According to his relatives, the scholar died overnight from Thursday to Friday in Paris at the age of 97.
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| Professor Alain Touraine |
Alain Touraine, a sociologist, died on Friday in Paris at the age of 97, according to his daughter, former minister Marisol Touraine. Alain Touraine, who conducted research and advanced views on labor and social issues, died about 3:30 a.m. on Friday in Paris, she added.
Alain Touraine, intellectual on the left but valued on the right, has created a large body of work that describes the dynamics of social change during and after the Trente Glorieuses.
He began by seeking for this on the workers, his thesis being related to those of the automotive manufacturing Renault. After May 1968, he became interested in the many "new social movements" with topics other than socialist workerism. "Hasn't the time of social struggles, class relations, and social movements passed?" he pondered in 1978, in "La Voix et le Regard," a synthesis book on the sociology of various groups, students, regionalists, feminists, and so on.
As a result, he was prompted to condemn the December 1995 strike campaign against Social Security reform, which he claimed did not address the correct issues, instead focused on employee protection. He was chastised for being a liberal, which he defended ("How to Get Out of Liberalism? ", 1999). In his article "The End of Societies," he predicted the arrival of "another type of collective and individual life based on the defense of universal human rights against all logics of interest and power."
Edgar Morin, another philosopher of the same generation, praised him on Twitter as a "70-year-old companion, great and insightful sociologist," and "a noble, loyal, and great spirit, pride of French thought." Laurent Berger, secretary general of the CFDT, praised him as "a fellow traveler who has often inspired us and allowed us to understand many of the issues that society has to face."
Points for Editions Seuil praised "an original reflection on action sociology and the theme of social movements." Alain Touraine, according to National Assembly President Yal Braun-Pivet, "enlightened our society, its movements and transformations, with his humanist and committed gaze." The International Sociological Association (ISA) hailed the organization as "a reference for social movements, which has profoundly contributed to a better understanding of social reality."
Source: AFP