The report “Invisible hands?” offers a survey of the involvement of European firms – including banks - at different stages of the supply chain of soy, meat and metal – industries which are the main drivers of the deforestation in Brazil.

From hospitals to nursing homes, the privatised care sector is on the rise in Europe. A slow process of privatisation and liberalisation, along with the ageing of the European population and the growing demand for elderly care, have opened up a new (...)

The French government offered unprecedented financial support to businesses in response to the Covid pandemic, and large corporations of the CAC40 stock index have greatly profited from it. With very few strings attached, whether in terms of dividend payouts or of climate commitments.

Perhaps the best way to get to know Alba, a small town in the province of Cuneo, in the Piedmont region, is to open a book by Beppe Fenoglio, one of the major Italian writers of his time. He wrote extensively about the city and the surrounding hills, the (...)

Should construction industry giants be worried? After open-source software and the manufacture of machines and objects, the global fabber [3-D printer] community is now turning to actual open-source house construction. Providing plans and techniques that are accessible to everyone, collaborative construction and assemblage of components (from the United States to France, by way of Great Britain), a true community of “free housing” is emerging and self-organizing to revolutionize construction and its financing and to provide everyone access to more suitable housing.

Walls and wire fences are not all that’s being built at Europe’s borders. The European Commission and Security Companies dream of “smart borders”: a multitude of automated and interconnected files and control apparatuses able to follow each individual. The program’s objective? Counter-terrorism and keeping migrants out. But these structures — the effectiveness of which remains to be demonstrated — risk straining public finances, while threatening civil liberties and private life, should some states decide to pass from border control of each person to surveillance of everybody

Blockades are popular these days in France. This time, it was the turn of the Bolloré group, located in Puteaux (Hauts-de-seine), to experience this form of protest. For nearly three hours on the morning of 3 June, around a hundred protesters peacefully blockaded the entrances to the headquarters of one of the country’s most powerful companies. Protestors challenged Bolloré shareholders as they attempted to enter their meeting.