Christophe Bourseiller, Director of the OESE
‘Instagram posts are today’s leaflets’: exploring the archives of extremism with Christophe Bourseiller
At the age of ten, in May ’68, Christophe Bourseiller was already collecting leaflets from the street. More than half a century later, that childhood intuition has evolved into a body of research: a collection of 30,000 to 40,000 documents, donated to the UPHF, which forms the basis of the OESE (Observatory of Extremism and Emerging Trends), which he now heads.
A passion that has become an observatory
The Bourseiller collection is nothing like a conventional press collection. It consists of raw material, gathered from activist bookshops, markets, the streets, and from all corners of the world: leaflets, brochures, posters, underground newspapers and stickers. It contains rare documents that cannot be found anywhere else — newspapers from Latin American guerrilla movements, Palestinian publications issued in Syria, Lebanon or Iraq, propaganda from socialist countries, and French, American, Norwegian and German neo-Nazi leaflets – some of which are technically banned from sale – which the researcher collected and then approached “with caution, for research purposes”.
“This collection gives researchers access to documents that would not necessarily be available elsewhere”, explains Christophe Bourseiller. The OESE thus complements institutions such as La Contemporaine: many underground newspapers, published by the FNLC or Action Directe, are not included in the BnF’s legal deposit. The collection covers all major conflicts since 1945 — Vietnam, the Six-Day War and every stage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict up to the Gaza conflict, the Gulf War and 9/11 — as well as every French presidential election since 1965. And the story continues: every year, the researcher adds a further year’s worth of documents to the collection. Recently, without telling anyone, he unearthed previously unpublished material in an anarchist bookshop in Prague. Jean-Yves Camus, a leading expert on the far right, has agreed to bequeath a large part of his own archives to the observatory.
Christophe Bourseiller is a French historian, writer and journalist, and a former actor. He compiles archives on ‘unconventional’ movements in politics, culture and religion. He is the author of several books, including Les Faux Messies and C’est un complot !. He was awarded a PhD in History in 2019 after defending his thesis Ombre invaincue : de la destruction du ‘collaborationnisme’ à sa survie dans la France de l’après-guerre.
The radicalisation of societies
For the director of the OESE, current events prove that this persistent monitoring is justified. “In most Western countries, we are witnessing a trend towards extremism, which is manifesting itself in increased polarisation, increasingly heated debates, and, above all, the rise of parties that should have remained on the fringes. ” The French example is illuminating: in the 2024 general election, the dominant force on the left was the far left (La France insoumise) and the dominant force on the right was the far right (the National Rally). “In a non-polarised society, we would have had the Socialist Party on one side and LR on the other. There has been a genuine reversal of the political poles. ”
The observatory has been archiving the National Front since its creation in 1972 — the party’s founding documents are held at the UPHF. “It is a party that now appeals to more than 30 per cent of the population. It is staggering when you consider where it came from, with its successive scandals and, more recently, the Bardella affair, which shows just how deeply attached it remains to its far-right roots. ” The real scientific question, in his view, is to observe how this party, should it come to power, would govern.
Conference organised by the LARSH-UPHF Valenciennes Observatory on Extremism and Emerging Trends, on 4 and 5 June 2026
‘Emerging signs’: a different perspective
The originality of the OESE lies in its dual perspective. Extremist movements can be studied from a political and electoral perspective — or from the perspective of cultural history, by examining the ‘weak signals’ they emit. After all, several fundamental trends that have transformed French society originated on the fringes: the women’s liberation movement, the gay rights movement and the environmental movement. The observatory’s archives contain the earliest newspapers of the American Women’s Lib movement and the MLF, as well as the first gay and environmentalist publications. “ The aim is to keep an open mind.” The idea of ‘emerging signs’ comes from Denis Vautier, CEO of Valutec, who was involved in setting up the observatory.
Paper versus the ephemeral digital world
How should we archive propaganda from 2026? Christophe Bourseiller has his own method: screenshots from Instagram and X, press releases downloaded as PDFs from the groups’ websites… then printing it all out. “I have absolute faith in paper. Press releases on Instagram are today’s leaflets. ” An almost iconoclastic stance at a time when it is being claimed that AI will govern human knowledge: “Only 10 per cent of human knowledge is on the web. Given the slow pace of digitisation, AI is far from having all the information.” Yet the digitisation of the collection is progressing — in particular, fragile audio and video tapes are being digitised by the UPHF before they deteriorate — but the researcher remains convinced that one can only truly appreciate a leaflet by touching it, by seeing whether it was handmade or mass-produced.
Academic neutrality
Backed by the university, the OESE claims to be immune to political co-optation: “Academic neutrality protects us. We observe the facts without bias, and so far we have avoided any form of exploitation.” The observatory is supported by an international scientific council, organises conferences and study days, and has already achieved genuine academic recognition, with a special issue of the journal *Parlement*.
Yet the concern of the citizen behind the observer remains: ‘When extremism comes to power, does it remain extremist — in which case it becomes very serious — or does it moderate? We see this with Giorgia Meloni, elected by neo-fascist forces, who ultimately governs from the centre-right. ” The year 2027, both a “year of unrest and a crucial election year”, promises to be “fascinating” for the OESE. The bags of leaflets are already ready.
Find out more
Introduction to the OESE and the Christophe-Bourseiller Fund