Not being myself either a linguist or a translator, the purpose of this speech will be to bring the testimony of a young researcher who must deal—during his master thesis or his PhD. Thesis—with: first, the problems one faces regarding legal translations, and second, the use of legal sources transcribed in a language that differs from one's first language. Finally, we will touch on the use of sources which are pre-translated.

“I know that everyone is opposed to the idea of censorship of literary works. As for me, I believe that censorship can be justified, if it is exercised with probity and does not serve to cover up personal, racial or political persecution.” Thus pleaded Borges, with his taste, very paradoxical here, for provocation. The legitimization of a censorship which is “necessary” for society? This is perhaps also reflected by contemporary French law.

This article will be divided into two parts. First, I will demonstrate the importance of comparative law and legal culture by highlighting the “great principles of French public law”. I will then explore some of these major principles, based on the French and German conceptions of law, justice, the State, and democracy.

The name Antoine de Martres is unknown today to students at Toulouse Capitole University. No doubt other jurists such as Jacques Cujas, Maurice Hauriou and Gabriel Marty are more familiar to them in the amphitheater and the lecture theaters. This is perhaps due to Cujas’ contribution to legal humanism and the doctrinal reflection of the two former deans of the faculty of law.

This linguistic study contributes to the decades-long discussion on the inappropriateness of the Library of Congress Subject Heading illegal aliens by examining its absence in a corpus of US Supreme Court oral arguments and by evaluating automatic translation tool results related to keywords as well as a corpus extract. This linguistic study confirms the ideological bias of the illegal aliens subject heading compared to a plethora of other expressions that legal scholars may use to describe the situations implied under the more neutral umbrella term noncitizen. The automatic translation results for alien and illegal alien also support the notion that the term illegal alien is confined to a United States historical context, which hinders its international comprehension as a subject heading.

Private law is usually defined as all the rules of law which govern relationships between private individuals. Thus defined, it is opposite to public law and differentiated from ‘mixed law’ such as criminal law which has aspects of both. Of course, understanding private relationships between individuals, depend to a large extent on the country where they are observed and its history. French individualism (which of course does not exclude the general interest) which is notably embodied by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of 1789 is doubtless at the heart of private law—I was going to say private law legislation—and is illustrated by the central place which is reserved for the law of private property. Private law therefore governs all relationships between individuals in all aspects of their lives: their private lives, their business relations, their working relationships, and so on.

To put it into perspective, the principal of secularism in France must be positioned at the intersection of three cardinal pillars: freedom, citizenship and what has founded them historically and what embodies them: the Republic. These three closely intertwined pillars where each supports the other, allows individuals and the national community to flourish, move forward, build, and develop. If one of them breaks down, the whole edifice is destabilized and with it freedoms, including the freedom of worship.

The State. This concept is impossible to avoid in France because the country built itself on (or around) this idea from the nineteenth century. Although the ‘State’ was initially ignored by the Revolution (which referred to the idea of the ‘sovereign nation’), the Revolution marked the beginning of the French administration which has continued to develop ever since. However, the administration as a remedy for the instability resulting from 1789, was a legal tool which changed with the regimes. An intellectual object was therefore necessary to support it and to guarantee its continuity and stability. This is where the interest in the State lies, if only in its etymological sense.