« Le livre noir de la censure »

« Les mœurs » (Morals) - Aurélie CHAVAGNON

Evolution in morals, as seen through the prism of censorship, is similar to that of our legal system. After the predominantly protectionist system of the 19th century, in the last twenty years or so we have adopted a form of logic based on political liberalism. Since the 1970s, there have been increasingly urgent demands for sexual liberation, which has overtaken the concept of morality. The exaltation felt in individual freedom has resulted in what is now a consensualist approach to sexuality. Control over the arts has gradually slipped. As the State no longer acts as guarantor for the sexual morality of the French, so too does it pay less and less attention to the morality of artistic expression. Examining the main fields in which censorship is applied makes it possible to understand who censors whom, how and why… Censorship has become a legitimate practice thanks to two distinct, yet concurrent, objectives: the eradication of exposure to indecent offences in all forms of artistic expression and the preservation of young people from immorality and pornography…

« La santé » (Health) - Flore MASURE

Obesity, stress, cancer… The aging Western population is more and more preoccupied with its health problems. Public health has become an objective that is sufficiently noble that we are no longer excessively bothered about protecting it, at the expense of a certain control over communication, even if this sometimes leads to restricted freedom of expression. Health today is thus one of the only domains in which there is censorship in the literal sense of the term, that is, a priori control by the State over certain publications…