16.04.16 – Special screening: The Unemployed from Clochemerle

16.04.16 – 18:00

The establishment of a welfare state in France in a historical perspective

Xavier Le Torrivellec

Presentation of the film “Le Chômeur de Clochemerle”, 1957, Jean Boyer, France, 92 min.

Taking as a point of departure the projected film (The Unemployed from Clochemerle ) I propose to return to the economic and political context of postwar period in France and to discuss the societal impact of the establishment of a welfare state that took over the care of the individuals instead of traditional groups (family, professional trades, etc.). How the quest for an individual autonomy was perceived in the French villages of the 1950s? We will see how the introduction of unemployment insurance has not always been well understood or welcomed. These misgivings and anxieties are presented to us in a genre of light comedy. What does this tell us about the time? Can we still laugh today over unemployment?

Xavier Le Torrivellec

Doctor in History (EHESS), co-director of the Franco-Belarusian Centre (Minsk). Specialist on the studies of nationalities in the former USSR / Russia, he is an associate researcher at the Centre of geopolitical research and analysis at the University Paris -VIII, at the Centre for Russian, Caucasian and Central European Studies(EHESS / CNRS), the Centre for Turkish, Ottoman, Balkan and Central Asian Studies (EHESS / CNRS / Collège de France). Currently working on the relationship between ideology and religion in the USSR at the time of Khrushchev, he works on the issues of Islam in Russia and has published numerous articles, including “Russia and Islamic terrorism”, Questions international 75 (2015); “From nomads to monads: patriotism, citizenship and sub-national ideologies in a multiethnic Russia,” Herodotus 146-147 (2012); “Tatars and Bashkirs: a mirror in history,” Ab Imperio 2 (2007).