In one year, according to the National Observatory of the Social and Solidarity Economy, the French civil society sector lost a total of 12,305 jobs. In the face of the global authoritarian shift towards restricting the activities of civil society organisations, there is a need for a collective response to restore solidarity as a foundational political principle. You may find the translated version of the article written by Lucas Faure, Véronique de Geoffroy, Michaël Neuman et Raphaëlle Parizet published the 24 April 2026 here.

For governments, relief actors and international organizations, the classification of famine is a source of tension, due to the political, media-related, humanitarian, financial and emotional stakes involved. But what is famine, what criteria and data are used to define it, and by whom? Who declares it, and what are the public and political uses of such declarations? These are some of the questions examined in this article by Michaël Neuman.

As deconfliction has become a central tool in civil-military relations within conflict zones, this concept — rooted in military jargon — raises serious questions about its actual effectiveness. Michaël Neuman examines the origins, uses, and ambiguities of these mechanisms meant to protect humanitarian actors, while highlighting the risks of replacing legal guarantees with limited contractual arrangements.

For the moment, this podcast is only available in French.

This reading list gathers articles and videos published between February and June 2024.

Michaël Neuman was invited to the Debate of France 24 to talk about the dire conditions in which the Palestinian population lives. He denounces the massacre that is happening in the Gaza strip which keeps increasing days after days, despite growing international condemnations, especially after the armed intervention of the Israeli soldiers justified by the alleged tunnels occupied by the Hamas below the Al Shifa Hospital.

This article was published in the London Review of books website on September 8, 2023. The former evokes the dire conditions in which roughly 1 000 000 Rohingyas live in Cox’s Bazar, the largest refugee camp in the world. In this coastal district in south-east Bangladesh, the humanitarian deployment is impressive, but commitment by donors is waning. Between March and June, monthly food allocations fell from $12 to $8 per person. The difficulties of accessing care, the social control to which they are subjected and the lack of prospects are many reasons explaining the perils faced by the Rohingya population.

In Groupe URD's new issue of "Humanitaires en mouvement" (n°25), Michaël Neuman describes rescue operations in the Mediterranean and the strategies put in place by MSF to adapt to the constraints imposed by governments.

Michaël Neuman describes his visit to Goma’s IDP camps, where he spent two weeks. He shares his dismay at the low level of assistance provided by the aid sector, especially when we recall that the Sphere standards, born precisely out of the failure of the humanitarian response in this same region of Goma in the mid-1990s, were conceived and championed by all of us.