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This paper analyses the programme of redeveloping housing estates in France overseen by the Agence Nationale de la Rénovation Urbaine (ANRU). Under this programme social housing reconstruction is undertaken in a nationally coordinated fashion in order to 'valorize', 'secure' and socially 'mix' estates. The paper highlights the political and neo-colonial aspects of this programme and the wider state spatial strategies it is part of. Redevelopment projects not only further gentrifying land-rent valorization, state rescaling and territorially stigmatizing symbolic violence; they also reorganize territorial relations of domination in multiple, also racialized, neo-colonial and partly hegemonic ways. In a longer view, they respond to the 'urban revolution' of 1968 (Garnier) and to the 'anti-colonial revolution' of independence and anti-racist movements (Khiari). The paper builds on a framework that articulates marxist (Lefebvrean) and anti-colonial (Fanonian) lineages while drawing on research on the neo-colonial aspects of the French state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a translation of key texts by the contemporary Mouvement des Indigènes de la République (MIR) and its key intellectuals: Sadri Khiari and Houria Bouteldja. Following Khiari, post-colonial situations are best understood as recompositions: territorially mediated re-articulations of colonial pasts with other social relations. To respond to the complexities of this post-colonial recomposition, MIR propose an ambitious politics of 'autonomy' and 'mixity'. 'Autonomy' (externally in relationship to the state and organized politics and internally for feminist groups) is seen as an indispensable precondition for a socio-politically mixed, and potentially universalizing, political formation politics. More counter-colonial than post-colonial in orientation (Hallward), MIR attempt to give direction to three decades of revolt emanating from France's racialized popular neighbourhoods, including the uprising of 2005. I argue that MIR's interventions take up themes from the analyses by Frantz Fanon, Albert Memmi and Suzanne and Aimé Césaire to make countercolonial critique 'live' in France today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimate the elasticity of extra EU French firm-level exports with respect to applied tariffs - a variable trade cost. We implement a method controlling for unobserved firm characteristics driving selection in exports market, and controlling for the multilateral resistance terms. Results confirm a significant negative impact of tariffs on firm-level exports, with one fifth of this impact falling on the induced adjustment in the exporters' product mix. When controlling for this adjustment and focusing on the core exported products, the elasticity of the product-destination firm-level exports with respect to applied tariffs is estimated at about −2.5. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do households belonging to the middle classes decide to come live in a 'poor' city in the Parisian suburbs? What makes them stay? What are the judgements and strategies that have been brought to bear both individually in their daily lives and as a social group in terms of their collective involvement and their relationships with other social groups? What does this kind of 'social mix' imply in terms of social practices, local and social belonging? This article shows that attitudes towards social mixing have to be considered in terms of their sociological dimensions. This analysis thus takes into account middle-class diversity in socio-residential terms, in terms of trajectories, values and attachment to a particular area. The article also emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between different dimensions of attitudes towards social mixing: depending on the issues at stake, people can accept and sometimes promote a form of cohabitation, or, quite to the contrary, reject it. Finally, the article emphasizes the importance of local contexts and their temporality: for someone belonging to the middle classes, living in a poor city may also mean holding a relatively higher position than elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws from ethnographic research on a recently built park in one of Paris' predominately West African and Maghrebi districts. It demonstrates how urban design is used to 'build-in' neoliberal subjectivities to the city. This design approach appropriates a tradition of street democracy held by neighborhood associations and redirects their disproportionately middle class, French membership into managerial roles traditionally held by municipal agencies. This neoliberal political subjectivity, which I term vigilant citizenship, makes monitoring and controlling the social composition of the urban commons a form of civic engagement for middle class urbanites. In Paris, this vigilance is fueled by anxieties over the presence of West African and Maghrebi youth in public spaces. Activists do not passively adopt this neoliberal role; they strike a delicate balance as gatekeepers, weighing inclusion against an expectation to maintain a 'successful' public space conforming to a republican model of citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of mandatory gender quotas in party lists is a reform that many countries have recently adopted or have been considering. The electoral system affects the incumbents' incentives to make such reforms, their details, and their effectiveness. We show that male incumbents can actually expect an increased incumbency advantage when gender quotas are introduced, if they are elected through single-member district majority rule. On the other hand, no expectation of male advantage can reduce the incumbents' fear of being replaced if they are elected through closed-list proportional representation. As France has both electoral systems, we validate the above argument using a formal model of constitutional design as well as an empirical analysis of the legislative elections in France, displaying the existence of male bias in the last three elections. We also show that parity may have Assembly composition effects and policy effects that vary with the electoral system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]