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This article looks at court prelates at a moment of existential political crisis related to the ascension of the Protestant Henri IV to the French throne, traditionally occupied by Catholic Kings. The active support of a handful of high-ranking figures in the Catholic Church in France to the 'heretic' king constitutes a heuristic opportunity to observe the complex articulations between what can be defined as political and as religious. The paper thus demonstrates the crucial role of a multi-level action of Navarrist prelates in the process of legitimation of the first Bourbon as the sole rightful king at the end of the Wars of Religion. In doing so, it aims to contribute to the understanding of the broad spectrum of political influence that the high clergy could wield at the princely court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has recently been observed, that a change in the crop spectrum happened during the so-called Middle Neolithic in France at ca. 4000 BC. An agricultural system based on free-threshing cereals (naked wheat and naked barley) seems to shift to one based on glume wheats. This is a major change for traditional farmers and this paper aims to shed light on its possible causes. Here we describe the results of new investigations in a key area for the understanding of this process: the NW Mediterranean arch, where free-threshing cereals are the main cultivars since ca. 5100 BC. New data confirm that the shift towards glume wheats is also observed in some sites of the NE of the Iberian Peninsula and that among the glume wheats that spread at ca. 4000 BC we should not only consider emmer and einkorn but also Timopheevi's wheat. Stable isotope analyses indicate no major decrease in soil fertility or alterations in local precipitation regimes. The agricultural change may be the result of a combination of the spread of damaging pests for free-threshing cereals and presumably new networks being developed with the North-eastern part of Italy and the Balkans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This methodological paper shows that using different local job accessibility models (LJAs) leads to significantly different empirical appreciations of job accessibility. Matching several exhaustive micro data sources on the Paris region municipalities, the paper benchmarks a representative set of LJA measurement models used in the recent literature and an original model where job availability is fully estimated according to a set of individual characteristics, job competition is fully modelled on the local labour market and frontier effects are controlled for. We show that the model-induced empirical differences are spatially differentiated across the Paris region municipalities, and that failing to fully estimate job availability may lead to overestimation of the job accessibility levels of underprivileged municipalities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is part of a wider investigation which explores what happened to probation services in France and in Scotland during the national lockdown put in place as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Qualitative interviews with 29 French and 27 Scottish probation staff took place, the authors wishing to capture the lived experience of practicing probation at this unprecedented time. Whilst the study captures the initial disorientation of probation staff and a general lack of institutional and individual readiness for lockdown, it also documents adaptability, creativity and an optimism for what technology could offer state probation practitioners that is less visible in studies that were carried out following the easing of lockdown restrictions. It shows that the ways in which institutions and practitioners responded to the crisis was determined by institutional and cultural heritage, professional values and management practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the rising importance of sustainable principles in property decisions and its impact on attractiveness for business districts in France. A behavioural survey of a large sample of corporate property managers and a multiple correspondence analysis highlight key factors indicating the influence of sustainable principles alongside more traditional determinants of territorial attractiveness. This approach enables the drawing up of a typology of companies according to the influence of sustainability issues, showing the rise in importance placed on sustainability in location decisions made by listed companies, companies that own their head offices and companies located in the main business districts of the Paris metropolitan area. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Drawing upon collaborative planning theory and on the work of Lefebvre and de Certeau, this paper explores the multistage governance arrangements leading to the employment of temporary uses as an instrument for regeneration in a context of economic crisis. It contributes to a thorough understanding of the relations between the power hierarchy and the strategy/tactics developed through a more or less inclusive collaborative process from place-shaping (weak planning) to place-making (masterplanning). By decrypting the different paths that can be taken by the collaborative process, the paper demonstrates how temporary uses on differential spaces shape space from a use value point of view, influence and challenge the distribution of power and enable (temporary) occupants to acquire and sometimes sustain a position in the place-making process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses the connections between collaboration and the prisoner of war question in the early Vichy period by tracing the evolution of the Franco-German agreement of 16 November 1940 and its repercussions on French POWs. Based on the Scapini Papers and French and German archival materials, the article argues that the agreement happened in the context of a voluntary policy of collaboration initiated by the Vichy authorities, who hoped that collaboration would trigger German concessions on the POW question, but did not push collaboration to ease the fate of the POWs. Hitler likely offered the agreement as a concession that would allow Vichy to demonstrate to the French public an apparent success of collaboration, detracting from some hostile German measures that occurred at the same time. Vichy took the bait because it hoped to win over the French POWs in Germany to Pétainist ideology and because it was eager to bolster its own legitimacy. But humanitarian considerations also played a role in the French consent to this agreement, which to some extent can be seen as preventive collaboration. Plausibly, the agreement and the framework it established, despite undeniable dangers, represented a lesser evil for the French POWs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates an historical episode that involved an object that was both scientific and popular. In 1908, the first almost complete Neanderthal skeleton was discovered at La Chapelle-aux-Saints, France. From its very rebirth, the specimen became an object of interest to scientists holding different views of human evolution. It also was of interest for a public whose Catholic and anti-clerical stances were voiced through the press, and for the modernist clerical prehistorians who had discovered it. Conceiving of reconstruction as referring to either verbal or visual representation of the caveman from La Chapelle-aux-Saints, this paper discusses the multiplication of Neanderthal images in newspaper articles and illustrations that expressed particular scientific and political interests. This treatment of the newspaper as a site of encounters and knowledge production among these various constituencies is afforded by a set of newspaper excerpts on the specimen collected by the first person to physically reconstruct the bones, Marcellin Boule, at the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris. While the newspapers were welcome allies in the dissemination of the discovery and of the scientist's renown at home and abroad, Boule might have been less content with the way in which the various papers represented his work - or was he? As an object associated with such large issues as religion, evolutionism and nationalism, the ‘Old Man from La Chapelle-aux-Saints’ had to fulfil contradictory desires and his images multiplied accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about several papers discussed at the Sixth International Conference on Field and Service Robotics which was held in Chamonix, France on July 9-12, 2007 is presented. Topics include a robust method for extracting visual features of images taken by an omnidirectional camera, control problems in multi-robot systems, and solution provided by the Rao-Blackwellized particle filter. Moreover, the conference has provided a forum to exchange technical developments and experience in robotics.

The relevance of privateering-related archives for maritime history and (early modern) history at large has been increasingly recognized in the past decades. This recognition has gone hand in hand with the prominent role that these archives have assumed in some of the largest projects in the digital humanities, such as the Prize Papers project, which facilitates research into these collections and reveals the multiplicity of data that they contain. This article reports on the creation of Global Privateering, a (pilot) project that is striving to create a user-friendly open access database for a set of privateering dossiers from St Malo, France. It has been a collaboration across disciplines – namely, history and information technology – as well as educational establishments, partnering universities and vocational schooling. The creation of this open access maritime database has been a positive experience for all parties involved, as the complementarity of skills and expertise has been evident, and the benefits have been mutual and multiple. This inspires further exploration of such collaborations and the further expansion of the Global Privateering platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyse the possibilities for deploying participative arrangements in French urban projects by focusing on the potential for a shift towards a ‘negotiated project’-type model. Taking the ‘concertation process’ deployed as part of the City of Paris’ plan to redevelop the Les Halles district between 2002 and 2010, the article sheds light on the two regulatory systems existing side by side, namely, urban project development and consultation. The article discusses a number of explanatory factors: structural aspects linked to how French public bodies are organised, the positions of actors vis-à-vis urban development practices and how these are represented, which is related to the prevalence of a model based on a process of dual delegation of power and know-how. Finally, the paper will demonstrate the key importance of a private partner in the whole decision-making process via ‘institutional consultation’ to the detriment of ‘citizen concertation’. Setting up participative arrangements does not substantially modify planning processes or decision-making systems for French urban development projects. Indeed, changes apparently at work in urban production governance processes raise questions concerning the possibility of incorporating inhabitant participation into public–private partnerships that may minimise public actors’ room for manoeuvre in terms of any dialogue with local residents. With regard to urban design research, this problem suggests a need to rethink the whole urban planning system and to look at all aspects of urban planning organisation, including the interaction between the public, civil society and private actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on Chinese intellectual Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and his relationship with the media in China in the 19th century. It says that Liang was born in Canton, China in 1873 and studied Chinese classics in 1876. It states that during the teenage years of Liang, he witnessed the dispute of China with Russia and France. It also mentions that he started a newspaper called "Shih-wu Pao (Current Affairs) in 1896 in collaboration with Huang Tsun-hsien and Wang K'ang-nien. It adds that the popularity of Liang grew along with his paper and the "societies of learning."

The current conception of political participation in governmental institutions is deeply marked by the notions of deliberation and precaution. This normative conception of participatory politics neglects, backgrounds or disqualifies other participatory practices, in so far as they are not connected to deliberation and precaution. However, participation has not always been defined in such a restricted way: the current conception of participation is a product of the 1980s and 1990s. In this paper, the meaning ascribed to the notion of participation in the 1970s in France is explored through the study of discourses produced in three fields: the Science Policy Division of the OECD, the French radical science movement, and the emerging STS academic field. As is shown, some of the bases of the current notion of participation originate in the 1970s. Nevertheless, it is argued that in these years, the notion of participation has more to do with experimentation than with deliberation and precaution. Therefore, the conception of participation in the 1970s differs greatly from the current one. Methodologically, this paper combines tools offered by the social history of science and the French school of discourse analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to assess the effects of intermunicipal fiscal cooperation on municipal public spending, based on the French experience. A model of municipal spending choice is estimated using panel data and spatial econometrics for municipalities over the period 1994–2003. Two main results are provided. First, intermunicipal cooperation has no significant impact on the level of municipal public spending, which suggests that cooperation does not achieve its goal of reducing municipal spending by the sharing of local responsibilities. Second, there are no spending interactions between municipalities belonging to the same intermunicipal community. This is in line with the goal assigned to cooperation in terms of internalisation of spatial externalities. However, the results show that benefit spillovers remain highly significant outside intermunicipal communities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper presents an overview of the various types of libraries in France, including public libraries, academic and research libraries, other types of libraries, documentation, France’s library policy and the library staff and professional association environment The paper is based on a chapter from Les bibliothèques en Europe, projets,perspectives, (Libraries in Europe, Projects and Prospects) by Frederic Blin and Thierry Claerr, Paris, Editions du Cercle de la Librairie, 2013, with kind permission of the publisher and authors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

American literature on international adoption suggests that adoptees' pride in the culture of their birth country improves their self-esteem and helps them to cope with experiences of racism. Parents are therefore encouraged to teach their adopted children multicultural skills to improve their psychological well-being. French psychologists, on the contrary, suggest that adoptees should feel fully members of their adoptive country and families. These practices shed light on the respective multicultural and universalist paradigms in the US and France. Few papers, however, consider the opinions of adoptees. This study explores internationally adopted children raised in France and their spontaneous curiosity about their birth country. The present study used semistructured interviews with 19 adoptees aged 8-18 years old, to explore their attitudes towards the culture of their birth country. Transcripts of recorded interviews were analyzed according to interpretative phenomenological analysis. While there was striking consistency of interest in birth countries, adoptees' expression of curiosity varied across time. Children described distinctive goals: knowing more about their history, finding relatives, becoming a multicultural citizen, or simply helping people. Their parents' involvement was thus seen as helpful, but adoptees stress the need to feel ready and may prefer independent ways of learning about their birth country. Adoptees' multiple feelings of belonging derive not only from multicultural training but from a lifelong construction of self. Professionals and parents may need to adapt to adoptees' individual development, distinctive time frames, and ways of learning to provide better support to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to show, taking the example of delivery drivers, how inter-firm relations affect worker precarity. It is based on an in-depth field study carried out in the Paris region and backed up by the statistical analysis of national surveys. It focuses in particular on the role played by firms' dependence in the precarity of work and employment, considering that both dependence and precarity should be considered ubiquitous. It then seeks to measure this dependence and highlight the factors that may increase it as the relative size of the firms, the chain of dependence and the position of firms in this chain. In this way, it sets out to show why the contractual status of employees can no longer provide job security in the context of unbalanced subcontracting relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following Bergstrom and Goodman (1973), this paper contributes to the set of studies estimating demand for publicly provided goods and services. The main innovation in this paper is methodological as it uses a Stone–Geary utility function to describe median voter preferences. Unlike in previous studies, the local public expenditure function, in a (simplified) linear expenditure system, can be derived directly from the theoretical framework. The translated expenditure function provides an estimate of the minimum required local public services in each municipality. Using cross-sectional municipal data from France, it is found to be, at the most, 30 per cent of the total per capita expenditure. Compared with the specification conventionally used in the literature, linear and non-linear expenditure systems show a greater sensitivity to price and income variations and reveal a greater number of significant variables. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The main purpose of this paper is to assess the existence of tax interdependencies among French local tax setting by taking into account the agglomeration forces. A model of tax setting for the local business tax is estimated using spatial econometrics techniques for 2002. First, it is shown that the mimicking behaviour between jurisdictions is not more intense in denser areas--in population or economic activity terms--suggesting that tax competition is not stronger as agglomeration increases. Secondly, a positive relationship is observed between tax rate and capital stock only for urban jurisdictions, suggesting a 'taxable agglomeration rent', as highlighted by new economic geography models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces the October-November 2004 issue of "The International Journal of Robotics Research." This issue contains a selection of research papers presented at CLAWAR 2002 conference which was held in Paris, France, in September 2001. CLAWAR conferences are mainly dedicated to climbing and walking robots. The increasing interest in this new field of robot research is motivated by advanced applications such as exploration, intervention in extreme environments, personal services, emergency rescue operations, transportation, entertainment, etc,. and to envision robots evolving into electromechanical replica of humans.

This paper investigates the decision-making procedures in a technical assembly, the assemblée des Ponts et Chaussées, at the turn of the 19th century. The assemblée was the central institution of a French public-works administration, in which projects were discussed and adopted. The paper describes the transformations of this institution, its routine functioning, and focuses especially on a very controversial case during the Consulate, the Saint-Quentin canal, where conflicting opinions about the use of the vote emerged. The paper studies the engineers' preference for a consensus procedure and their mistrust for the vote. It analyses the epistemological justifications of such a consensus, especially the references to different forms of 'obviousness', and its practical social forms, especially the importance (and ambiguous meaning) of silence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes Symphony Lake Dataset, 121 visual surveys of an approximately 1.3 km lake shore in Metz, France. Different from roadway datasets, it adds breadth to the data space at a time when larger and more diverse datasets are desired. Over five million images from an unmanned surface vehicle captured the natural environment as it evolved over three years. Variation in appearance across weeks, seasons, and years is significant. Success on Symphony Lake Dataset could demonstrate advancements in perception, simultaneous localization and mapping, and environment monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cemeteries are typical urban fixtures occupying a vast portion – at least 0.5% – of municipal territories. However, urban economists have generally neglected this topic to date. Our paper establishes the main determinants of pricing for burial plots, excluding columbaria. We analyse the prices proposed by 185 cemeteries from 42 large French cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants. We use a specified Ln-Ln hedonistic model. Our results highlight the complexity of cities’ pricing, as these strategies imply the combination of several determinants, such as the main features of the burial concessions (term, surface area, location within the boundaries of the cemetery, etc.), the environment defined within and outside the cemetery (type of cemetery, cemetery’s surface area, existence of verdant areas, etc.) and various other urban features (population structure, real estate prices, purchasing power). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given that in-depth place-specific studies are needed for a better understanding of the role of cities in coping with climate change and implementing the energy transition, this paper, based on the case of Lyon (France), brings empirical evidence of how climate and energy are being governed at a city level. A comprehensive understanding of this is achieved with emphasis put on the modes of governing enacted by the local authority, as well as the positioning of the city at broader scales. The framing and localising processes involved in the policy-making process are at the core of this analysis, with a particular focus on two interrelated questions: how are climate and energy making their way as new urban issues that call for specific responses, and how do they reinforce – and are they also reinforced by – metropolitan-wide governance in a context of institutional change? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a review of public speeches, media declarations and interviews by French government officials and influential intellectuals, this paper examines the language used and the measures taken by the French government during the 2005 ethnic riots. Particularly, this essay argues that the government’s response to the riots shows that (1) by applying a white racial frame on the riots and the rioters, the state was able to denigrate the rioters and deny any legitimacy to the riots themselves; and that (2) by applying color-blind racist labels to the rioters, the state was able to discredit the revolt so as to rationalize and justify a set of repressive tactics and racist measures without ‘sounding racist’. Furthermore, this study reveals that the French government ultimately normalized a racial frame about the riots through color-blind rhetoric and practices. This essay concludes that the rhetoric used by the French government signals the rise of a legitimized racism, becoming a dominantly accepted and supported view in the political arena and society in France. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reusing materials is an attractive option for circular economy and can also reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and pollutants. However, recycling raises questions regarding the potential risks to human health or the environment when hazardous legacy chemical additives of materials are also recycled, instead of the recent and less hazardous additives of virgin materials. To address this trade-off, this study developed a model to calculate the total external cost of material supply, considering the health and environmental impacts of all industrial steps (e.g. virgin material production, incineration, and recycling), and the health effects of recycling chemicals present in the material. The model is coupling material flow analysis, life-cycle analysis, and environmental economics to compare different recycling policies. It is applied for all illustrative purposes to soft PVC and DEHP in France. Results show that recycling of materials is in the long-term positive despite the prolongation of the presence of hazardous additives in materials. The time when the recurring environmental benefits of recycling offset the negative impacts on human health of recycling the additives is very sensitive to the health impact of additives. This approach can improve the harmonization between recycling and circular economy policies, and as a framework to confirm the relevance and size treatments to remove additives from materials during recycling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents the connection between the technological and political transformations of late 18th-century France. Its subject is the efforts of state military engineers to produce functionally identical artifacts (interchangeable parts manufacturing). These efforts faced resistance from artisans and merchants attached to the corporate-absolutist ancient régime, for whom artifacts were idiosyncratic, and ‘thick’ with multiple meanings. I argue that to oblige artisans to produce standardized artifacts, the military engineers defined these artifacts with instruments such as technical drawing and the tools of manufacturing tolerance, which the engineers then refined in increasingly rule-bound ways to forestall further subversion by artisans. Hence, I offer a historical account of how the ‘objectivity’ of these artifacts was the outcome of social conflict and negotiation over the terms of an exchange. In particular, I explain why engineers eventually turned to projective drawings (including the descriptive geometry) over alternative ways of representing artifacts (such as free-hand, academic, and perspectival drawings). And I document the origins of manufacturing tolerance, in which the dimensions of an artifact were circumscribed with gauges and machine-tools to preclude possible sources of disagreement. The paper closes with its own ‘thick’ narrative of how standards of production emerged out of social conflict in a particular community on the eve of the French Revolution—a process which reflected the emerging political ‘toleration’ of the French state for its citizen-producers. The SCOT programme can be used to provide a political account of how the operation of seemingly ‘objective’ artifacts can be coordinated across vast physical, temporal and cultural boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dépôt of the Police Prefecture of Paris, in the heart of the city, was one of the most important places of anti-Jewish repression in France during the Occupation. It was the hub for the deportation of almost a third of the 38,500 deportees domiciled in Paris who were not arrested by the French police during the round-ups, but even more Jews passed through the dépôt without eventually being deported. These arrests were mostly based on the justification of offences committed by Jews against French laws and German orders. From mid-1942, the dépôt gradually evolved from a platform for sorting those arrested with a view to bringing them before a French judge to the main concentration and transfer point for Jews arrested individually to the Drancy internment camp. Yet, despite its importance, the dépôt remains completely unknown. The aim of this article is to present the central role played by the dépôt in the daily anti-Jewish repression that sealed French collaboration with Nazi genocidal policies until the Liberation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital media use can connect citizens across geographic boundaries into coordinated action by distributing political information, enabling the formation of groups, and facilitating political talk. These activities can lead to political consumerism, which is an important and popular form of political participation that translates across geographic borders. This article uses original survey data (n = 9284) to examine the relationship between digital media use and political consumerism in the United States, United Kingdom, and France. Talking politics online, joining social groups on social media, and searching online for political information increase participation in political consumerism. However, the strength of these positive correlations differs by age, country, and mode of political consumerism. Joining social groups on social media has a much larger effect size on buycotting compared to boycotting. The findings imply that social groups are more salient in the mobilization process for buycotting campaigns compared to boycotting campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a nuanced exploration of the implications of EU criminal justice cooperation, particularly within French probation and judicial services. Focusing on EU Framework Decisions 2008/947/JAI and 2009/829/JAI, the article delves into their impact and adaptation in France, offering insights into challenges, adaptations, and practical considerations from the French standpoint. The article contextualises the implications of EU Framework Decisions by integrating valuable insights from the French probation and judicial services. Statistical data and case analyses illustrate practical challenges and applications within the French criminal justice landscape. The article highlights specific challenges faced within the French criminal justice system, such as prison overcrowding and the treatment of foreign nationals. It emphasises enhanced communication, trust, and collaboration among stakeholders within the European criminal justice system. Addressing the adaptation of EU Framework Decisions in France, the article navigates the complexities involved in aligning European law with national legislation and the delicate balance required to maintain sovereignty while embracing cooperative legal frameworks. The nuanced cultural perspectives permeating the French criminal justice landscape are examined to comprehensively understand the unique challenges and adaptations within the French context. The article also discusses the paradox between establishing European probation standards and the challenges in building trust among probation officers and stakeholders across European nations, offering potential strategies for improvement in European criminal justice cooperation. In conclusion, this article provides valuable insights into the complexities and challenges within European criminal law, offering directives for enhanced collaboration and effectiveness within the European legal landscape. It is a pivotal analysis contributing to informed discussions and policy decision-making within European criminal justice cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Through a historic wave of strikes, France’s sans-papiers (immigrants without papers) became known as ‘sans-papier workers’ and renewed their fight for legal status. The state instituted employment-based regularization and unions embraced migrant workers’ access to legal status as a labour issue. Following Bourdieu and Boltanski, this article traces the institutional genesis and political trajectory of the ‘sans-papier worker’ as symbolic category and objective group, highlighting its agonistic coproduction by state policy and union strategy. The study relies on a three-year collective ethnography including participant observation, archive collection and over a hundred interviews with migrant workers, union activists, employers and civil servants. Whereas the new framing initially uncovered the reality of undocumented migrants at work, it gradually became an exclusive category that sorted ‘workers’ from the others. Ultimately, the fight for ‘sans-papier workers’ confronted labour organizations and the state with the question of when one starts and stops being a worker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the aim of making a city sustainable, this paper evaluates the impact of setting up urban toll on inequalities. We use several indicators (Gini, Theil and Atkinson indices) to measure changes in the concentration of incomes and gravity-based accessibility. In the case of the Lyon Metropolitan Area (France), we simulate a cordon pricing and evaluate its impacts on inequalities. We adopt a comparison-based approach to reduce the bias resulting from the spatial division. In agreement with the literature, we show that different inequality indicators produce contrasted and sometimes contradictory results, both at the scale of zones or metropolitan level. Results from Theil and Atkinson indicators point out introducing a toll can reduce inequalities in the most peripheral zones. Although we observe an accessibility improvement, particularly for central zones, the first ring (adjacent to the toll zone) is the most adversely affected by toll. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Up to now, relatively little effort has been dedicated to the quantitative assessment of the differences in spatial patterns of model outputs. In this paper, we employed a variogram-based methodology to quantify the differences in the spatial patterns of root-zone soil moisture, net radiation, and latent and sensible heat fluxes simulated by three land surface models (SURFEX/ISBA, JULES and CHTESSEL) over three European geographic domains – namely, UK, France and Spain. The model output spatial patterns were quantified through two metrics derived from the variogram: i) the variogram sill, which quantifies the degree of spatial variability of the data; and ii) the variogram integral range, which represents the spatial length scale of the data. The higher seasonal variation of the spatial variability of sensible and latent heat fluxes over France and Spain, compared to the UK, is related to a more frequent occurrence of a soil-moisture-limited evapotranspiration regime during summer dry spells in the south of France and Spain. The small differences in spatial variability of net radiation between models indicate that the spatial patterns of net radiation are mostly driven by the climate forcing data set. However, the models exhibit larger differences in latent and sensible heat flux spatial variabilities, which are related to their differences in i) soil and vegetation ancillary datasets and ii) physical process representation. The highest discrepancies in spatial patterns between models are observed for soil moisture, which is mainly related to the type of soil hydraulic function implemented in the models. This work demonstrates the capability of the variogram to enhance our understanding of the spatiotemporal structure of the uncertainties in land surface model outputs. Therefore, we strongly encourage the implementation of the variogram metrics in model intercomparison exercises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on a multidisciplinary study using both paleoenvironmental methods (biological, sedimentological, magnetic and geochemical) and archaeological data in order to characterize landscape and hydrological network changes as well as human impact on a littoral catchment in the Western Mediterranean area. Sedimentary records obtained around a coastal alluvial plain (Cassis, Southeastern France) reveal local environmental changes and human activities since the Neolithic (ca. 6000 cal. BP). Anthropogenic impact is already noticeable in the earliest record, and we follow its evolution through time. According to biological markers, the Holocene landscape of the Calanques is dominated by a mosaic of open herbaceous formations partly generated by human activity. The prevalence of Cernuella virgata in malacofauna successions and of coprophilous fungal spores in the pollen record testifies to the spread of agro-pastoral activities. Two increases of anthropogenic impact are highlighted during the Roman (ca. 2000 cal. BP) and Modern (from ca. 1450 to today) periods. Lead isotope analyses indicate an anthropogenic release of lead, possibly originating from the Greek Cyclades (ca. 2000 cal. BP). Hydrographic and agricultural work is also enhanced during the Roman period. Magnetic parameters and lead isotopes indicate that the Modern anthropogenic impact may be associated with high temperature activities (e.g. lime kiln, fossil fuel). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysing restricted access census data, this paper examines the long-term trends of immigrant segregation in France from 1968 to 2007. Similarly to other European countries, France experienced a rise in the proportion of immigrants in its population that was characterised by a new predominance of non-European immigration. Despite this, average segregation levels remained moderate. While the number of immigrant enclaves increased, particularly during the 2000s, the average concentration for most groups decreased because of a reduction of heavily concentrated census tracts, and census tracts with few immigrants. Contradicting frequent assertions, neither mono-ethnic census tracts nor ghettos exist in France. By contrast, many immigrants live in census tracts characterised by a low proportion of immigrants from their own group and from all origins. A long residential period in France is correlated with lower concentrations and proportion of immigrants in the census tract for most groups, though these effects are sometimes modest. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Today, with globalization, an important characteristic of a car’s brand should be its clear and precise identity. In order to obtain a successful brand, company managers should continuously be innovative without forgetting the product history of the brand and should use the culture of the country as a value system and as an inspirational background. The goal of this paper is to analyse the relationship between the car’s style and some implicit references such as the culture identity of a specific country. The analysis is carried out on the basis of the extracted data on and study of characteristic styling lines of the cars. French cars (Peugeot, Citroën and Renault) as well as German cars (Volkswagen) are selected and analysed. It is found that specific styling lines are particular to French cars. From this analysis, it is concluded that a French style identity is implicitly embedded in the car’s design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a thematic content analysis of 813 in-group posts, the study presented in this article aimed to analyse first the implications of (social) immobility and lockdowns for vulnerable communities such as immigrants and mothers among them due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and then how Facebook groups helped these communities to cope with such challenges. The analysis was conducted within Le Groupe des Mamans Gasy de France – a Facebook group restricted to France-based Malagasy mothers. It revealed that the group was used as a safe space of benevolence amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, a space for self-acceptance and empowerment, and a space for Malagasy cultural and identity anchoring. These findings align with Leah Williams Veazey's 'migrant maternal imaginaries' and Laura Candidatu's 'diasporic mothering' conceptual frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to reconstruct the vegetation history of a middle mountain – the Morvan (Burgundy, France) – since the Neolithic (i.e. 7000 years). The results of palynological and non-pollen palynomorphs (NPPs) analysis performed on 10 peat cores document the main phases of human agro-pastoral practices and natural resources management which drove the formation of the cultural landscape of the Morvan Massif over time. To document the history of human activities at a regional scale, particular attention was given to the determination, the characterization and the graphical depiction of phrases of human impact. Both the quantification of the impact of human pressure and the chronological uncertainty of the different phases identified by pollen and NPP analysis were taken into account. This study reveals a clear human presence during periods that were formerly poorly documented, such as the onset of the Neolithic period, the Bronze Age, the early Iron Age and the early Middle Ages. It also sheds new light over periods for which there is better archaeological and historical knowledge, such as the widespread occupation of the massif in the late Iron Age, the cultivation of chestnut from the 11th to the 16th century and the impact of modern firewood exploitation on the forest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the Inquiry on Modes of Existence has been long in coming and has connections with all the successive field works done by the author, the paper tries to retrace the main steps that have led to the project. It shows that it has preceded the work done in actor-network theory and explains the link between philosophy and anthropology through the peculiar notion of ‘mode of existence’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since 2000 we have been engaged in restudies of transitions projects from the 1960s and 1980s and we have used historic data to problematise past experiences of school to work to question assumptions around complexity and linearity. Yet, in our own analyses, we have perhaps followed too closely the dominant transition discourses, concentrating only on those young people for whom transitions were not straightforward thus privileging the non-linear and complex at the expense of those who had largely unremarkable education and early work experiences. In doing so we have missed important lessons located in the life stories of the previously 'ordinary kids' in these past studies. In this paper, we seek to build upon the work of Roberts (2011) and France (2007) , by returning to our own school to work restudies with two main aims in mind. First, we consider the emergent notions of 'ordinary' and 'unspectacular' transitions in the context of past studies of youth. We reflect critically on the concept of the 'ordinary' and consider 'typicality' as an alternative. Second, we use data, in the form of eight vignettes, from Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles (1962) and Young Adults in the Labour Market (1983), to develop our understanding of the ordinary or typical in the lived realities of the transitions of girls in one labour market (Leicester) from the 1960s and 1980s. We conclude the paper by reflecting upon what lessons can be learnt from those who made seemingly ordinary transitions during past periods of economic change and transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scale, complexity and worldwide geographical spread of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) computing and data analysis problems are unprecedented in scientific research. The complexity of processing and accessing this data is increased substantially by the size and global span of the major experiments, combined with the limited wide-area network bandwidth available. This paper discusses the latest generation of the MONARC (MOdels of Networked Analysis at Regional Centers) simulation framework, as a design and modeling tool for large-scale distributed systems applied to high-energy physics experiments. We present a simulation study designed to evaluate the capabilities of the current real-world distributed infrastructures deployed to support existing LHC physics analysis processes and the means by which the experiments band together to meet the technical challenges posed by the storage, access and computing requirements of LHC data analysis. The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment, in particular, uses a general-purpose detector to investigate a wide range of physics. We present a simulation study designed to evaluate the capability of its underlying distributed processing infrastructure to support the physics analysis processes. The results, made possible by the MONARC model, demonstrate that the LHC infrastructures are well suited to support the data processes envisioned by the CMS computing model. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Economic geography increasingly conceptualises innovation as a collective action. However, the literature on clusters often reduces the collective dimension to the circulation of knowledge between local and regional organisations based on various forms of (market, organisational, social, institutional or cognitive) co-ordination. This paper diverges from this grass-roots perspective by discussing the role of collective actions in clusters—i.e. actions developed by a large number of cluster members acting as a group. Empirical evidence drawing on a study of three digital clusters in the Paris region shows that the cluster as a collective entity holds agency and—thanks to reflexive co-ordination—can contribute to open innovation, including innovation-seeking partnerships in the early stages of cluster life cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper, which is based on the detailed analysis of the post-war archives of the French Christian union Confédération Française des Travailleurs Chrétiens (CFTC), which became the Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail (CFDT) in 1964, highlights the difficulties, both from a practical and ideological point of view, for a militant organisation to embrace the cause of immigrant workers and to give them a voice. The CFDT had to ‘construct’ immigrant workers as a group they could represent, which means as a group that relates to French workers, despite possible xenophobia. A key moment was the denunciation of their housing conditions that make immigrant workers not competitors in the job market but victims of injustice. The union had to reinvent its engagement frames in order to include the specific problems faced by the immigrant workforce. The study shows that the urban dimension was essential in this process as Paris slums made visible an important plight of migrants and provided the opportunity to change public opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper studies the determinants of urban sprawl in France using panel datasets for the four largest metropolitan areas (Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Lille) over the period 1985–98. A measure of urban sprawl is proposed at municipality level. Due to the huge heterogeneity of the panels, it seems difficult to make the fundamental homogeneity assumption underlying pooled models. Thus, random coefficient models under heteroscedasticity of the disturbances are estimated for each metropolitan area using a hierarchical Bayes approach based on the Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation method. It is found that urban sprawl is positively related to the income growth of the tax payers’ fiscal households for the period of rapid growth in the late 1980s. At the opposite extreme, the income effects are negative for non-tax payers. During the recession, income effects are significant neither for tax payers’ nor for non-tax payers’ fiscal households and are significantly positive for tax payers and negative for non-tax payers over the recovery. Finally, on average, the inequality index—difference of average net income between tax payers and exempted fiscal households—has a lower impact on urban sprawl than the income effect. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, a study is made of the mobility and housing choices of the elderly when retiring, using household data collected in France. From a theoretical viewpoint, individuals are likely to decrease their housing quantity because of an income loss when retiring, but they may also increase it to benefit from more housing comfort for leisure. Using the 1992 Trois Générations survey, it is first shown that housing mobility at retirement is substantial in France, with a variety of self-reported motives. Then, using the 1994—2001 French Europanel survey, evidence is found of both upsizing and downsizing for mobile recent retirees. In many cases, housing adjustments lead to a correction of the initial disequilibrium between the number of rooms and the number of occupants. However, a significant proportion of mobile recent retirees improve the quality of their dwelling. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper provides a detailed statistical picture of French scientists involved in public outreach. This is achieved by analysing the popularization practices of 7000 scientists in all major disciplines over a six-year period (2004 to 2009). I analyse the influence of discipline, position, age and academic productivity. Thanks to a temporal analysis, I show that scientists can be split into three distinct populations with radically different popularization practices. Finally, this analysis suggests that the recent increase in public engagement is the result of heightened social interest which pulls more outreach from particular disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The controlled landfill technology is now adopting passive attenuation techniques as an increasing number of landfill sites reach the post-closure phase. During the post-closure phase, landfill operators need to convince environmental authorities that landfills no longer pose a threat to health or the environment. The demonstration of acceptable risk should rely in particular on data collected during environmental monitoring in addition to modelling of possible future evolutions of environmental concentrations. One difficulty that is typically encountered in France is related to the fact that groundwater monitoring systems around landfills are often insufficiently detailed to provide conclusive evidence of natural attenuation mechanisms. This paper presents data on groundwater quality in the vicinity of an old landfill located in a complex aquifer system. While isotopic data show a signature of the landfill leachate in the groundwater in the vicinity of the landfill, chemical analyses do not suggest a strong influence, which could be indicative of natural attenuation mechanisms in the groundwater. However, the complexity of the groundwater system in this area is such that it cannot be excluded that a pollutant flux is being overlooked. Implications of demonstrating natural attenuation during the landfill post-closure phase, with respect to groundwater monitoring, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past few years have seen a proliferation of skills analysis in urban regeneration in England. In France, in contrast, researchers have linked questions of skills to the styles and form of public-sector work. This paper reworks the debates in the two countries to provide a comparative analysis of neighbourhood management. There are three main sections and themes: the implications of a bottom—up perspective in the study of policy implementation; the emergence in France of the chef de projet as an ideal type figure of transversal working; and finally, in relation to England, the fragmentation and diversity of policy initiatives, agencies and funding streams. This fragmentation and diversity have implied, in turn, an emphasis on flexibility and generic rather than specialist skills in urban regeneration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The research presented in this paper explores, in the French context, the hypothesis that employment problems experienced by low-skilled jobseekers are partially caused by spatial urban factors. Many low-skilled workers live in poor neighbourhoods where they are exposed to a distressed social environment and/or weak job accessibility. For reasons discussed in this article, living in such neighbourhoods may increase the duration of unemployment for jobseekers. On the basis of an empirical study, this hypothesis is tested in the Paris–Île-de-France metropolitan area and addresses the question: all other things being equal, are low-skilled workers living in high-poverty neighbourhoods and/or neighbourhoods with low job accessibility exposed to a greater risk of long-term unemployment? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]