François Chazel, influential sociologist, is dead

A former student of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, with a degree in classics, François Chazel quickly turned to sociology. Called by Raymond Boudon to join the sociology department of the University of Bordeaux in 1966, he remained there for a large part of his professional life and became its director, before joining the sociology department of the University of Paris in 1989. -Sorbonne where he was professor emeritus until his death. He was a member of the French journal of sociology and of The sociological year, and a time president of the French Society of Sociology. Recognized internationally, he had an often little-known influence, himself always being discreet about his professional life. Moreover, he was more a man of articles than of books, in a French universe where the place of the book has always been considered primary, particularly in sociology. He died on August 14 in Saint-Agrève, Ardèche, at the age of 84.

Born on December 10, 1937 in Paris, François Chazel had a classic career for a brilliant intellectual. However, he occupied a unique place in the academic world both by his centers of interest and by his positioning in the field of sociology. Already, a significant fact, he was never the man of a school or of any clan, which was rare in the 1970s when, at a time when the internationalization of the social sciences was still weak and the influence Decisively national, French sociology was dominated by the figures of Raymond Boudon, Pierre Bourdieu, Alain Touraine and Michel Crozier. He maintained courteous relations with everyone, never confusing friendly relations with scientific interactions.

Impressive scholarship

However, this openness is not enough to explain the centrality that will be his in the discipline. He owes this place to an impressive scholarship, but above all to his intellectual orientations and to the work he carried out to develop sociology. As we have been able to say, he had ambition for sociology, and that alone counted. He knew how to distinguish the interest of knowledge and the personal and affective implication. We understand the influence he may have had on some of his students who, without sharing his convictions, still consider today the importance of his training for the production of their own sociology. We think in particular of François Dubet, Charles-Henry Cuin or Didier Lapeyronnie. We should not forget the generations of students who were able to appreciate the pedagogical talent of their teacher as well as his humor.

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