Abstract At their very beginning, the researches on the magnetic confinement fusion had to face up plasma instabilities. Macroscopic plasma instabilities were the first ones to be identified and they were found to be very harmful for plasma confinement. During the first years after the Atoms for Peace Meeting in 1958, the main goals of experimental and theoretical researches dealt with their suppression or control. During this period, two special types of instabilities, the localized interchange modes and the tearing modes, were discovered. French physicists and the Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des seances de l'Academie des sciences have been steadily involved into this field. It generated a huge amount of works and, in spite of these efforts, they still remain an active research topic and maybe a matter of concern. However, the achieved progress allows most physicists to believe that these instabilities are not any more a real hurdle on the way to magnetic confinement fusion.