“
I am here to express our support for all those who have been fighting for three weeks against the destruction of a civilization”
: on December 12, 1995, Pierre Bourdieu gave an offensive speech at the Gare de Lyon to support the striking railway workers who opposed on the Juppe plan.
Nearly thirty years later, the strikers are still there, Bourdieu has disappeared but his tutelary shadow reigns over the social sciences in France.
Round bear face with a creased forehead, serious as a pope, dogmatic delivery with a slight Béarn accent, this son of a postman of peasant origin is the very example of the meritocracy that he has castigated as a myth all his life. .
Read also1995-2019: death of the reformist left-wing intellectual
He climbed all levels of academic success: preparatory class at Louis-le-Grand, École Normale Supérieure, aggregation of philosophy, chair of sociology at the College de France.
He who defined himself as a
“defector son of a defector”
will have had a totemic influence.
For Annie Ernaux, he was the magician who revealed to her the essence of contempt...
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