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This introduction revisits the concept of intersectionality and its history, particularly in the United States, in order to address its controversial reception in France. This reception must be contextualized with regard to the use of the concept of race, which is also a matter of controversial debate. While stressing that establishing linkages between various social relationships is not new to French historiography, this introduction describes how the concept of intersectionality can shed new light on social, colonial and migratory history, and even how it can help rethink biopolitics in a colonial or post-colonial context. Finally, it demonstrates that the intersectional approach in history is a product of the specific French political and social context of the early 21st century, wherein these questions have been disseminated throughout the public space thanks to new feminist dynamics.