Science journalists have for many years cited the difficulty of conciliating the (long) time required in scientific activity and the (rapid) time in which the media operate. The Covid-19 pandemic came perilously close to joining the two, when an avalanche of scientific papers about the virus were published with such haste that many had to be swiftly retracted. Science journalist and historian Nicolas Chevassus-au-Louis reports on how the pandemic exposed the unvirtuous practices of the lucrative scientific publications business, now brought to a turning point and in need of reinvention.
When in 1885 French scientist Louis Pasteur successfully treated a nine-year-old boy called Joseph Meister who had been bitten by a rabid dog it marked a turning point in the development of vaccines. But the medical breakthrough was also the launchpad for a global expansion of institutes bearing their founder's name which became a spearhead for French influence around the world. As part of a summer series on the history of vaccines, Nicolas Chevassus-au-Louis looks at the pioneering work of France's Louis Pasteur and his nationalistic rivalry with Germany's Robert Koch.
The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 was a dramatic event in both French and German history. In France it led to regime change and, some argue, created a thirst for revenge among some French people in the lead up to World War I. Meanwhile the Prussian-led victory was accompanied by the unification of Germany, which was officially proclaimed on French soil in January 1871. Here Nicolas Chevassus-au-Louis examines first how France has chosen to commemorate the 150th anniversary of this deeply-destructive war, and then interviews a German academic about how the conflict has been largely ignored on the other side of the River Rhine.
The yearly Paris book fair opens its doors to the public on Thursday afternoon, a popular event that was last year marked by an unprecedented demonstration by hundreds of authors protesting at their generally poor and diminishing incomes. Nicolas Chevassus-au-Louis reports on a profession which, with the multiplication of titles published and the advent of digital publishing, sees anything but a happy end ahead, and reveals data which shows that, women authors earn on average significantly less than their male counterparts.
Following Algeria's independence from France in 1962 around 800,000 Algerians of French descent, known as 'Pieds-Noirs', resettled in mainland France, many of them in the south of the country. It has long been assumed that the presence of so many of these repatriated settlers was a major factor in the political rise of the far-right Front National in the Mediterranean region of France. But as Nicolas Chevassus-au-Louis reports, the supposed influence of this ageing group of voters may largely be a myth.
Between 1941 and 1964, a total of 60,000 people were interned in a camp at Rivesaltes in south-west France, close to the border with Spain. The successive waves of internees included Spanish Republican refugees, Jews and Roma during the German occupation of France in World War II, and later Algerian Harki soldiers and their families who had sided with French forces during their country’s bitter war of independence. On Friday, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls inaugurated a major memorial centre at the notorious camp and which highlights widespread political hypocrisy in face of the current refugee crisis. Nicolas Chevassus-au-Louis reports on the history of the camp and its belated memorial centre, a project of 17 years in the making.
A three-decade period that began with the reconstruction of post-war France in 1945, which saw steady economic growth, full employment, the development of a consumer society and a baby-boom is widely known in the country as “les Trente Glorieuses”. Recurrent economic crises since have made many nostalgic of a long-gone, supposedly blissful “thirty glorious” years. But a number of historians argue that for most of the population there never was this golden age that has become a national legend. Nicolas Chevassus-au-Louis reports on the myth and reality of the Trente Glorieuses.
Scientists and research institutions are being dictated to by a system that favours the quantity of scientific papers that get published rather than their quality. The result, say many, has been the gradual decline in the level of scientific scholarship and research in recent years. However, there are now some important initiatives under way to change the way scientists are evaluated for jobs or research grants. As Nicolas Chevassus-au-Louis reports, one French researcher has also called for the establishment of a 'slow science' movement to end the trend towards so-called 'junk science'.
