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Who feels poor in France? Subjective poverty and social insecurity
Poverty is defined and measured differently: in terms of standard of living, living conditions, or whether a person receives welfare assistance from the state. A study of people in France who self-report as poor and of the determinants of this perception of own social position (based on data from the Opinion barometer survey of the national statistical studies office) highlights distance from the job market, being a welfare recipient, but also the importance of respondent's social class. It therefore suggests the relevance of conjointly studying bodies of sociological literature that may diverge on some points but all share a focus on so-called subaltern or lower-class groups and welfare recipients. Drawing on connections and discordances between the monetary and subjective dimensions of poverty, our analysis finds the following factors to be salient: the vulnerability of solitary individuals and, to an even higher degree, single parents; housing occupation status (homeowner or not), particularly among retirees. Last, subjective poverty should be understood sociologically as an indicator of persistent social insecurity associated with particularly strong pessimism about the future. This shows how poverty in France has been evolving within a framework of constant crisis, and helps account for the dynamics currently at work at lower levels of the social structure while showing the fit between subjective and objective dimensions.

Minorities of a different kind? The experience of discrimination and racism of overseas migrants in metropolitan FranceFounded within the slave system and colonization before becoming fully-fledged French territories, the overseas departments (départements d'outremer, DOM) of France are also connected to metropolitan France by major migratory flows. By using the module of the survey “Trajectories and Origins” on the experience of racism and discrimination and 33 interviews with overseas migrants, this study highlights the shared experience of DOM migrants and post-colonial immigrants, particularly those from sub-Saharan Africa. Like the latter, overseas migrants report many unequal treatments related to their skin colour, while deploying distancing strategies. Among these strategies, the styles of differentiation vis-à-vis certain migratory groups occupy an important place. Overseas migrants remove the stigma of racism by insisting on the distance separating them from other non-whites. Their stories thus reflect the duality of racism, between the relegation of migrants into a similar otherness and the creation of competition amongst these populations.

LGBT and non-binary people in boxes. Statistical categorization and criticism of gender and sexuality assignation in a study on violenceThis article looks at the criticisms levelled against a statistical study of gender violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) individuals. During the questionnaire and data collection, respondents considered the recording of gender and sexuality to be problematic, particularly when they refused to define themselves as male or female, bisexual or homosexual, describing themselves instead as “non-binary”. Although they represent a minority, these criticisms are interesting in that they challenge the framework of this study into violence, and in fact denounce it as being violent in itself. The article distinguishes between two registers of criticism, one that seeks the recognition of minority identifications and the other that questions categorization in itself. The critical respondents are younger than the others, often women, most often identifying as bisexual, and sometimes in situations of downward mobility. Criticism can be seen as the expression of an indetermination that is both a lived experience and a political claim, often proclaimed by individuals who are all the more likely to refuse dominant assignations of gender and sexuality as the latter are less relevant and less salient for them.

Durability and extension of suspicion. Categorization and police use of the DNA database in France
The use of DNA databases in the world of the police and the legal justice system has been developing spectacularly in many countries, particularly in France with the Fichier national automatisé des empreintes génétiques (FNAEG) [National Automated DNA Database]. In this context, this article analyses the relationships between categories of identification of criminal perpetrators and suspects, forms of knowledge and the inter- and intra-institutional power relations related to this use. Our study is based on in-depth semi-structured interviews (N=24), mainly with police and gendarmes directly involved in these practices, and on the analysis of documents (legal texts, ministerial reports, press articles, etc.). After having presented the techno-scientific and legislative context that governs these evolutions, we show on the one hand the porosity of the categories of offenders, suspects and potential authors, on the other hand the formation of bio-identities of suspects in various forms. We also show that these processes are organised in terms of four logics: 1) a logic of supposed prevention of offences by identifying their perpetrators as soon as possible; 2) an inter-institutional logic in favour of the police in relation to justice; 3) an intra-institutional logic linked to performance; 4) a probabilistic logic of elucidation to help police investigations on sometimes empathic bases vis-à-vis the victims. These different logics are interconnected and converge on the lasting and extending character of suspicion and the wider range of evidence included in criminal records.