1. The Accumulation of Capital 
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 1913
   Rosa Luxemburg's analysis of the inherent contradictions of capitalist accumulation.
2. Age of Extremes 
   The Short Twentieth Century 1914 - 1991
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 1994   Published: 1997
   A overview of the history of the years 1914 - 1991.
3. Banned Books
   Informal Notes on Some Books Banned for Various Reasons
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 1970
   
4. Blacking Out the Yellow Vests on Cable News: Corporate Media Doing its Job
   Resource Type: Article
   First Published: 2018
   France is experiencing a left-leaning popular and working-class uprising consistent with the French revolutionary tradition of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity", yet the majorty of Western media have given very little investigation or serious attention to the momentous events.
5. Blood and Belonging
   Journey into the New Nationalism
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 1993   Published: 1994
   Essays on nationalism in Serbia, Croatia, Germany, Ukraine, Quebec, Kurdistan, and Northern Ireland.
6. Blood on Their Banner
   Nationalist Struggles in the South Pacific
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 1990
   An expose of the political policies of France, Indonesia and the United States and how they pose the greatest threat to the stability of the region.
7. Blueprint for a Green Economy
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 1989
   A set of practical proposals for financing a sustainable environment.
8. Bureau of Public Secrets 
   Resource Type: Website
   Articles from a Situationist perspective.
9. Das Capital, Volume 1 
   A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 1867   Published: 1890
   Marx's great work sets out to grasp and portray the totality of the capitalist mode of production, and the bourgeois society that emerges from it. He describes and connects all its economic features, together with its legal, political, religious, artistic, philosophical and ideological manifestations.
10. Das Capital, Volume 3
    The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1894   Published: 1971
    
11. Cities and the Wealth of Nations
    Principles of Economic Life
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1984
    Jacobs argues that virtually all economic life, no matter how geographically remote from cities, depends on cities to maintain it or change it.
12. The Civil War in France 
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1871
    Written by Karl Marx as an address to the General Council of the International, with the aim of distributing to workers of all countries a clear understanding of the character and world-wide significance of the heroic struggle of the Paris Communards of 1871 and their historical experience to learn from.
    
13. Civility
    A Cultural History
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2009
    Through a historical, social, and psychological discussion of the civility practices in 3 nations - England, France and the United States, Davetian addresses major topics in public discourse today regarding the ideas and practices of civility and the possibility of a future civility ethic capable of inspiring cooperation across cultural and national boundaries.
14. The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1850
    Originally a series of articles written between January and October 1850 specially for the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-ökonomische Revue and published in it under the general title "1848-1849."
15. Collective Action - and Victory! France: CPE Goes Down
    Against The Current vol. 122
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2006
    Millions of young people in France have lived through the experience of collective action and of an important victory, young people who just a few weeks earlier had paid no attention to political organization. In the end the movement won: the "First Employment Contract" (CPE) has been annulled.
16. A comment on Greece and Syriza
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2012
    This analysis is a rebuke to the notion that there is nothing between the far left and social democracy. That diagnosis may have been appropriate in the period of revolutionary growth beginning in 1968. This period, marked by the long-term decomposition of once dominant social democratic parties, is quite different.
17. The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg, Volume I 
    Economic Writings 1
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2013
    This first volume in Rosa Luxemburg's Complete Works, entitled Economic Writings 1, contains some of Luxemburg's most important statements on the globalization of capital, wage labour, imperialism, and pre-capitalist economic formations.
18. Connexions Library: Europe Focus
    Resource Type: Website
    First Published: 2009
    Selected articles, books, websites and other resources on Europe.
19. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte 
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1852
    Marx wrote The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon between December 1851 and March 1852. The "Eighteenth Brumaire" refers to November 9, 1799 in the French Revolutionary Calendar -- the day the first Napoleon Bonaparte had made himself dictator by a coup d'etat. Marx traces how the conflict of different social interests manifest themselves in the complex web of political struggles, and in particular the contradictory relationships between the outer form of a struggle and its real social content.
20. Embassy Row Online
    Resource Type: Website
    Contact names and numbers for all embassies to Canada and all Canadian embassies abroad.
21. Eradicating Extreme Poverty
    Democracy, Globalisation and Human Rights
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2012
    A new approach to eradicating extreme poverty, contrasted with conventional "top-down" approaches.
22. Failure of a Dream?
    Essays in the History of American Socialism
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1974
    Examines the reasons for the relative weakness of American socialism.
23. For Reasons of State
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1973
    Essays in which Chomsky analyzes the role of the American state and discusses some of the ways in which individuals can respond to its growing power.
24. France: A Sea Change on the Left
    Against The Current vol. 137
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2008
    In contrast with the United States, where the political arena has been dominated by two entrenched parties for a century, France has gone through major changes since the end of World War II. Back then, workers' demands were mostly put forward by the French Communist Party (PCF) which had over 30% of the vote, and the fear of a revolution forced the ruling class to concede to demands such as universal healthcare (called Sécurité sociale).
25. FRANCE: Battling Over Pensions
    Against The Current vol. 151
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2011
    France was rocked in September-October 2010 by some of the country’s largest protests in recent memory, as workers fought to prevent cuts to their public pensions. President Nicolas Sarkozy’s agenda promised to raise the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62 and the age for a full pension from 65 to 67.
26. France Spring 1968
    Masses in motion Ideas in free flow
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1968
    
27. France Stuck in the Extreme Center
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2022
    After years of neoliberalism, French politics that venture outside the conformist centre's unshakable loyalty to the Atlantic Alliance are now dangerously 'extreme.'
28. France: Yellow Jackets and labour movement at a crossroads - Social and political questions
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2019
    A brief look at the Yellow Vests in 2018. Though they may have their problems they provide a possiblity of change outside the electoral system.
29. France's National Front Draws Strength From Brexit
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2016
    The party has long shrouded racism in the language of "self-determination" -- now, they feel vindicated.
30. Free public transport: from social experiement to political alternative? - Book Review
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2013
    A book review of M. Giovannangeli and J. L. Sagot-Duvauroux's "Voyageurs sans ticket. Liberté, égalité, gratuité : une expérience sociale à Aubagne".
31. French Democracy Dead or Alive?
    The Gilets Jaunes in 2019
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2019
    An overview of the Yellow Vests: their methods, demands, media coverage and summary of major events from November 2018 to January 2019.
32. French Jews for Palestinian Rights
    Against The Current vol. 89
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2000
    The following text (abridged here) was published in the French daily Le Monde of October 18, 2000 accompanied by the signatures of fifty French people of Jewish origin, several of them well-known political or intellectual figures. Citizens of the countries in which we live and citizens of the planet, we do not habitually express ourselves as Jews.
33. French Revolution 1968
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1968
    Seale and McConville set out to relate what happened during the May 1968 revolt in France, to set the explosion in its context of French politics, and to single out what they take to be the original and creative features of the situation.
34. French Students Speak for Themselves What We Won - and Need
    Against The Current vol. 122
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2006
    The following collective interview was conducted for ATC by Patrick Silberstein of Editions Syllepse.
35. Front Runner
    Marine Le Pen's campaign to make France great again
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2016
    A look at Marine Len Pen, leader of the far-right National Front Party (FN), and the events and circumstances that led to her party's rise in popularity from a fringe movement to the forefront of French politics.
36. General Strike France 1968 
    A factory-by-factory account
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1969
    Andre Hoyles analyses the development, organisation and end of the mass strike in France, 1968, with reference to case studies of particular factories.
37. Guadeloupe and Martinique threatened as pesticide contaminates food chain
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2013
    Chemical once used on banana crops threatening livelihoods and public health by polluting soil and sea.
38. In a Time of Torment
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1968
    Independent journalist I.F. Stone on the events and issues of the 1960s.
39. In Russian and French Prisons
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1906   Published: 1991
    Kropotkin's criticism of the penal system, and an inside look into the horrors and realities of what life in prison entails.
40. Jurassic Park in France: The Return of the French Communist Party and the Melenchon Phenomenon
    An Interview with Yves Coleman
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2012
    For the moment what preoccupies working class people in France is not so much the next elections but the euro crisis and the massive layoffs postponed by the bosses and the Right until after the elections.
41. Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution 
    Volume I: State and Bureaucracy
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1977
    A wide-ranging and thorough exposition of Marx's views on democracy.
42. The Main Issue in the French Presidential Election: National Sovereignty
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2017
    The 2017 French Presidential election marks a profound change in European political alignments. There is an ongoing shift from the traditional left-right rivalry to opposition between globalization, in the form of the European Union (EU), and national sovereignty.
43. May 1968 Graffiti
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1968
    "Don't consume Marx, live him."
44. The Middle East in Flames
    Against The Current vol. 124
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2006
    Andrew Kennedy and Suzi Weismann Interview Gilbert Achcar. Gilbert Achcar is the author of Eastern Cauldron and The Clash of Barbarisms, both published by Monthly Review Press.
45. The National Question 
    Selected Writings by Rosa Luxemburg
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1976
    In her penetrating analysis of nationalism, Rosa Luxemburg argues that the formula of "the right of nations to self-determination" is essentially not a political or programmatic guide to the nationality question, but only a means of avoiding that question.
46. Obsolete Communism
    The Left-Wing Alternative
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1968   Published: 1969
    An account of the May 1968 uprising in Paris, positing a left radical alternative to the encrusted beliefs of the old left and the right. A comment on power, on bureaucracy, and on the paths to liberation.
47. On the Poverty of Student Life
    Considered in Its Economic, Political, Psychological, Sexual and Especially Intellectual Aspects, With a Modest Proposal for Doing Away With
    Resource Type: Book
    The Situationist International and the students at the University of Strasbourg prepared and published (using student union funds) this scathing analysis of student duplicity. While claiming to be revolutionaries, students prepare themselves for a professional career -- "just in case." The pamphlet provides a Situationist analysis of a familiar institution.
48. On the Question of Revolutionary Organization: the Case of the NPA in France
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2009
    The challenge of creating an anti-bureaucratic, democratic revolutionary socialist party.
49. On the Uprisings in France
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2016
    At the beginning of March 2016, France's now ultra-liberal Socialist Party (PS) government officially revealed a labour reforms bill whose objective was to promote the competitiveness of businesses operating in France. The bill, commonly referred to as the El Khomri (the country's Labour Minister) law, was instantly perceived by most leftist factions as a fundamental attack on workers rights and a downright sabotage of the French Labour Code ("Code du Travail"), considered one of Europe's most progressive. The law allows for companies to reach "agreements" with its staff over working conditions without the need to negotiate with trade unions, subjecting workers to employers' arbitrary decisions (in regards to longer hours and lower overtime pay) without any legal protection. It also facilitates mass sackings and individual lay-offs by relaxing French law's constraint on firing and hiring, and casts aside the sacrosanct 35-hour work week in favour of a lengthened, more "flexible" one.
50. Overthrowing other people's governments: The Master List 
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2013
    Instances of the United States overthrowing, or attempting to overthrow, a foreign government since the Second World War.
51. The Paris Commune told in pictures
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1934
    An illustrated history of the Paris Commune of 1871.
    
52. A People's History of the United States 
    1492 - Present
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1995   Published: 2003
    Zinn's history includes those most ignored by typical American textbook history, including Indians, blacks, women and workers.
    
53. A People's History of the World 
    From the Stone Age to the New Millennium
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1999
    Harman describes the shape and course of human history as a narrative of ordinary people forming and re-forming complex societies in pursuit of common human goals.
54. The Politics of Urban Liberation
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1978
    A broad-ranging study which covers the political economy of the urban question and the importance of the city in the history of social revolution. Schechter's evaluation of libertarian insurgency highlights the importance of movements from below dealing with housing, transportation and other issues of daily life.
55. Race and Class: Paris to New Orleans
    Against The Current vol. 120
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2006
    It turns out that the city of lights and city of jazz have a lot in common. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and militant explosions in the suburbs of Paris expose the underbelly of racism and class divisions.
56. Reflections of a Siamese Twin
    Canada at the End of the Twentieth Century
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1997
    The tension in Canada between the model of an inclusive more egalitarian community vs. bureaucratic closed structures of government. According to Saul, Canada is a complex original which does not fit the model of uniligual nation-states like Britain, France, and the United States, which, he says, is profoundly upsetting to the simplistic colonial minds of the Canadian establishment.
57. Reflections on the Revolution in France: 1968
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1970
    In May 1968 France was on the threshold of something entirely new. In this 'pre-revolutionary situation' nothing went unquestioned. The writers, trade unionists and students who contribute to this volume all believe our future is foreshadowed in the events of May. And they explain why, after this shock to a regime of seemingly impregnable strength, things can never be the same again.
58. Resistance during World War II
    Connexipedia Article
    Resource Type: Article
    
59. Resistance in Europe: 1939 - 45
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1975   Published: 1976
    Essays on the resistance against Hitler during World War II.
60. The Rights of Man
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1792
    Thomas Paine's defense of the French Revolution -- and the right to revolt.
61. A Saga of Revolution
    Book Review of Reiss' "The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo"
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2014
    A review of Tom Reiss' biography of Alexandre Dumas, a largely underemphasized figure in the French Revolution and the slave trade during the 18th century.
62. Selections from the Prison Notebooks 
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1951   Published: 1973
    Gramsci's Notebooks cover a wide range of subjects including history, culture, politics, and philosophy.
63. Situationist International Anthology 
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1981   Published: 2006
    A selection of Situationist writings.
64. '68: The Year of the Barricades 
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1988
    Caute's book looks at the explosive year 1968 (while situating it in the context of what had led up to it). One of the great strengths of this excellent book is that it looks at what was happening around the world.
65. The Slave Trade
    The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1440 - 1870
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1997
    A comprehensive history of the Atlantic slave trade in which approximiately eleven million black slaves were carried from Africa to the Americas to work on plantations, in mines, or as servants in houses.
    
66. The Socialist Crisis in France
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1901
    "The Republic is in danger! That is why it was necessary for a socialist to become the bourgeois Minister of Commerce. The Republic is in danger! That is why the socialist had to remain in the cabinet even after the massacre of the striking workers on the Island of Martinique and in Chalon. The Republic is in danger! As a result, inquiries into the massacres had to be blocked, the parliamentary investigations of the horrors perpetrated in the colonies had to be discarded, and the amnesty law accepted."
    
67. The Socialist Register 1971
    Volume 8: A survey of movements and ideas
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    First Published: 1971
    
68. The Socialist Register 1977
    Volume 14: A Survey of Movements & Ideas
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    First Published: 1977
    
69. The Socialist Register 1978
    Volume 15: A Survey of Movements & Ideas
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    First Published: 1978
    
70. The Socialist Register 1979
    Volume 16: A Survey of Movements & Ideas
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    First Published: 1979
    A series of essays on the state of the global economy.
71. The Socialist Register 1984
    Volume 21: The Uses of Anti-Communism
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    First Published: 1984
    
72. The Socialist Register 1985/1986
    Volume 22: Social Democracy and After
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    First Published: 1986
    
73. The Socialist Register 1988
    Volume 24: Problems of Socialist Renewal: East & West
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    First Published: 1988
    An examination of the prospects for socialism written shortly before the fall of the Soviet Union.
    
74. Studies in the Development of Capitalism
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1947   Published: 1968
    A Marxist interpretation of economic development in the period of modern capitalism. Starting with the decline of serfdom, the book deals with the beginnings of the bourgeoisie in the rising urban communities of Europe, with the growth of industrial investment, and with monopoloy in its various forms as a crucial instrument in the growth of capitalism.
75. Towards a New Cold War
    Essays on the Current Crisis and How We Got There
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1982
    A sobering assessment of American foreign policy from the end of the Vietnam era to Ronald Reagan.
76. Transport Policy and the Environment
    Six Case Studies
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1990
    
77. Understanding France's General Strike in the Context of the Yellow Vests and Global Class Warfare
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2020
    Labor and capital are at loggerheads in France. As the open-ended strike launched on December 5th against a neoliberal overhaul of the pension system continues to expand, the Macron regime has dug in its heels to defend the advantages this so-called reform would have for the wealthy (even though it has recently been forced to present what it considers to be a "compromise" to the union leadership).
78. Voyages To Utopia
    From Monastery to Commune - The Search for the Perfect Society in Modern Times
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1989
    The story of William McCord's exploration of utopian communities, both in person and through literature.
    
79. Why the French Hate Chomsky
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2010
    Chomsky's criticism is laden with facts, a substance that seems to elicit ennui among contemporary French thinkers. No doubt the importance of the essay in the French educational system has bred a world of 'philosophers' whose skill at manipulating fact-free ideas was the guarantee of a distinguished career. If the social object is to entertain, then the French school reaches its goal -- mystification is often far more entertaining than straightforward descriptions of reality. On the other hand, if the object is to help readers reach their own understanding of reality, especially political reality, then their first need is to be provided with the basic relevant facts, which most people do not have time to ascertain through their own research. Thus Chomsky is useful to citizens by providing them with the raw material to develop their own ideas in a way that the purveyors of ready-made but flimsily supported ideas are not.
80. Worker-Student Action Committees France May '68 
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1969
    An account of the May-June 1968 events in Paris. The authors state that "our intention is not to 'clarify' the sequence of events which took place in France in order to make possible a ritual repetition of these events, but rather to contrast the limited views we had of the events at the time we were engaged in them, with the views we have gained from further action in different contexts."
81. Writings on the Paris Commune 
    Resource Type: Book
    Hal Draper's compilation of all the writings by Marx and Engels on the Paris Commune of 1871, when a working-class-led revolution took power and established a new type of state for the first time in the history of the world - temporarily, in one city.

Experts on France in the Sources Directory

1. Association of Caribbean States
2. European Union
3. La Francophonie
4. NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
5. United Nations
6. Wikileaks
7. World Digital Library