French social science research on crisis has experienced strong evolutions over the past twenty years. Attention shifted from problems that the authorities had in managing industrial accidents and natural disasters, transportation accidents, to crisis associated with the idea of an 'affair' or...

In France studies on technological risks began to question errors, failures and vulnerabilities at the end of the 1970s, focusing mostly on analyzing major accidents as consequences of the increasing complexity of socio-technical systems. During the 1980s and 1990s, research studies carried out...