East-West – Democratic awakening or retreat?

The role of journalists, philosophers, writers, citizens, artists and activists, both in the West and in the East, is crucial to understanding the challenges and issues facing the world, particularly after the hopes raised by the Arab Spring and the questions raised by the dramatic situations following the war between Russia and Ukraine, and in Gaza, following the murderous attacks by Hamas on 7 October 2023, the fate of the hostages and the bloody response by the Israeli army. Are many countries witnessing a democratic awakening or a retreat from democratic values? Are democracies caught up in geopolitical tensions that are putting them at risk?

EDWY PLENEL is a French journalist and writer. His articles have appeared in Rouge, Le Matin de Paris and above all in the daily Le Monde for twenty-five years. Co-founder of Mediapart, he was its president and editor from 2008 to March 2024 and continues to publish analyses. He is the author of some thirty books.

ALI BENMAKHLOUF is a French-Moroccan philosophy professor at Paris 12 Créteil Val-de-Marne. A member of the National Consultative Ethics Committee and Chairman of the Consultative Ethics Committee of the Institut de Recherches pour le Développement (IRD), he is the author of some twenty publications.

Conference in French | In partnership with the 12th Rencontres Orient Occident

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