it does now mean that there is a surge in French stately castles available to buy – and at a substantially reduced rate French estate agents reportedly have more than 1,500 of the expansive properties on their books – more than double the number that there were ten years ago Such news will remind many of the popular television series Escape to the Château a 45-room DIY project in North-West France If it’s space and tranquility that you seek southern France available via Prestige Property Château in Decazevilleprestigeproperty.co.ukThis 14 bedroom French château in Decazeville is such an example – it is currently on the market for £590,000 substantially down from when it was on sale last year at £809,000 The 13th century castle that has been sympathetically restored by its current owners Inside the château in Aubussonleggett.frChâteau near Chateauroux, Indre, in central France available via Sifex There’s another captivating château near Chateauroux, Indre, in central France that is on sale for £677,000, having fallen from £900,000 when it was listed in 2019. The intriguing building combines medieval, Renaissance and 19th century style architecture and comes with nearly seven acres of land, 18 bedrooms and its own traditional cottage. Sifex.co.uk Château near Chateaurouxsifex.co.ukMore from Tatler Colossal No crack in a wall, step, or curb is safe from Ememem’s delightful interventions. The Lyon-based artist (previously) also known as “the pavement surgeon,” continues to scout out gaps in sidewalks that he fills with colorful tiles Akin to kintsugi, the Japanese practice of repairing broken pottery with gold to embrace the history of the object Ememem’s technique doesn’t hide imperfections so much as highlight their possibilities While making the surfaces safer to traverse he adds gives new life to decaying urban walkways Find more of the artist’s work on his website, and keep track of new pieces on Instagram Do stories and artists like this matter to you? 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See our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy Father Andre Masse grew up in Decazeville in northern France He took over as the director of the south Lebanon branch of St His stated goal was to provide quality education to Muslims and Christians in order to break down religious barriers between the two groups unidentified assassins carrying pistols with silencers smashed down the door of his office and shot him three times in the head and twice in the shoulder The motives of the assassins remain unknown The Ignatian Solidarity Network (ISN) is a national social justice network inspired by the spirituality of St ISN was founded in 2004 and is a lay-led 501(c)3 organization working in partnership with Jesuit universities along with many other Catholic institutions and social justice partners Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article In 1925 she retired from the stage to teach Sous tous les ciels j’ai chanté (1940; “I’ve Sung Under Every Sky”) The spectre of ‘the mob’ has long been summoned to limit freedom There’s just one problem: protests almost never lead to violence But is collective violence the problem here and is the introduction of yet more curbs on protest the answer acts of vandalism and of violence against MPs cast a chill over our democracy and have no justification a few individual acts have become conflated with the collective protests – and in turn who slams the “aggressive intimidation of MPs” by “mobs” Referring to crowds as mobs plays into a long tradition that presupposes it is in their nature to be volatile Such negative views of crowds have been around since time immemorial. But they became systematised with industrialisation and the formation of a mass society during the 19th century The elite feared that the urban masses would if the masses were an imminent threat to the social order the crowd was the mass in action – the sum of all fears People “descend several rungs on the ladder of civilisation” on entering the crowd They become “only powerful for destruction” Even the most reasonable people lose control of themselves and become bestial in the mass There is just one problem with all this. While some crowds clearly can be violent, crowd violence is actually extremely rare. Of the some 2,700 strikes in the period when Le Bon was writing In only one – the Decazeville strike of 1886 – was anyone killed And yet Decazeville haunted Le Bon and his fellow crowd psychologists of the time there were 2,198 arrests at football grounds in the 2021-22 season of which 20% were for violent disorder (a little over 400) of which 21% were for violent disorder – and this out of a total of 45 million attendances at games there was a one in 100,000 chance of someone attending a game being arrested for being violent – hardly compatible with the idea that crowds are “mobs” in which people are inherently violent the language (and the idea) of the mob paints a false picture of crowds of crowd violence and of violence in society more generally The gathering of people in protest does not indicate the imminent outbreak of violence and excess The message is clear. You will understand and deal with crowds far better if, as enshrined in international human rights law you start from the presumption that they are peaceful rather than violent It is by ignoring this message that our MPs make themselves less safe Should they seek to make collective protest more difficult it will increase rather than decrease the dangers they face and undermine rather than safeguard our democracy It is high time that we lay the spectre of the “mob” to rest Stephen Reicher is a professor of psychology at the University of St Andrews and a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the British Academy