Une histoire criminelle de la France - Paperback

From the Cour des Miracles to the French Connection, from Mandrin to the Brise de Mer, from Pierrot le Fou to Mesrine, from the Apaches to current gangs, but also from Fouché to the Tiger Brigades, this book bears witness to the criminal and police figures who have marked their era. Beyond these mythical personalities and the mere news items, it seeks above all, by placing them in their economic and social context, to identify the developments and ruptures in order to sketch a true social history of France. A distillation of human imperfections, the criminal, an individual sometimes embodied by power, is indeed a formidable indicator of the strengths and weaknesses of a society, teaching us a great deal about ourselves, through his actions as well as through the way we try to deal with them. Crime is inherent in all human societies. And yet, history clearly shows the relativity of crime and its transformations over the centuries. The persistence of certain behaviors over time is matched by the variety of crimes, in number and quality, that illustrate each period. The history of crime is also the history of a country! Alain Bauer is a professor of criminology at the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts, in New York and Beijing. He has notably published a Geography of Criminal France. Christophe Soullez is a criminologist and head of the department of the National Observatory of Delinquency and Criminal Responses. He has notably published Violences et irrésistibles urbaines.