Night of Ideas – June 2025
Once a year, the Institut français invites cultural and academic venues across France and the five continents to come together to celebrate the free circulation of ideas and knowledge.
In 2025, the Institut français of Tunisia presented the book “Alternative Organisations of Citizenship”, which was awarded the Jury’s Special Prize for Best Academic Collective Publication by Syntec-Conseil and FNEGE.
The evening opened with a speech by Ms Anne GUÉGUEN, French Ambassador to Tunisia.
Panel Discussion on the book "Alternative Organisations of Citizenship"
Two of the book’s authors, Yasmine BOUGHZALA, researcher at the Higher Institute of Management, University of Tunis, and Ghassan WAÏL EL KARMOUNI, community activist and journalist in Morocco, came together for a roundtable discussion on grassroots civic initiatives. The panel was moderated by Farah SAYEM, coordinator of the Library and Book Services network at the Institut Français of Tunisia.
Yasmine BOUGHZALA
On 17 June 2020, the Tunisian parliament adopted Law No. 2020-30 on the social and solidarity economy, with 131 votes in favour, none against, and only one abstention.
In Chapter 12, Yasmine Boughzala retraces the collective deliberation process that began in 2016 and laid the groundwork for this legislation.
Among the key players was the “Tournessolidaire” collective, in which the researcher actively participated.
Although officially founded in 2020, its activities date back to 2012, shortly after the Jasmine Revolution.
An engaged citizen but, above all, a scholar, Boughzala offers an insider's perspective on the emergence of this initiative, from democratic transition (freedom of speech, international funding, public investment) to the current economic crisis and increasing regulation of foreign funding.
Ghassan WAÏL EL KARMOUNI
Chapter 13 is dedicated to MediaLab 1.0, a youth camp focused on media. It is one of several initiatives run by the Forum des Alternatives Maroc (FMAS), a Rabat-based association, aimed at building and legitimising a third sector of community and associative media in Morocco – a sector still overlooked, unlike the regulated public and private media.
The initiative brought together around fifteen young Moroccans from diverse backgrounds to document the effects of climate change in one of the country’s poorest regions: the Siroua mountain range in the Moroccan Atlas.
How have ancestral knowledge and know-how become tools of resistance against the effects of neoliberalism and neo-colonialism? This is the focus of El Karmouni’s contribution.
