Alain Touraine, who carried out his research and advanced theories on work and social issues, died at 03:30 a.m., she said.

Intellectual of the left but appreciated on the right, he signed an abundant work that described the dynamics of social change during the Glorious Thirty and after.

Another philosopher of the same generation, Edgar Morin hailed on Twitter a "companion of 70 years of life, great and insightful sociologist" and "a noble, loyal and great spirit, pride of French thought".

The Prime Minister deplored the death of "one of the great figures of a generation of French sociologists", hailing an "eminent observer of a French society in constant mutation for nearly a century", whose work "will have made the France shine by the force of his ideas and his commitment".

The secretary general of the CFDT Laurent Berger described "a fellow traveler who has often inspired us and made it possible to understand many of the issues facing society".

The editions Points Seuil paid tribute to "an original reflection on the sociology of action and the theme of social movements".

Sociologist Alain Touraine, November 27, 2003 in Paris © JEAN AYISSI / AFP/Archives

For the president of the National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet, Alain Touraine "has illuminated our society, its movements and its transformations, by his humanist and committed look".

The mayor of Lille Martine Aubry praised "an incomparable analyst of the Society, an endearing man. Let's reread his writings!" she tweeted.

"Reference for social movements"

The International Sociological Association (ISA) paid tribute to "a reference for social movements, which has profoundly contributed to a better understanding of social reality".

The former president of SOS-Racisme Harlem Désir also paid "tribute to Alain Touraine, immense thinker of post-industrial society and social movements", hailing "his curiosity for the struggles for rights on all continents".

The sociologist Alain Touraine during the program "Le grand jury" on RTL on February 10, 1984 in Paris © PATRICK BILLARD / AFP / Archives

The sociologist had begun by looking at the workers, his thesis being on those of the car manufacturer Renault.

Then, after May 1968, he had been attentive to the various "new social movements" which carried themes other than those of socialist workerism.

"Isn't the time of social struggles, class relations, social movements over?", he asked himself in "La Voix et le Regard" in 1978, a work of synthesis on the sociology of these movements, students, regionalists, feminists, etc.

He was thus led to criticize the strike movement of December 1995 against the reform of Social Security which, according to him, did not ask the right questions by focusing on the defense of employees.

He was accused of having become a liberal, which he defended himself ("How to get out of liberalism?", 1999).

In 2013, he prophesied in his essay "The End of Societies" the advent of "another type of collective and individual life based on the defense of universal human rights against all logics of interest and power".

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