Michel Foucault's centenary: why his thought continues to divide

The centenary of Michel Foucault’s birth arrives in October 2026, marking one hundred years since the French philosopher entered the world. His intellectual legacy continues to permeate human sciences and political discourse, influencing how scholars analyze digital surveillance, medical authority, and sexual norms. While his work inspires generations of researchers, the philosopher’s reputation faces a paradoxical challenge. Excessive celebration and frequent citation risk obscuring the man behind the legend. Foucault remains a disturbing intellectual figure whose insights fascinate critics while certain blind spots continue to embarrass his admirers. In Paris during 1971, Foucault stood before the La Santé prison distributing questionnaires to families of inmates. He sought to uncover realities hidden behind institutional walls, including humiliation, violence, and detention conditions that administrators preferred to ignore. These testimonies fed into the investigations of the Prison Information Group, which he co-founded with other intellectuals. This initiative represented a method for testing philosophy against reality, positioning the leading figure of French Theory close to those suffering under power structures. Frédéric Gros, a specialist in Foucault’s work and author of La puissance Foucault, argues that common perceptions of the philosopher as a mere advocate of suspicion are misunderstandings. According to Gros, Foucault actually defended the value and strength of precise, local truths. He viewed these specific cases as rocks of resistance against ideological smoke screens. It required considerable boldness to pose the questions central to Foucault’s early books. Who decides that an individual is mad? Since when have mental patients been confined? How did prisons become the standard response to crime? Through works such as Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique published in 1961 and Surveiller et punir released in 1975, Foucault examined archives, regulations, and medical or judicial practices. He discovered that familiar institutions were built upon histories of conflict, decision-making, and power dynamics. Categories like madness, delinquency, and normality shifted definitions over centuries. His originality lay in locating power where observers rarely looked. In factories, schedules regulated gestures. In hospitals, examinations allowed bodies to be observed and classified. These practices, though habitual, disciplined individuals. Matteo Polleri, a philosopher and author of Découvrir Foucault, described Foucault’s concept of power as a set of conflicting, unstable, and reversible relationships. Power does not reduce to the state or police alone. Individuals can participate in it, suffer from it, or resist it. This influence extends into daily vocabulary, making terms like surveillance, norms, and devices ubiquitous in social sciences. Despite this widespread impact, Foucault’s treatment of colonization presents a notable gap. In his extensive body of work, he dedicated only one sentence to the colonial question, despite its centrality to his era. Yet today, his concepts are heavily utilized in research regarding mechanisms of colonial domination. A quote attributed to him notes that colonization transported European models to other continents using political and legal weapons. However, it also had return effects on Western power mechanisms, institutions, and techniques. Colonial models imported back to the West enabled Europe to practice a form of internal colonialism upon itself. This philosophical debate unfolds alongside current social unrest in France. On Saturday, October 17, massive demonstrations involving between 550,000 and 800,000 protesters marked the day with unprecedented disturbances. The government appeared overwhelmed, struggling to respond to spreading anger after previously claiming the movement was losing momentum. The student movement, which few anticipated, ignited the country within weeks. By the eve of October 17, the prospect of converging grievances became highly realistic. Officials faced criticism for being deeply responsible for the situation rather than powerless against it. Industrial decline also characterizes the period. On Thursday, October 15, the commercial court in Lorient pronounced the liquidation of the Fonderie de Bretagne foundry. This decision resulted in job losses for 244 employees. Behind this industrial failure, which management and public authorities presented as a fatality, lie identifiable responsibilities. These concurrent events highlight the complex backdrop against which Foucault’s ideas are currently debated. His framework offers tools to analyze both historical power structures and contemporary crises, from prison conditions to labor disputes. The tension between his enduring relevance and his historical silences defines the current scholarly conversation surrounding his centenary.