// Comparison

Cybercriminalité vs Technopolitique: Which Should You Read?

Two cybersecurity books on Policy, compared honestly: who each is for, what each does best, and which to read first.

Intermediate
3/52010
Cybercriminalité

Droit pénal appliqué

Myriam Quéméner, Yves Charpenel

A practitioner's treatment of cybercrime law — offences, procedure, and the application of criminal law to digital crime — by a French magistrate specialised in the field.

Intermediate
4/52024
Technopolitique

Comment la technologie fait de nous des soldats

Asma Mhalla

A sharp, current essay on how digital technology, AI and platform power have turned citizens into actors in a permanent informational and geopolitical conflict, by a prominent French tech-politics scholar.

Read this if

Lawyers, magistrates, compliance teams and investigators who need the legal framework around cybercrime: what's punishable, how procedure works, how the law is applied.
Readers who want a contemporary French framing of the politics of technology — surveillance, AI, platform power, information warfare — at the intersection of geopolitics and daily life.

Skip this if

Technical readers wanting attacks or defence; this is a French-law legal text, and parts of any 2010 legal book are superseded by newer legislation.
Readers wanting technical or security how-to; it's a political essay and big-picture argument, not a practitioner's text.

Key takeaways

  • A specialist legal reference on French cybercrime law, by a magistrate who works the field.
  • Covers the offences, procedure and application of criminal law to digital crime.
  • Law evolves: read for the framework and reasoning, but verify specifics against current legislation.
  • A very current (2024) French framing of technology as a domain of permanent geopolitical and informational conflict.
  • Mhalla is a widely-followed voice on tech politics — the argument is sharp and contemporary.
  • Big-picture and political: read for the framing of AI/platform power, not for technique.

How they compare

We rate Technopolitique higher (4/5 against 3/5 for Cybercriminalité). For most readers, that means Technopolitique is the primary pick and Cybercriminalité is a useful follow-up.

Both books target intermediate-level readers, so the choice is about topic, not difficulty.

Cybercriminalité and Technopolitique both cover Policy, so reading them in sequence reinforces the same material from different angles.

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