He was something of a totem of the sociology of labor and social movements, an intellectual who traveled the world—especially to Chile, where he also met his wife, Adriana Arenas Pizarro—to observe the manifestations of social and labor life; I try to identify everywhere, there is a conflict,” he liked to say. A restless thinker with bottomless curiosity, Le Monde wrote, Alain Turenne died today, Friday, at the age of 98.

Born in 1925 in Normandy among scholars and intellectuals, as he came of age, he began to give flesh and bone to his curiosity. He began studying at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) but left the academy to move to Hungary to begin his studies in industrial relations and worked for two years in a mine in northeastern France. Around this time, he decided to return to ENS to study history and philosophy. This was facilitated by his familiarity with the work of George Friedman, who broadened the scope of his research to include the impact of industrial labor on humans and the uncontrolled acceptance of the technological revolution of the 20th century.

Their move to the US on a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship led him to work on his doctoral dissertation at Harvard under the famed Talcott Parsons and his theory of social action, said to be the first broad survey of social systems in Europe and America. Alain Turenne, who had already done legendary field research at the Renault factory in France, found there a new compass for his sociological orientation. And his innate curiosity to learn and explain was generously fueled by his contacts with American researchers.

Touraine’s sociology of action was in many ways a sociology of the world in development. Instead of seeing a static society, he saw in social subjects the possibility of an ever-changing society.”

In the 1960s—and after earning two PhDs—he saw France as an academic field of pamphlet glory as the country experienced its own…industrial revolution, trying to break out of the American economy. He was concerned about the position of the workers in these changes brought by the new era, which led fatally to the French May of 68, in which he not only participated theoretically and practically, but also became the event that led him to the creation of the Center for the Study of Social Movements, a gathering of thinkers from all over peace. She continued the study of Solidarnosc (Solidarity) in Poland by Lech Walesa and the feminist movement.

For the definition he gave himself of Sociology was the “science of social action” – from the study of the same name that created the “school” – with the aim, as his work showed, to regain control of production from the workers. And he himself was there to show them the way – after all, he considered this one of the “duties” of sociologists.

His research project showed him the way: to refuse consumption and participate in decision-making, in the creation of a collective identity that would function as a means of resistance.

Touraine’s sociology of action was in many ways a sociology of the world in development. Instead of seeing a static society, he saw in social subjects the possibility of an ever-changing society,” says Haritini Karakostaki, EHESS Doctor of Sociology and Lecturer in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at EKPA. “In Touraine, society is not reproduced, but “produced” every time anew precisely through the action of social actors organized in social movements.”

Together with another great sociologist of the 20th century, Sigmund Baumann, he received the Prince of Asturias Prize for Communication and Humanities in 2010, and his birthplace made him a member of the Legion of Honor in 2014, at a time when his daughter Marisol Turenne was Minister of Social Affairs under François Hollande. At the same time, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from most universities in the world.

The works of Alain Turenne, who insisted that “democracy is based on the most active participation of the largest possible number of people in the making and implementation of political decisions”, no matter how their reputation in France has faded in recent times, remain classics, helping even today in the perception of transformations postindustrial societies.

The most important works of Alain Turenne

1965: “The Sociology of Action” (La sociologie de l’action).

1968: “The May Movement or Utopian Communism” (Le Mouvement de mai ou le communisme utopique)

1973: “The Life and Death of Popular Chile” (Vie et mort du Chili populaire).

2006: “The World of Women” (Le monde des femmes)

2013: “The End of Societies” (La Fin des sociétés).

2016: “New Political Age” (Le Nouveau Siècle politique).