1. They are mainly French. This detail is not unimportant. Indeed we may ask whether concern about globalization, developments in biology and the undefined opportunities they open up, is not more alive in France today than anywhere else and whether the fears expressed by French intellectuals are not explained simply by the decline and loss of influence of the ‘great nation', the death of a republican model of social organization that is increasingly undermined by the predominance of Anglo-American ethical, legal and economic norms that give more emphasis to the market, science and technology than the state and the law.

2. The articles brought together here are versions of a number of papers given on 13 and 14 June 2001at a conference held at the Maison des Cultures du Monde (Paris) and organized by Alain Caillé and Shmuel Trigano for GEODE (Groupe d'Etude et d'Observation de la Démocratie), a research unit at the University of Paris-X Nanterre which is linked to the CNRS (FRE 2257). Other contributors to the conference were Jean-Jacques Salomon, David Le Breton, Jean-Louis Laville, Danièle Hervieu-Léger, Roberte Hamayon, Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Jean Baubérot, Christian Lazzeri, François Vatin, Pascal Michon and Carmen Bernand.