Modern & Contemporary France podcasts

What’s next for French politics in 2026?

In this episode, Émile Chabal tells Jonathan Ervine about what may be in store for French politics in 2026. Émile is Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Edinburgh. He has published extensively on themes to do with politics and public life in France. In this interview, he talks about the Macron presidency, the far right, and the countdown to France’s 2027 Presidential Elections.

The BUMIDOM

In this podcast, which accompanies Issue 33, 3, a special issue entitled 'The BUMIDOM and its Legacy: An Interdisciplinary Approach', hosts Ben Dalton and Maria Tomlinson introduce a lively discussion in French between one of the issue's guest-editors, Antonia Wimbush (University of Melbourne), and Jennifer Boum Make (Georgetown University). These experts on the BUMIDOM discuss the articles and the legacy of this French state agency, which organised emigration from French overseas departments and territories to metropolitan France chiefly in the 1960s and 70s.  

Le Manifeste conspirationniste and the politics of the pandemic response

To discuss the special section of articles on Le Manifeste conspirationniste in our May 2025 issue in light of their own work on the politics of the Covid pandemic response, lead editor Oliver Davis is joined by Toby Green, Professor of Precolonial and Lusophone African History and Culture at King’s College London and co-author (with Thomas Fazi) of The Covid Consensus (Hurst, 2021) and Dr Muriel Blaive, a socio-political historian of postwar, communist and post-communist Central Europe and author of Pandemic Power. The Covid response and the Erosion of Democracy (Central European University Press, 2025).

Abortion

In this episode, presenters Dr Maria Tomlinson and Dr Benjamin Dalton are joined by Dr Dominique Carlini Versini, the guest-editor of issue 33,1 (2025), a special issue on abortion in literature and visual art, as well as by discussant Dr Deirdre Duffy, Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Lancaster and author of Abortion Trail Activism: The Global Infrastructures for Abortion Access (Bloomsbury, 2024).  

Michel Serres

Oliver Davis discusses the special issue on Michel Serres with guest-editor Christina Howells (Oxford) and Chris Watkin (Monash).

PGR/ECR podcast: Ry Montgomery in conversation

In a new part of our podcast, featuring PGR students and ECR colleagues, PhD student and ASMCF PG Rep, Ry Montgomery, reflects on their work and the state of the discipline.

New directions and directives in Memory Studies in the French-speaking world

In this podcast Professor Nina Parish, one of the guest-editors of the February 2024 special issue on Memory Studies in the French-speaking world, discusses the topic with Professor Charles Forsdick, one of the co-authors of the 'call to action' to which the special issue responds.

Islamophobia in France

This podcast accompanies issue 31.2 of our journal (May 2023), a special issue on Islamophobia in France, and includes contributions from the guest-editors, Nadia Kiwan and Jim Wolfreys, along with two of the authors featured in the issue, Ibrahim Bechrouri and Fatima Khemilat.

The Sixtieth Anniversary of the end of the Algerian War

Our journal's first ever podcast: a fifty-minute discussion, facilitated by Benjamin Dalton, of our February 2023 special issue reflecting on the 60th anniversary of the end of the Algerian War, guest-edited by Mildred (Mimi) Mortimer. Joining Ben and Mimi are three other contributors to the special issue: Susan Slyomovics, Paul Max Morin and Robert Mortimer.