In Defense of Witches, Really?

Abstract: Why and how did Mona Chollet’s In Defense of Witches ( Sorcières. La puissance invaincue des femmes ) arouse such enthusiasm in France and more widely at the international level? The book fills a niche: it is accessible, short and easy to read, eloquent, and above all it responds to and affirms readers’ expectations. It also seems (misleadingly) to provide a historical-scientific justification, desired by modern young women who are looking for information on the “eternal” persecution of women and more particularly of those accused of being witches on an timeless mode in order to create their own syncretism with a personal selection of conceptions, representations and beliefs.