Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters.
Syndicalism
I strongly believe that syndicalism is at the same time the best tool we have available for our immidiate struggles as workers, and the best mean of long-term transformation of our society towards more freedom, more justice, and to make it more democratic.
I'm a member of the CGT union, more specifically of the CGT FERC Sup, which is the higher education and research branch of our confederation.
As such, I'm an elected member of University Paris 8's board of trustees, where I represent the university's workers for our interunion collective.
Blockchains
For a few years now, blockchains have been so hyped that they have been put to all sorts of uses.
Blockchain-based projects are multiplying without any consideration for the actual necessity of a blockchain in these projects.
The thing is, not only blockchains are only useful under conditions that are never actually met in practice, but they also serve as a vessel for disseminating political ideas that were (correctly) associated with libertarian and extreme-right ideologies before that.
I try to politically fight this technology by explaining how it technically works, in order to make its limitations and its inherent political assumptions clear.
→ Go to pablockchain.fr to find out more about my activities on this subject.
Open Access
I truly believe that open access is the future, because information should be free.
Sharing discovered and invented knowledge with the whole humanity is not only the goal of research, but also the only possible way to advance it.
In this regard, the current state of the research publication mechanism is deeply flawed.
Indeed, most of the research is done in public institutions (universities, research institutes, national labs, …),
but the dissemination of its results is controlled by a few multinational companies which prioritize profits over everything else.
This results in the privatization of knowledge which is then sold back to the same public institutions which produced it in the first place!
I believe that open access is the only right path to get out of this socially and economically absurd situation, and that we are inevitably advancing toward it.
However, there are many definition of what open access is, and not all of them are ideal.
Thus, we need to pay close attention to the direction that the open access movement follows.
→ Go to the open access page (mostly in French).
Privacy
Privacy matters.
It is human nature (maybe even animal) to behave differently when feeling observed, in particular when it is done without consent.
Everyone has the experience of suddenly stopping an activity (e.g., singing or dancing) while realizing that someone else is watching or listening.
More importantly, one has to be aware that a society in which there is absolutely no possibility of breaking the law or going against standard behavior and decorum is a society which by essence cannot evolve,
since it is impossible to do something truly new, original, or inventive.
Nowadays, virtually everyone produces an enormous amount of personal data everyday.
At the same time, big organizations and states have the necessary resources to collect and exploit these loads of data, and are incentivized to do so for various reasons (mass surveillance, profits, …).
The struggle for the right to privacy is thus more important than it ever was.
→ Go to the privacy page (mostly in French).
Outreach
As a scientist, my mission is not only to write research papers for my community but also to disseminate science to the general public. Science popularization and outreach is indeed explicitely listed as one of our mission in the Code de la recherche. Apart from my activities around open access and privacy I'm also trying to do some outreach around me, in the meatspace and on social media. In addition, I sometimes write for magazines, answer interviews, or participate to debates on various topics.
→ Go to the outreach page.