In the final years of the century just ended, the fall of communist regimes and progress in international and humanitarian law inspired hope for the advent of constitutional states, deemed the surest protectors of individual freedoms. It had become obvious that the state itself might be subject in almost any circumstances to the constraints that it imposes in the name of the public interest, and that citizens have rights including those against it—the final phase in the progress of democracy, allowing for the fulfilment of majority will. The constitutional state henceforth protected the minority.

Globalisation and its corollary, the weakening of the state; terrorism and the necessity of increasing controls in order to better protect individuals; taking victims’ rights, considered more fundamental than the rights of the guilty party, into greater account… All these elements of differing nature and scope also profoundly transform this irenical vision of a world seized by law.

Increasingly often, the politician, filled with a new voluntarism, seems to oppose the legitimacy of his election with the government of judges.

Was the fine ideal of the constitutional state therefore a chimera or does it still have real impact and significance? That is the question which these 23rd Rencontres de Pétrarque will endeavour to answer.

David KESSLER - Directeur de France Culture

Monday 14
Inaugural lesson with Guy Carcassonne

Tuesday 15
Against terrorism, is everything permitted?

With Pascal Boniface, Blandine Kriegel, Gilbert Thiel

Wednesday 16
More rights, less law?

With Corinne Lepage, Philippe Bilger, Gabriel Mouesca, Dominique Rousseau, Daniel Soulez-LariviÉre

Thursday 17
Twelve years after the Geneva Appeal : the ‘black boxes’ of financial globalisation

With Arnaud Montebourg, Renaud Van Ruymbeke

Friday 18
Is politics the enemy of law?

With Jean-Claude Colliard, Georges FrÈche, Alain-Gérard Slama