mali, des juntes ont pris le pouvoir ces dernières années (2020, 2022, 2023) en Afrique de l’Ouest.
www.quaibranly.fr
March 10, 2025 at 8:08 PM
Parisiennes, Parisiens, un rappel pour vous. 20 mars, 19h30, Musée du Quai Branly, pour parler de la poussée souverainiste en Afrique de l'Ouest
Hit the nail on the head. A perverse incentives structure that needs to go.
NEW from me in the FT today... The UK's university 'system' is now in freefall. How on Earth did the disaster unfold? Read all about it: www.ft.com/content/0ec7...
The UK’s academic recession is in full swing
This university crisis is a grim scrabble for numbers
www.ft.com
March 11, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Hit the nail on the head. A perverse incentives structure that needs to go.
Reposted by Charles Devellennes
NEW from me in the FT today... The UK's university 'system' is now in freefall. How on Earth did the disaster unfold? Read all about it: www.ft.com/content/0ec7...
The UK’s academic recession is in full swing
This university crisis is a grim scrabble for numbers
www.ft.com
March 11, 2025 at 8:36 AM
NEW from me in the FT today... The UK's university 'system' is now in freefall. How on Earth did the disaster unfold? Read all about it: www.ft.com/content/0ec7...
This is a sad day for democracy. That one must defend the right of everyone to stand up for their beliefs, however distasteful we might find them, is a fundamental principle worth preserving. Democracy is stronger than its liberal critics allow.
Whatever happened to the notion that, faced with the enemies of democracy, we should fight their ideas but, equally, for their right to express them? The answer, unfortunately, is that it died an ignominious death on Sunday, in Romania unherd.com/newsroom/lib...
Liberals should be outraged by Cǎlin Georgescu's election ban
Whatever happened to the notion that, faced with the enemies of democracy, we should fight their ideas but, equally, for their right to express them? The answer, unfortunately, is that it died an igno...
unherd.com
March 11, 2025 at 1:03 PM
This is a sad day for democracy. That one must defend the right of everyone to stand up for their beliefs, however distasteful we might find them, is a fundamental principle worth preserving. Democracy is stronger than its liberal critics allow.
Reposted by Charles Devellennes
We're hiring a Fellow in Political Theory! @lsegovernment.bsky.social : jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...
LSE Fellow Political Theory
LSE Fellow Political Theory,
,
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><span>LSE is committed to building a diverse, equitable and truly inclusive university</span></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">...
jobs.lse.ac.uk
March 3, 2025 at 2:34 PM
We're hiring a Fellow in Political Theory! @lsegovernment.bsky.social : jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...
Reposted by Charles Devellennes
Timely analysis from Corey Robin in @jacobinmag.bsky.social on the dangers of presidential power (kindly drawing on my book) jacobin.com/2025/02/marx...
Marx on Trump’s Abuses of Power
Karl Marx saw how presidential systems with strong executives threatened to eclipse the democratic power of the legislature.
jacobin.com
February 25, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Timely analysis from Corey Robin in @jacobinmag.bsky.social on the dangers of presidential power (kindly drawing on my book) jacobin.com/2025/02/marx...
Bayrou is accused of lying to MPs over a sexual scandal in his local Catholic school. What does this mean for laïcité and post-truth? I explore the latest here: open.substack.com/pub/charlesd...
Will yet another abuse scandal in the Catholic Church be Bayrou’s downfall?
On post-truth and the hypocrisy of laïcité
open.substack.com
February 21, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Bayrou is accused of lying to MPs over a sexual scandal in his local Catholic school. What does this mean for laïcité and post-truth? I explore the latest here: open.substack.com/pub/charlesd...
I will be in Sciences Po Lille as professeur invité on the following three Mondays - 24/2, 3/3 and 10/3. If you're in Lille and want to grab a coffee, let me know!
February 20, 2025 at 10:59 AM
I will be in Sciences Po Lille as professeur invité on the following three Mondays - 24/2, 3/3 and 10/3. If you're in Lille and want to grab a coffee, let me know!