Foucault at 100, an evening of readings at the BnF
· BehindLines newsroom · Updated
The Centre Pompidou and the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) had announced "L'Inventaire Foucault" for Monday 2 November 2026 in the Salle Ovale at the Richelieu site in Paris. According to the Centre Pompidou, Michel Foucault worked for years in this reading room. As of 3 November, the BnF event page lists the event as finished. This article looks back at the announced programme; it does not confirm how the evening went or whether the invited participants attended.
An anniversary behind the event
Foucault (1926-1984) was born a hundred years ago: the event is part of the celebrations of that centenary, an old date that frames recent announcements. Some of Foucault's archives are held in the BnF's Manuscripts department, which sheds light on its role as a partner. According to the release, the evening follows "l'Inventaire Deleuze" held in 2025, which makes the format an ongoing series rather than an isolated initiative.
The idea: a word, a sentence, a page
The Centre Pompidou's programme invited readers of Foucault to choose a page, a sentence or a word that resonated with their work or the news. Readings, talks and performances were intended to bring his thought into contact with present-day questions. The event page announced, among others, Paul B. Preciado, Patrick Boucheron, Hélène Giannecchini, Chowra Makaremi, Michelle Perrot, Benoît Piéron and Dominique Simonnot, readings by Florence Loiret-Caille and performances by Volmir Cordeiro and Philippe Artières in the Salle Ovale. The listed venue was the BnF's Richelieu site, 5 rue Vivienne, Paris 2nd. For this past evening, the Centre Pompidou advertised free admission with booking; the BnF listed free admission, recommended booking and marked it as fully booked. These are access announcements and do not establish actual attendance.
The programme is led by Mathieu Potte-Bonneville, director of the Culture and Creation department, with Jean-Max Colard and Inés Henzler (Speech department) and Chloé Siganos and Malena Suburu (Performing Arts department), according to the release.
A parallel exhibition at the Collège de France
The BnF and the Collège de France also jointly present an exhibition devoted to Foucault's years at the Collège de France, announced for 30 September 2026 to 15 January 2027, at 11 place Marcelin-Berthelot (Paris 5th). Admission is free. The Collège de France specifies that the calendar includes closures; visitors should check the conditions for their chosen day on its page. Foucault was elected there on 12 April 1970 to the chair in the History of Systems of Thought and taught there until 1984.
About a hundred items are announced: unpublished manuscripts, personal objects, audio and video archives. The curators are Didier Fassin (Collège de France), Philippe Chevallier (BnF, Manuscripts department) and Aurèle Méthivier (Collège de France). According to the BnF, Foucault's teaching there became the laboratory of his thought and of books to come: the major themes of "Surveiller et punir" and "La Volonté de savoir" take shape in it.
Why it matters
This double programme, a one-off evening announced at Richelieu and an exhibition running for several months, shows how cultural institutions draw on archive holdings to celebrate an author. Visitors need to distinguish the programme for the past evening of 2 November from the exhibition, announced until January 2027 subject to its opening calendar.