Natacha Michel is a French political activist, militant

Militant

The word militant, which is both an adjective and a noun, usually is used to mean vigorously active, combative and aggressive, especially in support of a cause, as in 'militant reformers'. It comes from the 15th century Latin "militare" meaning "to serve as a soldier"...

 and writer, born in 1941. She has published a dozen novels and a growing body of literary criticism.

Michel was program director at the College International de Philosophie

Collège international de philosophie

The Collège international de philosophie , located in Paris' 5th arrondissement, is a tertiary education institute placed under the trusteeship of the French government department of research and chartered under the French 1901 Law on associations...

 (1995–2001). She is the daughter of French film director and screenwriter André Michel

André Michel

André Michel was a French film director and screenwriter. He directed 15 films between 1947 and 1983. He is the father of novelist Natacha Michel who is also a political activist and militant...

.

L'Organisation Politique

Following the student uprisings of May 1968 in France, Michel was a founding member of the Union des communistes de France marxiste-léniniste (UCFml). To quote Alain Badiou

Alain Badiou

Alain Badiou is a French philosopher, professor at European Graduate School, formerly chair of Philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure . Along with Giorgio Agamben and Slavoj Žižek, Badiou is a prominent figure in an anti-postmodern strand of continental philosophy...

, the UCFml is "the Maoist organization established in late 1969 by Natacha Michel, Sylvain Lazarus

Sylvain Lazarus

Sylvain Lazarus is a French sociologist, anthropologist and political theorist. He has also written under the pseudonym Paul Sandevince. Lazarus is a Professor at the Paris 8 University.-Life and work:...

, myself and a fair numher of young people". Michel's commitment to political intervention did not waver in the following decades. She is a founding member (along with Badiou and Lazarus) of the militant French

Politics of France

France is a semi-presidential representative democratic republic, in which the President of France is head of state and the Prime Minister of France is the head of government, and there is a pluriform, multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is...

 political organisation "L'Organisation Politique" which called itself a post-party organization concerned with direct popular intervention in a wide range of issues (including immigration, labor, and housing). In addition to numerous writings and interventions since the 1980s, L'Organisation Politique has stressed the importance of developing political prescriptions concerning undocumented migrants (in France referred to as les sans papiers) and stresses that they must be conceived primarily as workers and not immigrants.

Selected publications

• Ici commence, (Here begins), Gallimard, 1973.
• La Chine européenne, (The China European) Gallimard, 1975.
• Le repos de Penthésilée, (The rest of Penthesilea), Gallimard, 1980.
• Impostures et séparations: 9 courts romans, (Impostures and separations, 9 short novels), Le Seuil, 1986.
• (with Sylvain Lazarus) "Étude sur les formes de conscience et les représentations des OS des usines Renault". Rapport de recherche. Paris, CNRS, Régie nationale des usines Renault, 1986.
• Canapé Est-Ouest, (Couch East-West), Le Seuil, 1989.
• Le jour où le temps a attendu son heure, (The day the time has waited his time), Le Seuil, 1990.
• Ciel éteint, (Ciel off), Le Seuil, 1995.
• L'éducation de la poussière, (The education of dust), Le Seuil, 1998.
• Autobiographie. Autobiography. Approche de l'ombre , Déploration à quatre voix, (Approaching the shadows, Déploration four votes), Verdier, 2001.
• Laissez tomber l'infini, il revient par la fenêtre, (Forget the infinite, it is out of the window), Le Seuil, 2003.
• Circulaire à toute vie humaine, (Circular to all human life), Le Seuil, 2004.