Abstract
This article examines Zygmunt Bauman's limited academic reception in France, despite his global influence and numerous French translations. Building on Simon Tabet's ‘missed appointment’ concept, it analyses the fragmented publishing history and lack of a strong academic patron that hindered his integration. Challenges included postmodernism controversies and Bourdieu's dominance, leading to Bauman's perception as a public intellectual rather than a rigorous academic. The paper then explores recent shifts: growing interdisciplinarity; stabilized publishing; and President Macron's unexpected political use of Baumanian concepts. This political visibility, though ironic, has pushed Bauman's ‘liquid’ metaphors into mainstream discourse. The article suggests that France's current societal changes may finally foster deeper academic engagement with Bauman's work.
Keywords
Introduction to the story of ‘un rendez-vous manqué’ (expression by Tabet)
With a bibliography spanning over eighty books, numerous translations of some titles into dozens of languages (totaling over 34 linguistic versions), and a rare degree of global popularity and celebrity for an academic, Zygmunt Bauman is undeniably a global intellectual. However, in certain regions, the impact and visibility of his work remain exceptionally modest, despite the excellent accessibility of his major publications. One such region, where the academic universe is resistant to Bauman's interpretations of contemporary societal changes, is France. This is particularly puzzling given that over 20 of his titles were translated into French, and his intellectual framework (postmodernism) is not far removed from French academic thought. Moreover, Bauman himself frequently referenced French intellectuals, notably from Tocqueville to Jean-François Lyotard, the ‘pope of postmodernism,’ in his analyses.
In this paper, I respond to the question of Zygmunt Bauman's relatively modest popularity in France − both within the university environment and among the broader readership − especially when compared to other Latin-language and culture countries such as Spain, Italy, Portugal and those in South and Central America. This text does not aim to exhaustively analyse the sales figures or overall popularity of Bauman's books, as I do not have access to such granular data. A good analysis of the reception of Bauman's work in France was published in 2017 in the special issue devoted to Zygmunt Bauman of La Nouvelle Revue en Science Sociale (nr 8) by Simon Tabet in the article untitled ‘Itinéraires d’une sociologie liquide’ [Itinerary of the liquid sociology]. Tabet called that reception ‘un rendez-vous manqué’ and gives several elements to understand this phenomenon. In my article, I extend Tabet's analysis (addressed to the French readership), updating and complementing it with additional elements that aim to help a non-French audience understand this ‘missed appointment,’
My first contact with Bauman's work in the late 1990s offered a brief immersion into the issue of the reception of his work by the French academic universe, though the minority character of my doctoral school prevents treating this example as fully representative. During my PhD studies at the Parisian École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), within a programme 1 known as ‘Parisian prolongation of Chicago Schools’ (as our frequent guest Howard S. Becker often described it), our professors highly valued and read Bauman's early work, Between Class and Elite: The Evolution of the British Labour Movement. A Sociological Study (1972–1960 for Polish version − it was his PhD and habilitation work). While Modernity and the Holocaust (Bauman, 1989), was also read, it was discussed less, as we were not specialists in the Shoah; however, we deeply appreciated Bauman's development of Hughesian thought. There, Bauman was perceived by my academic environment as a serious scholar − a social scientist.
A dozen years later, as a sociologist studying academic careers, I became attracted by Bauman's visibility and varied response (in Poland, the United Kingdom, Italy and France). The tensions, legends and misunderstandings around his life prompted me to devote seven years to investigating his life and his career. My interest in his reception in France began in 2017 (the fourth year of my work on Zygmunt Bauman's biography published in 2020), when I started giving seminars, lectures and conference communications in various academic settings in Paris (during my visiting professorships at EHESS (twice), Sorbonne-Panthéon and Paris X University). Since 2023, as a Professor of Anthropology and Sociology of Migration at Paris Cité University, I have continued more systematically this inquiry. In each new group of students and colleagues, I consistently ask my audience: ‘Who knows the name Zygmunt Bauman?’ My subsequent questions probe further: ‘Who has read his books? Can you provide some titles? Some key concepts?’ If these initial inquiries yield little response, I then ask if they have at least heard about ‘liquid life,’ ‘liquid modernity,’ or ‘liquid love.’ The responses to my questions consistently differ, and these differences illuminate several elements that influence a thinker's popularity within a given cultural−linguistic and political space.
Among younger audiences, particularly first-year social sciences students, Bauman's name is largely unknown. If a hand is raised, it is more likely to belong to an Erasmus exchange student from Spain, Italy, Portugal, or South and Central American countries, for whom Bauman is often an icon or a celebrity. French-educated students, even those who have had sociology classes in their high school curricula (shared with economics), rarely recognize Zygmunt Bauman. The situation improves slightly among more advanced students, especially those specializing in migration studies or anthropology of migration at the Master's level. However, even then, recognition is far from universal. Among PhD students in the social sciences, the name is usually recognized, though often without having read his books; they might recall concepts such as ‘liquid life’ or ‘liquid love,’ but fewer refer to ‘liquid modernity.’ PhD students in history tend to be better informed, largely due to Modernity and the Holocaust being considered a fundamental work on the Shoah.
Among my colleagues, the situation is generally better, particularly for those with strong ties (such as fieldwork) to Spain, Portugal, Italy and Latin America. They are familiar with Bauman's work and widely acknowledge his impact and popularity. Other scholars tend to situate Bauman primarily within the context of his postmodernity works, often without delving into specific details. Consequently, Bauman is often perceived less as an academic writer and more as a broad cultural author whose ideas are shared with a large readership, but outside a specific academic framework. He is someone to be read as part of a ‘general culture’ and current discussions about societal changes. While his work might be read, it is less likely to be cited in academic texts, indicating a different intellectual space of discussion.
His originality and eclectic thought, coupled with the difficulty of categorizing him, certainly contributed to this particular place in a French well-structured environment. Bauman was an original stranger − not a Polish dissident and Oxford professor like Leszek Kołakowski; nor a communist scholar and philosopher of ideas who, in exile, became a famous French Revolution expert, like Bronisław Baczko, Professor at Geneva University; nor an outstanding Polish exiled professor in economics and Sovietology at Oxford, famous for his work on Chinese economics, like Włodzimierz Brus. Bauman was extremely difficult to categorize, but it is not only because of such difficulty that French intellectuals and the broader readership were not as enthusiastic about his work as their southern neighbours. Yet, this is a more complex story than this article can fully reveal.
PAST: picking up the pieces – missing elements
Translations and their visibility
While academic communities in several European states (such as Scandinavian countries and Eastern and Central European states) operate in English alongside their national languages, French social scientists primarily publish in French. This practice is partly a result of the defence of Francophonie, a political and cultural programme maintained by successive French governments to counter Americanization. Publishing books in French has been integral to this policy, and financial support for translations (both French authors into foreign languages and foreign authors into French) remains an important tool in this cultural struggle. Editors can apply for financial support from the French Ministry of Culture, and translation projects are often initiated based on such editorial house initiatives. This structural background partially explains the history of Bauman's work published in French.
The order of his published titles in French often appears chaotic or haphazard. Key works belonging to earlier periods, significantly different in style, content, analysis, topics and studied material, were published amid his newest writings (e.g., the ‘liquid’ series). This meant his broad public work was mixed with academic pieces without a strong, coherent introduction of his scholarship to the French reading public. Consequently, this anarchic mix of topics and titles (not following the original edition order), coupled with the multiplicity of publishing houses offering his books, contributed to the fragmented presence of Baumanian works translated into French. The following story of the first dozen years of Bauman's presence on French bookshelves vividly illustrates the chaotic context that contributed to the ‘missed appointment’ (Tabet, 2017: 13).
Bauman's first book translated into French, Le coût humain de la mondialisation (published by the well-known Hachette in a collection directed by Joël Roman), appeared in 1999, only one year after the original English publication of Globalization: The Human Consequences (Bauman, 1998) 2 (Tabet, 2017: 13 3 ). Just a couple of months after this first French title, Modernité et Holocauste (Bauman, 1999) [Modernity and the Holocaust, Bauman, 1989, Cornell University Press], was published by the smaller and not a traditional academic but an activist editor ‘La Fabrique.’ Then, Jacqueline Chambon, who had started her new publishing house in 1987, issued several of Bauman's books, beginning in 2003 with La Vie en Miettes, followed each year by a new title from the ‘Liquid’ series: L’amour Liquide (Bauman, 2004) [Liquid Love], La société assiégée (Bauman, 2005) [Liquid Fear, 2006, surprisingly issued before its English original; republished in French in 2007 by Hachette in the collection Pluriel and republished in 2014 by Fayard/Pluriel La société assiégée (Bauman, 2005) [Liquid Fear, Bauman, 2006, 4 ]; then La Vie liquide (Bauman, 2006). The same year, Payot (a well-known publishing house) published Vie Perdues [Wasted Lives]. French readers could then delve back into Bauman's earlier writings from before his ‘liquid’ period with La Décadence des intellectuels. Des législateurs aux interprètes [Legislators and Interpreters: On Modernity, Post-Modernity and Intellectuals, Bauman, 1987], also published by Jacqueline Chambon/Actes Sud, in 2007 − 20 years after the original. The ‘Liquid’/anti-consumering series then continued thanks to Jacqueline Chambon with S’acheter une vie (Bauman, 2008) [Consuming Life, Bauman, 2007], almost immediately after its original publication. In 2009, two titles were published by more modest editors: Identité [Identity: Conversations with Benedetto Vecchi, Bauman, 2004, four years after the original] by L’Herne and L’éthique a-t-elle une chance dans un monde de consommateurs? [Does Ethics Have a Chance in a World of Consumers?, Bauman, 2008] by Climats, just one year after the original. After this first decade, active publishing continued and various editors took part in this process. Bauman's books were published by: Dunaud, Fayard, Seuil, Gallimard, Flammarion, Actes Sud, CNRS Editions, Payot/Rivages, Rouergue/Chambon, L'Herne, Armin Collins, and Hachette; and after the death of Zygmunt Bauman, a new editor, Premier Parallèle, is publishing three of his books: Retrotopia (2019 and 2024); Des Étrangers à nos portes (2016 and 2020) [Strangers at Our Door, 2016]; and Ma vie en fragments (2024). 5
This example shows the multiplicity of publishing houses and their diverse specialties (from large readership/general culture, activist writing, niche editors, to academic publishers − rarely the latter). Using the Baumanian metaphorical approach, I can compare this situation to the tridimensional puzzle in which we miss not only the key pieces but also the frame for making a coherent picture.
We may notice the absence of a consistent strategy that might have presented Bauman's work in a specific and precise, issue-focused way. This is one of the factors that negatively influenced the reception of Bauman's thought in France. As his connoisseur and French commentator Simon Tabet remarked in a posthumous conclusion: ‘The quantity of French commentary is thus very low comparatively to other countries, but there is above all a clear overrepresentation of the author in the media (newspapers, magazines, radio) relative to his scientific existence. Bauman's case indeed seems unique, strange, and it raises questions: numerous journalists or commentators present him in France as “one of the most influential sociologists,” even though his intellectual legitimacy there is absolutely not founded in the academic world. In fact, we observe three very differentiated receptions of Zygmunt Bauman's work in France: para-academic, media, and political’ (Tabet, 2017: 15).
While Tabet developed these three mentioned categories of Bauman's visibility 6 and also explained the difficulty of importing Bauman's ideas from the perspective of French history of ideas, I will focus here on other aspects that contributed to the challenging academic presence of Bauman's work. These aspects are related to the functioning of the local 7 academic milieu, structured around its mandarins 8 and sharply determined by its strict disciplinary organization.
The academic ‘parrainage’ as an entrance into the French academic debate
What is certainly not specific to France is that foreign intellectuals (or schools of thought) benefit from local introducers − usually well-established scholars. Thomas Kuhn's introduction to the English translation of Ludwik Fleck's (1979) opus magnum is one example of this ‘parrainage’ role for United States academia. Another famous example that reveals the backstages of the successful introduction of United States thought into the French academic world is provided by Yves Winkin, a specialist in Goffman's work and life:
‘It was Robert Castel, working at the time between Foucault and Bourdieu, who introduced Goffman's Asylums to Bourdieu. Bourdieu then initiated the translation in his collection and asked Castel to write the introduction. Bourdieu subsequently discovered the entirety of Goffman's work during his stay at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1972. He then visited Goffman in Philadelphia, and they immediately connected. (…). He then launched the continuous translation of most of Goffman's books in his collection at Editions de Minuit. So much so that, even today, Goffman remains the most translated American sociologist into French.’ 9
Bauman's history with translations in France is much more complicated, resulting from both the difficulties in categorizing him within the French disciplinary organization and the challenge of creating ‘room’ for his interpretations of world dynamics in a competitive French intellectual arena dominated by established personalities. It is not that Bauman's work was unknown by scholars, but if his name was discussed, it was less about his actual work and more about his disciplinary affiliation: Was he a philosopher? A sociologist? A public intellectual? A Marxist? A postmodernist? An essayist?
He was, in fact, all of these, but arguably not ‘enough’ of any single one (considering the books available in France at the time). His initial academic introduction, which Tabet correctly defines as ‘para-academic,’ predates the widespread publication of his books. It occurred in 1992 with a postmodernist article in the journal Sociétés, founded by Michel Maffesoli. This article was the first in a special issue dedicated to ‘postmodernity’ (and titled ‘postmodernité’), following the first francophone conference on the subject, ‘Postmodernité et syncrétisme,’ organized at the Sorbonne in 1990 by the Centre d’études sur l’actuel et le quotidien [Centre for Studies on the Present and the Everyday] and the Centre de recherche sur l’imaginaire (Tabet, 2017: 16). This context − a sociological journal and a Sorbonne conference − suggests a highly academic introduction.
However, Maffesoli's position within the local intellectual milieu was ambivalent; the recognition of his work (e.g., on urban tribes) was much stronger outside France than in his homeland, mirroring Bauman's own trajectory. In the early 2000s, when Bauman's books were being regularly published in France, Maffesoli's position declined radically. This was notably after April 2001, when a controversy erupted over his PhD student's work, Elizabeth Teissier, concerning the social reception of astrology. 10 This made Maffesoli an unsuitable ‘academic godfather’ for Bauman, as his legitimacy was largely questioned. The context of this popular and highly mediatized controversy, mobilizing a significant academic response, reinforced a climate of suspicion towards ‘postmodernism’ and its scholars. This suspicion had already been fuelled by the 1997 book co-authored by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont, Impostures intellectuelles [Fashionable Nonsense, 1998], which exposed the abuse of scientific concepts and terminology in the literature of postmodern scholars. Bauman himself was not directly targeted, nor were his specific concepts (e.g., ‘liquid’ is a term seemingly borrowed from physics, but there was no misunderstanding; Bauman had studied physics for two years in Gorki, the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and his metaphorical language was rooted in the humanities, not in science − see Wagner, 2020). Nevertheless, the entire postmodern community was weakened by these discussions; the new approach was perceived by classical academics as suspicious, lacking rigour − a mere passing fashion.
When Bauman transitioned from the postmodern period to his ‘liquid era,’ French social sciences were largely dominated by Pierre Bourdieu and his disciples. Bourdieu, as France's foremost sociologist, was a prolific author who extensively addressed social changes and various other topics. This raises the question of whether there was sufficient intellectual space for two such prominent personalities, particularly with their distinct Marxist perspectives. Bourdieu, based in France, masterfully managed his environment, media presence, social activism and political engagement. Bauman, with his eclectic theoretical and metaphorical conceptual apparatus, and his diverse references (including British popular media, journal articles and weekly press), was likely perceived as too ‘étrange’ (strange) and too far removed from the French context to engage in a sustained discussion with French scholars.
While other intellectual connections might have been possible, they proved insufficient for Bauman's work to gain significant traction within French academia. For instance, in 2014, Simon Tabet published Le Projet sociologique de Zygmunt Bauman. Vers une approche critique de la postmodernité [The Sociological Project of Zygmunt Bauman: Towards a Critical Approach to Postmodernity], a book that could have served as a useful framework for navigating Bauman's diverse bibliography and understanding his perspective coherently. In his review of this work, Aldo Haesler, a sociologist specializing in theories of social change, wrote: ‘Even though Zygmunt Bauman is among the best-published foreign sociologists in France, he has benefited neither from extensive commentary nor from any introductory work. Yet this English sociologist of Polish origin, born in 1925, continues to publish book after book, and many—sociologists, philosophers, or journalists—use him to apprehend a modernity that is increasingly difficult to grasp, with his central notion of “liquid modernity” becoming a master key for deciphering its arcana. For this reason, Simon Tabet's work is welcome. While tracing the intellectual journey of the sociologist, he discusses his numerous theoretical borrowings, his simultaneously eclectic and opportunistic way of embracing social phenomena, to extract his singular posture. A critical sociologist without systematic thought, a sociologist of patchwork and thematic transgressions, Bauman traversed the 20th century like a tightrope walker, embracing all causes, touching upon all fashions, flitting right and left according to his observations and readings. The object of Tabet's book is to make him graspable, not to subject him to criticism’(Haesler, 2014: 1 11 ).
This excellent review offers significant insight into the French reception of Bauman's work, as well as providing a valuable introduction to the Baumanian world. However, Tabet's position in the academic field was not strong enough to serve as a primary ‘parrain.’ In the French academic world (as Bourdieu's Homo Academicus and Noblesse d'État, provide deep insight into this dynamic), one's academic position is paramount. Tabet was, in 2014, a PhD student whose doctoral study was classified in English studies, not in sociology or philosophy. Even though he was an expert in Bauman's work at the time of this publication (Tabet, 2014), his standing was insufficient to effectively introduce Bauman into French academia. It was not an ‘entrance by the big door.’
Indeed, other, much better-positioned scholars were needed to introduce Bauman's work 12 . An interesting bridge that could have brought Bauman into academia in a truly academic, rather than para-academic, way was the book Les Riches font-ils le bonheur de tous?, published in 2014 by Armand Colin. This edition was prefaced by Michel Pinçon and Monique Pinçon-Charlot (a second edition was later published by Dunaud in 2019). Their introductory text provided a strong academic endorsement. The authors enjoyed significant visibility (Pinçon and Pinçon-Charlot's books on aristocracy, lifestyles and social spaces are very popular) and held a strong academic position, even if their political engagement and militancy were sometimes questioned by a segment of French academia. However, this book itself is considered para-academic and is largely exploited in media and political discourse. As Simon Tabet observes:
‘the book Les riches font-ils le bonheur de tous was widely used to discredit the trickle-down economy thesis at the very moment Macron was implementing it in France. This was very interesting at the time, but it helped anchor Bauman in media and ideological critique rather than in science, where the critique of trickle-down economics should have been from an economic source or not at all…’ 13
Two years later, in 2016, another well-known scholar prefaced Bauman's next book published by Premier Parallèle. Titled Étrangers à nos portes. Pouvoir et exploitation de la panique morale [Strangers at Our Door, Polity 2016], it appeared almost immediately after its original edition. This French edition was prefaced by Michel Agier, a recognized ethnologist and anthropologist, Director of Research at the Institut de recherche pour le développement, Director of Studies at the EHESS, and Head of the Policy Department at the French Institute for Migration Studies (Institut Convergence Migration). The context of the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ and the moral panic prevalent in French media at the time significantly contributed to the book's visibility. Bauman is also cited by anthropologists working on this topic, making it one of the rare academic areas to recognize his contribution. However, he was at the end of his life, and this strong connection lacked the time to be fully developed.
A formal academic presence for Bauman appeared in a posthumous issue of Socio, edited by a significant figure in the French academic universe, Michel Wieviorka. As a sociologist and expert in the theory of social change, Wieviorka was administrator of the Fondation de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme and served as the 16th president of the International Sociological Association. Notably, while working on antisemitism Wieviorka's own background as the son of Holocaust survivors and brother to two historians lends particular poignancy to his engagement with Bauman's work. In his editorial note opening the special issue, the academic excellence of Bauman serves as a starting point, followed by a diagnosis of French social sciences and humanities. Wieviorka explicitly addresses the missing opportunity for French academia to learn from Bauman's work, stating:
‘The great struggles of the Second World War and decolonization have given way, after the Cold War period, to forms of conflict and violence that have not aroused the same passions, the same historical obligations, the same commitments among researchers in the humanities and social sciences; and, if we are speaking of France, how can we not see that it has been outside of history for a long time, May ‘68 perhaps being its last significant historical experience? By placing Zygmunt Bauman at the heart of this issue of Socio, with the invaluable help of Simon Tabet, we highlight the contribution of a great sociologist, and at the same time, in a way, we invite our readers to question with us the place of the humanities and social sciences, their evolution, and their capacity to understand the world and history.’ (Wieviorka, 2017: 8, 9).
Wieviorka's editorial provides a powerful introduction, placing Bauman's work within history, another discipline he profoundly influenced. In this same issue of Socio, Tabet completes his assessment of Bauman's ‘French missing appointment.’
After a sociological ‘false start’ (postmodernism and Maffesoli), and an anthropological introduction (Agier and the so-called ‘refugee crisis’), then, in the field of history, an extraordinary posthumous intellectual legitimation emerged (via Wieviorka). Through these various attempts, the Baumanian puzzle is partially taking form.
PRESENT
14
: Some structuring in the puzzle game and the liquid president of France's gift
Several contextual elements (both inside and outside of academia) have begun to change the reception of Bauman's thought. Interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity are increasingly popular in France. (It is also important to note that France, as part of the European Union (EU), sees its research policy significantly impacted by EU grants and projects, which in turn influence the development of local social sciences and humanities.) Still, it was only in 2013 that the first French department of cultural studies was created − a relatively new academic space in which Bauman should now be cited and recognized as one of the core thinkers. This evolving context could serve as a crucial bridge to a more significant presence of Bauman's work in the French academic environment.
Subsequently, a more stabilized editorial activity has brought greater consistency to Bauman's presence. Premier Parallèle is publishing Retrotopia (2020), followed by Ma vie en fragments (2024), both benefiting from good media coverage. However, beyond editorial efforts, a significant political factor has also contributed to his visibility. While Tabet noted the use of Baumanian concepts by communist or socialist parties or politicians, an unexpected turn occurred on 23 August 2023: French President Emmanuel Macron (right-wing) employed the key term ‘Liquid World’ without citing Bauman, in a very important talk published by the journal Le Point titled ‘La grande explication’ 15 [The Grand Explanation], to justify his neoliberal policies. This represents an upside-down logic, as Bauman critically analysed neoliberal changes and the erosion of the welfare state, advocating for resistance to these processes. Macron, conversely, presented this process as an inevitable change (a form of evolutionary progress), explaining to society that, in his view, there was no other option.
Journalists readily identified the author of the ‘liquid’ metaphor, and numerous comments arose from this juxtaposition of a Baumanian concept with Macron's discourse. French President Emmanuel Macron reading left-leaning Marxist intellectuals − the icon of the Occupy movement? The answer to that question helps to understand the power of Baumanian liquid concepts and their current actuality in the French context.
This political appropriation of Bauman's thought has its origin in Erwan Barillot's recent book, Le président liquide. La genèse de Macronisme (Perspectives Libres, 2022) [Liquid President. The genesis of Macronism], prefaced by Olivier Rey, a philosopher of science and scholar. Barillot offers a nuanced reading of Macronism through a Baumanian lens, portraying the French president as part of the era's biography and implicitly raising the terrible question of whether he is a symptom or an active agent of social decay. In an interview for Marianne, Barillot explains the connection between Bauman's concept and President Macron.
Question: ‘How does the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman define “liquid society,” which you consider central to understanding Macronism?’
Erwan Barillot wrote:
‘The concept of “liquid society” emerged around the turn of the 2000s, at the height of market deregulation. In France, Alain Minc had just published La mondialisation heureuse [Happy Globalization; Plon, 1997], the CEO of Alcatel was advocating for “the factory-less enterprise,” while China was preparing to integrate into the WTO. The governments of “old industrialized countries” were accompanying the shift from production to consumption and from protection to competition. This ongoing process was studied by the Marxist sociologist Zygmunt Bauman through the metaphor of a “change of state.” The old structures he termed “solid”—in the sense that they once framed the life of the citizen, the worker, the activist, the believer, the high school graduate, the conscript, the family father—would have “liquefied” to allow the “individual” (etymologically, that which is indivisible) to rely on their supposed freedom of choice.’ 16
In another interview for Le Figaro, Barillot provides a precise explanation to the question: ‘In what way is Emmanuel Macron the representative of this “liquid” society?’ Erwan Barillot states:
‘There are striking, sometimes troubling, parallels between the type of society denounced by Bauman and the one promoted by Macron. My book develops a number of these. One can cite, for example, the refusal of heritage. On a political level, Macron is the one who declared that there was “no French culture” and, on a personal level, who disavowed his family of origin to choose a “kit-built” one, according to the expression used by journalist Anne Fulda in her biography Emmanuel Macron, un jeune homme si parfait (Plon, 2017) [Emmanuel Macron, Such a Perfect Young Man]. In liquid society, Bauman explains to us, “no offspring has to feel obliged to swear allegiance to their hereditary tradition.” This refusal of heritage leads to several consequences, notably the end of the idea of transmission, which is nevertheless at the heart of the republican school's project. In 2015, the man who was then only Minister of Economy delivered a diatribe, before the new graduates of Sciences Po, on the theme: “The first duty is the duty to forget. Starting tomorrow.” This is understandable since, in liquid society, “the rapid and total forgetting of outdated information and quickly obsolete habits can contribute more to future success than the memorization of past actions” (Bauman).’ 17
While Barillot's book was visible in the media and political sphere, we can infer that Emmanuel Macron learned (or learned more) from Barillot about Bauman's concepts and theories. These concepts subsequently became a year later (2023) a strong framework for his communication ‘to French people’ and served as explanations for measures of austerity. Without directly citing Bauman, this contextual visibility − except for some jokes among scholars about Macron citing a Marxist sociologist − represents an ironic conclusion to the end of the French era of state protection.
This moment generated significant visibility − a breach that benefited Bauman and his work. Ma vie en fragments, published just a couple of weeks after this famous speech, became connected to Macron's diagnosis. This visibility is thus both media-related and politics-related. However, nothing has fundamentally changed regarding his academic reception; the diagnosis made by Tabet in 2017 remains pertinent in 2024–2025. The modest exception to this academic absence came with Bauman: A Biography (Wagner, 2020), published by the prestigious French academic press Maison d’édition de la Fondation des Sciences de l’Homme. It is, however, too early to assess the full impact of this book on Bauman's work reception in France.
THE FUTURE - if the wars’ wind will not destroy our puzzle mission…
Keeping the metaphor of a puzzle, to fully integrate Bauman into French social science and complete his intellectual picture, it is difficult to predict the future. However, certain elements offer hope for a change in his reception. Amid the previously chaotic publishing landscape, a new initiative by an academic press − the Press of Paris Cité University [Éditions de l’Université Paris Cité] − is engaged in two crucial translation projects. Thanks to the perspicacity of Anne Lecomte, a key missing piece in the publishing series, Liquid Modernity (a crucial work), will be published next year (2027), filling a significant gap in the available French translations. Additionally, a book that was not as commercially successful as the ‘Liquid’ series but which Bauman himself considered highly important (and experts in the topic recognize as a significant reflection 18 ), tentatively titled Mortality, Immortality and other Life Strategies (Bauman, 1992) will also be published by the same editor. This stabilization is further reinforced by the translator, Frédéric Joly, a philosopher and academic author who has already translated many of Bauman's books. 19 These projects are born within a university environment and will be promoted in an academic context.
Finally, an important element contributing to the potential acceptability and academic relevance of Bauman's writing is the evolving context. Bauman's seminal work on social changes in ‘liquid society’ emerged from his observations of Thatcherism and post-Thatcherism − the neoliberalization processes. He meticulously observed and analysed the erosion of the welfare state, the destruction of social ties, the rise of poverty, the increase in communitarianism, growing mixophobia and the surging popularity of extreme right-wing parties. At that time, France was not experiencing these phenomena to the same extent as British society. Today, however, as President Macron has indicated, France is now deeply immersed in a ‘liquid world’ − a similar trajectory, albeit years later. Bauman's analyses and accessible books eloquently and critically accompanied these changes. While his specific references may not be French, the processes he analysed − less and less job security, diminishing state protection and increasing insecurity and securitization − presently profoundly frame French society. Perhaps now is precisely the right time to read Bauman in French and to understand what is happening in a society that for so long resisted the liquefaction of social ties?
Perhaps it is tomorrow that we will finally be able to assemble the ‘liquid society’ picture from the Baumanian puzzle that we were not able to complete for years?
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I thank Peter Beilharz for the invitation to the conference on Bauman's Legacy. This conference, held in Chengdu, China in autumn 2024, was where the first draft of this paper was presented. I also thank Simon Tabet for his enriching comments and Dariusz Brzeziński for his help in accessing material.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.