Contemporary France: A Democratic Education

Contemporary France

Europe Today Series Editor: Ronald Tiersky The Politics of Economic and Monetary Union:Integration and Idiosyncracy By Erik Jones NATO and the Future of European Security By Sean Kay

Contemporary France:A Democratic Education By Anne Sa’adah Euro-skepticism:A Reader Edited by Ronald Tiersky Europe Today:National Politics, European Integration, and European Security Edited by Ronald Tiersky Uniting Europe: European Integration and the Post-Cold War World By John Van Oudenaren

Contemporary France A Democratic Education

Anne Sa’adah

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, I N C . Lanham Boulder New York Oxford

ROWMAN & LI'ITLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Published in the United States of America by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowmanlittlefield.com P.O. Box 317, Oxford OX2 9RU, United Kingdom Copyright 0 2003 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-PublicationData Sa'adah, Anne. Contemporary France : a democratic education / Anne Sa'adah. p. cm.-(Europe today) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN (174250197-3(cloth : ak.paper)-ISBN G7425-01981 (paper : allc.paper) 1. France-Politics and government. I. Title. 11. Series: Europe today (Rowman and Littlefield, Inc.). JN2451 .S22 2003 320.944-dc2 1

2002012257

Printed in the United States of America

@ Y-M The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO 239.481992.

This book is for three people:

Marie-Cede and Pierre Heurtin and

Stanley Hoffmann Their enduring friendship has made studying France a personally as well as an intellectually rewarding activity

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Contents

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Acknowledgments Introduction: A Democratic Education

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PART I: THE HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL FOUNDATIONS OF CONTEMPORARY FRENCH POLITICS “LeMiracle de la France”:French Nationalism Nationalism and the Left: From the Revolution to the Commune Nationalism and the Right: From the Boulanger Affair to the Great War World War I

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17 28

33

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World War I1 and Its Legacies France, 1939-1945 “Vichy,a Past That Stayed” The Legacies

45 55 69

Decolonization and Its Sequels The Algerian War and Republican Institutions The Empire Strikes Back: The Algerian War and French Identity Epilogue

77 79 89 93

Putting Sovereignty First: The Gaullist Vision The Gaullist Conception of State Sovereignty

vii

99 100

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CONTENTS

Charting Policy The Gaullist Vision: An Assessment

102 106

PART II: THE INSTITUTIONS, PROCESSES, AND PRACTICES OF FRENCH POLITICS

5 Political Representation in the Fifth Republic: Back to the Marais? The Reconstruction of the Left, 1958- 1986 The Failed Recomposition of the Right, 1958-1981 Institutional and Partisan Confusion, 1984 to the Present Conclusion

6 State-Society Relations in France: An Introduction Politics and Markets: The Dirigiste State Selective Capitalism: Social Structure Capitalism and the Republican Compromise: Ideological Ambiguities Postwar Economic Growth and Social Change Conclusion

111 113 125 142 154

161 162 170 173 177 190

PART 111: CONTEMPORARY DILEMMAS 7 Reinventing France: Social Change, Identity, and Citizenship Winners and Losers in the New France The New Politics of Identity Conclusion

199 20 1 215 245

8 Getting Past Sovereignty:An Impossible Task? Rethinking the Means of French Foreign Policy: Sovereignty, Supranationality,and Multilateralism Testing the Possibilities of French Power: The Yugoslav Disaster Testing the Possibilities of SupranationalAction: Social Protection Conclusion

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Appendix A A Chronology of French Regimes

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Appendix B The Fifth Republic: The Presidents and Their Prime Ministers

315

Appendix C Electoral Laws: An Introduction

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Appendix D Who’s Who in French Politics

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Index

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About the Author

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264 272 293 299

Acknowledgments

Some books are prompted by a specific event and reflect a concentrated period of research; other books are the product of a long-term engagement with a topic. This book is of the latter sort. It would therefore be quite impossible for me to list the intellectual debts I incurred while preparing to write it. One way around this problem is to cite an institution. For three decades, my thinking about France has benefited from the intellectual riches and camaraderie of what is now the beautifully appointed Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University. When I first knew it, “WestEuropean Studies”was a converted house on a quiet side street; the windows were the kind that opened (there were no screens) and in the absence of an intercom system, names were often shouted up the staircase. Through its various metamorphoses, the Center has sponsored lectures, seminars, and conferences; it fosters intellectual exchange across disciplinary borders; it constantly brings European and American scholars together and tempers academic discussions with contributions by public figures. To name participants in its programs would be to call the roster of people who study contemporary European politics, and rather than risk the omission of someone still living, I shall name only the dead, whose voices and insights I missed as I thought about the issues discussed in this book: Henry Ehrmann,Nicholas Wahl, Laurence Wylie, and especially Georges Lavau. Even after his formal retirement, Stanley Hoffmann remained the intellectual force of the Center, but my debt is more direct. Stanley was my advisor through college and graduate school. He shared his books (only Pleiade editions were off limits), his puzzles, and his friends. His yearlong course on France, which I took as a freshman and “sectioned”as a graduate student (leadix

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ing a discussion section of undergraduates), remains for me a model of the kind of teaching that makes the university a key social institution in a democratic society;his constant efforts to inform public debate-during the Vietnam War, or with regard to Alliance politics, or after September 11,2001-are likewise a model of responsible engagement by an intellectual in public life. This book is dedicated to him. This book is also dedicated to Marie-Cecileand Pierre Heurtin. That I singled Stanley’scourse out from the endless offeringsof the Harvard course catalogue was in large part their doing. Pierre was my modern French history teacher in the Breton town of Rennes, where I spent the 1971-1972 academic year as a student in a newly coed program run by Phillips Andover and Exeter Academies (the schools themselves were still single-sex), School Year Abroad. In keeping with French understandings of where the “modern”period begins, Pierre’s course began with Franqois Ier. Somehow, before the year ended, we also managed to discuss the Algerian War. Unable to articulate an argument about the war to my own satisfaction in what was still a foreign language, I wrote an essay; Pierre responded by inviting me home to dinner. When I arrived, he was tied up at a political meeting; Marie-Cecile,whose day job was teaching French literature at the university, was attending simultaneouslyto a mouth-watering white sauce on the stove and a constantly ringing telephone in a different room. For a few moments, I stood somewhat awkwardly in the long, tallceilinged corridor of their seventeenthcentury apartment and gazed at the books lining the walls. Then two young boys appeared. I would have wrecked the white sauce, but I did know how to read to little boys, even ones who giggled at the way I pronounced my r’s. Pierre eventuallymaterializedand the white sauce was incomparable;best of all, the dinner was but the first of countless meals at which I would be made to feel like family, and no matter where we were or whatever else we were doing, history and politics always figured in our conversations. Over the years, the Heurtins took me everywhere in Anjou, Normandy, and Brittany; Marie-Cecilerecited poetry while driving at hair-raisingspeeds.The marriage of one of the Heurtin boys occasionedmy husband’s first adult trip to France; shortly after I finished this manuscript in the summer of 2002, their sister, a strong-willedtwoyear-old at our first encounter, delighted us with a visit. I cannot imagine what life would have been like without their friendship, except to say that it would have been infinitely poorer. While writing this book, I was also working on a broader project on changing conceptionsof empowerment in contemporarydemocratic settings.The latter undertaking was funded, and since it contributed to my thinking on this project (most obviously perhaps in the discussion of group politics in chapter 7), I would like to acknowledge support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (Fellowship for College Teachers and Independent Scholars Pro gram,Grant Number FE36269-00). The NEH Fellowship, supplemented by

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salary support from Dartmouth College, allowed me to take a yearlong research leave in 2000-2001. During this time, I also received limited research support from the Rockefeller Center for the Social Sciences at Dartmouth College. To the broader public, the time that academics get “off”is often hard to understand, but these periods of uninterrupted research and writing-summers, sab baticals, grant periods-are when we refuel and retool ourselves intellectually. The best reason for pegging professional promotion to research performance is that in the absence of a lively research agenda, excellence in the classroom cannot be sustained. I would like to thank Ronald Tiersky for inviting me to write this book he gave me the opportunity to do what for years I had secretly wanted to do. Ron, Stanley Hoffmann,and especially Jonah Levy all provided helpful comments on all or parts of this manuscript. Susan McEachern was everything an editor should be; I am deeply grateful to her for her tact and warmth and for her substantive and stylistic suggestions. My husband, William L. Baldwin, read and commented on the manuscript; anyone who has ever lived with someone writing a book will understand that this was the least of his contributions to this book’s completion. For any errors of fact or judgment that may remain in the pages that follow, I am of course alone responsible. It is a common misconception that computers have made the physical process of producing books effortless;Jehanne Schweitzerknows better, and I thank her for dealing with the many nettlesome problems that arose. Finally, Kathleen Donald and Darsie Riccio in the offices of the Department of Government at Dartmouth College, Barbara Mellert at Social Science Computing, and Patricia Carter at the Interlibrary Loan Office of Baker/BenyLibrary always acted as if they found my needs as urgent as I did.

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Introduction: A Democratic Education

The French tend to think of Americans as illiterate with regard to history and superficial in their understanding of politics. French history and politics encourage different attitudes (and produce different shortcomings). French history cannot be neatly packaged: there are too many regimes, too many political parties, too many instancesof things not being quite what they seem. In a stairwell packed with students changing classes, I once vented my own frustration. Thinking back over the lecture I had just given, I muttered “SomedayI will figure out how to simplrfy French politics.” “No, you won’t,’’ a student’svoice countered, “it’smuch too complicated.”Defying the French stereotype of Americans, he did not follow up with: “And may I drop your course?”Why, I wondered, was he interested?Why should any twenty-yearold care about French politics these days-unless she happens to be French? And even if a person calls Toulouse home, does it really matter what kind of school system the Third Republic established, or who was shot during the Liberation in 1944-1945 and who was not? French politics is complicated because in France, for over two centuries, potential political settlements-broad agreements about the identity of legitimate political actors, the shape of public institutions, and the parameters of public policy-have been subject to internal contestation and external dis ruption. Coups, revolutions, and wars punctuate modern French history. The rules of the political game have been discarded so often that a well-knownjoke describes constitutional documents as periodical literature. Across the Channel, the British for the most part avoided revolution and emerged victorious from war. The British achieved closure on most of their disputes. The French did not, and so for them the past, dense with colliding ideas, individuals, and 1

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groups, remains present. It shapes how people understand themselves, articulate their aspirations, and assess the possibilities of political life. It provides the key to the codes in which current conflicts are framed and fought. But why should anyone outside the Hexagon (as France is sometimes called) care about these conflicts?After all, France is now only a medium-sizedpower; events on its streets or in its corridors of power no longer change the lives of people on other continents. If an American student feels compelled to study some European country (perhaps because of an interest in the European Union or out of curiosity about the origins of American political institutions), why should he not cut costs and study British politics?At least in the United Kingdom, the codes are written in English (though they are still codes: “we really have everythmg in common with America nowadays,”the AngleIrish writer Oscar Wilde quipped in 1887, “except,of course, language”).lIf conflict and instability are the draw, why waste time on a country and a continent whose most dramatic conflicts lie in the past? Signs urge subway passengers in Paris to surrender their seats to wounded veterans, but the instructions are a throwback to World War I, now nearly a century distant. Even World War I1 is increasingly remote: only old men and women remember the springwhen the German Sitzkrieg turned into a Blitzkrieg, or the terrible years that followed. Closer to us in time, paratroopers were prepared to jump on Paris as part of a failed military insurrection in 1961; seven years later, student and worker strikes shut France down for nearly a month, and the president of the Republic boarded his helicopter and briefly vanished. But these events, too, belong to another generation. Why not focus on where the action is today: on the unending strife in the Middle East, for example, or on the civil wars ravaging Africa, or on the tense confrontation between India and Pakistan?With such tragedies to command our attention, why should we bother with the everyday problems of a medium-sized,advanced industrial democracy? Mountains are climbed because they challenge the ability of human beings to get to the top. Subjects worth studying raise questions that challenge our ability to get, so to speak, to the bottom. Comparative politics suggests puzzles that focus on political legitimacy (presumptions regarding the proper organization and use of public power) or political economy (the relationship between politics and markets) or both. Other fields have other puzzles. A consciously formulated puzzle is far more likely to produce a coherent academic program than are the formal requirements of any degree program. Puzzles also steer social conversations away from the trivial. Suggest to your dinner partner that you are interested in how different communities define and manage diversity,and you will not have to discuss the weather (although you may later wish you had). Puzzles establish intellectual contact among people ostensibly drawn to quite different topics: the management of diversity, for example, is the common concern of people interested in the civil rights movement in the United States, the history of the Reformation, colonialism,

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the evolution of the European Union, the development and demise of apartheid in South Africa, or the “fanghhou”approach to dissent adopted by China’s post-Mao leadership. Puzzle-oriented people tend to be trespassers: they cross boundaries between political science, economics, history, anthropology, religion, sociology, psychology, and literature. Academic disciplines are useful because they offer us precisely what their name implies: discipline, standards, rules of evidence, and argument. Without them, we are too likely to assert, as the French say, “n’importequoi” (anything and its opposite). Most puzzles worth puzzling about, however, span a variety of disciplines. Puzzling is the characteristic activity of an educated mind, and this book addresses readers who are open to puzzles either about politics or about French society and culture. It simply is not possible, I hope to show, to be interested in politics-how a community is defined and how power gets created, distrib uted, argued about, and used within it-and indifferent to the French experience, nor is it satisfyingto be captivated by Flaubert or Camus or worried about the future of French cinema and remain ignorant of French politics. In times of change and uncertainty, puzzling should be cultivated as an activity of choice. We do not know much about what our collective or personal life will be like thirty or fifty years from now. How will people go to work? How will we get around? What will political borders mean? What options will be available to us as we start families, look after our health, and experience old age and death? What forms will religious life take? What dangers will seem most urgent to us, and how will we seek to protect ourselves? Looking back, will a subsequent generation see our age as one of decline or one of renewal-of democracy, of the nation-state,of capitalism?In difficult times, puzzling is a prudent strategy. Regardless of the times, it is an important activity: it makes us better and more interesting company for ourselves and for others. Education is not a politically neutral process. The degree to which we experience change as threatening or exciting depends in part on how much leverage we feel we have over the process of change. The Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin once famously dismissed the power of the Catholic Church by asking how many regiments the Pope had. But power comes in many forms, and in a world characterized by uncertainty and change, knowledge, understanding, and self-understandingare among the most important sources of power. Puzzling, which invites both the transfer of a body of knowledge and the cultivation of creative, critical, and expressive skills and habits of mind, is more than a program of intellectual enrichment. It is a process of empowermentremote though that notion may seem to a harried student strugglmg to finish an assignment. Education amplifies the voices and multiplies the options of those who embrace its demands,especially if they are fortunate enough to live in a community where persuasion is more relevant to the process of power distribution than are force and fraud.

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From the perspective of a puzzler, the complexity of French politics offers a treasure trove of material. In their seemingly endless search for a political settlement, the French have posed and reposed fundamental questions about state sovereignty, legitimate authority, and the management of cultural diversity. They have, for example, endured foreign occupations, more than once anchored an empire and then lost it, and, their greatness fading, sought to define an independent path between the two superpowersthat faced off during the Cold War. They made “liberty,equality, fraternity”the slogan of their most memorable revolution and of democrats everywhere-but they themselves promptly (if briefly) succumbed to a terrorist regime and repeatedly reverted to dictatorship. They invented the nation-state and maintained a powerful, centralized state throughout their many regime changes; now they are simultaneously embarked on a grand experiment in supranational coop eration and tentatively building decentralized institutions. They brandished their culture as a missionary tool abroad and used it as a melting pot at home, but they must now accommodate large and increasingly assertive minority communities. As we all navigate our way through the uncertainties of globalization and interdependence,we have much to learn from the varied experiences and experiments of the French. French politics is as rich at the conceptual level as it is at the experiential level. The changes taking place around us-in science and technology, in interpersonal relations, in religious practice, in politics-challenge established ways of thinking about both power and the individual. Liberalism put the individual at the center of the moral universe and viewed individuals as morally and materially creative beings. It sought to empower the individual by limiting the power of the state. But the liberal project (of limiting state power) quickly became wedded to the democratic project (of expanding participation in public deliberation and decision making). Empowering the individual meant more than leaving him alone to make his own way in the newly privatized arena of religious and economic choice; it also meant giving him (and eventuallyher) a voice and a vote in the public arena. Isaiah Berlin called the first kind of empowerment negative freedom and the second kind positive freedom.*The combination of the two in democratic polities generated an ambivalent view of power. To people who were materially interested in or ideologically committed to expanding the scope of private decision making, public power was suspect and political organizations (parties, for example) were at best a necessary inconvenience, useful for purposes of political selfdefense. To people who looked to public power to redress the inequities produced by private decision making or to enforce certain kinds of behavior, or both, public power was a clear and necessary instrument of justice, and parties were important because they defined demands and organized support for ambitious public projects. Liberaldemocraticpolitical settlements-for example, the postwar welfare state-represented an always shifting combination of these two positions. For

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much of the postwar period, we associated the distrust of public power with political conservatism and the mobilization of public power in the service of justice with the political left.3This made sense as long as domestic politics was in large part about changing the extent and impact of economic inequalities, that is, about the relationship between politics and markets. It made less sense as politics became centered on issues of recognition and as the marginalized and persecuted (women, gays, racial and religious minorities, survivors of his torical injustices) partially supplanted the economically disadvantaged as the most vocal claimants on the public conscience. The marginalized typically voted with the political left, but they did not always share the old left’s confident view of power as an instrument of justice. They tended to define themselves as victims-as objectsof other people’s actions rather than as producers of their own lives-and were correspondingly suspicious of and pessimistic about power. Increasingly, they spoke in terms of legal rights, rather than in terms of competing political projects. Rights are intended to decrease the individual’s exposure to the vagaries of political struggle. Collective projects, in contrast, increase the exposure of participants to the uncertainties of conflict and power. It is perhaps no accident that a French philosopher, Michel Foucault (1926-1984),played a central role in shaping the contemporary reconsideration of power and the individual.4 But long before and well after Foucault, French politics reflected and encouraged a fundamental ambivalence about power and about the relationship between the individual and power. The French follow leaders but are reluctant to join parties; they engage in revolutionary activity and street protests, but resist orderly change. For over two hundred years, the French have tried to secure stable, legitimate mechanisms of political representation, and success has eluded them. A student seeking to learn about British politics would be told almost immediately that for most of its modern history, British political life has been organized by the competition between two political parties (despite the presence of other parties), and that in the postwar period, the Labour and the Conservativeparties dominated the political scene. This is a crucial piece of information about British politics. N o similar statement can be made about French politics-and many puzzles have their roots in this fact. Parties of all political stripes came and went. Absent strong and enduring parties, two leaders left their footprints all over several decades of French politics. Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) scorned parties and never joined one;, the parties that supported him in power or claimed to continue his work after he left have changed their names too many times to make any name worth remembering, and de Gaulle’sinfluence and support transcended the traditional boundaries of left and right. By profes sion a career army officer, de Gaulle led the Free French during World War 11, presided over the country’sdestiny during the transitional period after the Liberation (1944-1946), and returned to power in 1958, creating the Fifth

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Republic.The second leader, FranqoisMitterrand (1916- 1996),began his political life on the right, and no one is quite sure where, upon his death in 1996, he ended it. In between, he spearheaded the reconstruction of the Socialist Party and attained power through the left’s landmark electoral victories of 1981. But the Socialist Party imploded during Mitterrand’sfinal years as president of the Republic,in part because of how he chose to pursue and use power. France is, as de Gaulle put it, an old country, “worndown by history, bruised by wars and revolutions, going back and forth endlessly from grandeur to decline, but restored from century to century by the genius of renewal.”6It is like the complicated but distinguished older person among one’s parents’ acquaintances,someone in whom one senses a depth of experience and a selfawareness absent in other people, someone against whom one might wish to examine one’sown ambitions and assess one’sacts, someone about whose life it might rightly be said, “Nevera dull moment!” As a country, France has been places and done things, both good and bad; its story is inherently interesting. If you do not yet have a puzzle, you may well find one. France shaped my puzzles, and while I have written this book to accommodate a range of puzzles, my interests are all over it. I did not choose to study France. French was a required subject in the New England schools I attended from sixth grade on, and the more French I learned in school, the more Arabic I heard at home, as the latter language replaced the former as the medium of privileged communication between my parents. Then, in my midteens, I announced that I wished to spend a year in Lebanon, the country from which my parents had emigrated in the 1940s. It was 1970; Lebanon’s precarious political settlement was about to come unstuck. I had grown up on history and politics, and there was plenty of action at home to fuel my interests. American involvement in Vietnam was the focus of lively controversy, and urban areas (and the national psyche) bore the scars of the race riots of preceding years. Still, I thought there was more action in Lebanon. My parents agreed, and said no (in English, presumably since at the time I did not seem to be understanding what they were saying in any language). They proposed France as an alternative destination. I went. My puzzles, it now seems to me, went along too, even though I did not yet consciously realize that they were my puzzles, much less that they would be my lifelong companions. They focused on questions of legitimacy and the dynamics of political change, and roughly stated, they included the following: How and why do some political communities (e.g., the United Kingdom) devise durable political settlements, while others (e.g., Lebanon, France) do not?When and why do durable democratic settlements, based on representative institutions, limited government, and individual rights, emerge? Under what circumstances will a politics of progressive reform succeed, sidestepping both paralysis and extremist alternatives?Within a given political community, when and why do established patterns of collective action change?

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These are the puzzles that most directly inform this book. The book is divided into three parts. The first part seeks to introduce the reader to key elements of French political culture, in part through a direct analysis of important beliefs and in part through an exploration of formative historical events. The second part of the book analyzes the key institutions and practices of contemporary French politics. The final part presents the dilemmas generated by the interaction between globalization and French political culture, institutions, and practices; for the foreseeable future, these dilemmas will be the stuff of French politics. In thematic as well as spatial terms, the chapters of part 11-on political r e p resentation (chapter 5 ) and state-society relations (chapter 6)-are central. Representative politics has never worked very well in France. Whereas in England and America, representation was the key revolutionary demand of early liberals (“no taxation without representation!”),in France, the doctrine of p o p ular sovereignty was the revolutionaries’answer to the absolutist claims of the monarchy, and it became the pivotal concept of republican politics. Popular sovereignty implied a unified people; in contrast, the AngleAmerican emphasis on representation encouragedan acceptance of ongoing differences of opinion and interest and so provided a better opening for the development of political parties. In France, the persistent weakness of mechanisms of political representation contributed to chronic institutional instability and constant protest; it also shaped specific patterns of policy, for example, how the state intervened in the economy. Embedded in broader patterns of state-society relations, the unpersuasive character of representative processes both reflected and reproduced modes of collective action that did not promote adaptive, incremental change. The Fifth Republic (1958 on) tried to rescript representative politics, in large measure by implementing significant institutional changes. Chapters 5 and 6 present an analysis of that effort, its context, and its consequences. They also establish a baseline against which the developments of the last quartercentury can be evaluated. Democratic politics is everywhere in a period of transition: in part because of globalization,the actors, institutions,and policy parameters characteristicof democratic politics are changing. We are witnessing both a crisis of representation and a crisis of the (nation-)state.These challenges transcend borders, but each country also faces unique dilemmas and opportunities.In the 1990s, the French amended their constitution and passed new laws in an effort to legislate equal representation (“parity”)for men and women in elected bodies; gender inequalities are not specific to France, but no other country addressed them by legislating parity. The French also engaged in passionate and prolonged debates about European integration and about French policy in the wars that shattered the former Yugoslavia. These (and other) debates (considered in chapters 7 and 8) have a his-

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tory-not just a set of preparatory events, but a cultural foundation. Part I (chapters 1 through 4) unearths that cultural foundation. In essence, it offers an account of how the French define themselves politically. How has two meanings here: a substantive one (what elements seem central to French political identity?)and a procedural one (through what sorts of processes has French political identity been shaped, challenged, and perhaps changed?). Conflicts both define and reveal identities, and so a country’s relations with the world beyond its borders often have a constitutive effect on domestic political identities. In fact, intra-French conflicts-under the German Occupation (1940-1944), for example, or during the Algerian War (1954-1962), or over European integration-have often involved different readings of France’s relations with the outside world. That influence was frequently reciprocal: for most of its modern history, France was an imperial power and major player in the international system. The first pages of its newspaper of record, Le Monde, are still devoted to international developments and foreign policy. We therefore begin (chapter 1)with an examination of French nationalism, which is not and never has been the exclusive property of the extreme right. Why is nationalism such an important force in French politics?What forms does it take?How does it shape the options open to institution builders and policy makers? Different interpretations of nationalism and different assessments of its importance as a political project played themselves out in three great dramas: the French defeat of 1940 and its aftermath (chapter 2), the bloody wars of decolonization that were fought in Indochina and Algeria (chapter 3), and the Gaullist effort to elaborate a foreign policy independent of the two superpowers during the Cold War (chapter 4). These episodes are intrinsically interesting: why did French defenses collapse so swiftly in 1940?Why were so many people willing to support the antirepublicanregime led by Marshal Petain?Why did postwar France, unlike Britain, become embroiled in violent, costly, and ultimately unsuccessful efforts to retain its imperial holdings?Why did de Gaulle believe that French political unity depended on the country’s ability to project its power independently in the international arena? But the increasinglydistant sets of events analyzed in these chapters are also of immediate contemporary relevance, and it is primarily to uncover that connection that we shall consider them. Why is it that a half-century after World War 11, wartime commitments remained front page news, or that forty years after Algeria won independence,the use of torture by the French Army during the Algerian War provoked a national debate?Does sovereignty matter in the ways that de Gaulle argued it did (chapter 4)-and if so, what kind of Europe should France promote and what attitude should it maintain toward American power (chapter S)? Should we see in the difficultiesFrance has had accommo dating a population of North African origin the undigested resentments of a

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defeated imperial power (chapter 3) or a clash of cultures in a country ill prepared to value cultural diversity?Is citizenship the answer (chapter 7)? The final two chapters of the book (part 110 analyze how postwar patterns of change, redirected after the 1970s by the economic crisis and globalization, fueled ongoing controversies about citizenship (chapter 7) and sovereignty (chapter 8). Globalization here refers to “theprocesses through which sovereign national states are crisscrossed and undermined by transnational actors with varying prospects of power, orientations, identities and networks.”’ These processes have produced new patterns of social stratification and have promoted new forms of group politics; on both counts, they have forced a fundamental rethinking of republican principles. At the same time, debates about borders and power-raised in particular by developments within the European Union and by the disintegration of Yugoslavia-have suggested new ways of organizing political life and of being “French.” Clearly, this is a book about France. But it is also a study of democracy and political change during a period of transition, and it is my hope that it will engage a broader audience whose primary puzzles center on freedom, not France. If at the end of the book, the reader is more committed to a puzzle, more conscious of the interlocking character of the dilemmas we face as democratic citizens, and more comfortable with the analytical frameworks and empirical information that the academy can make available, the book will have served its purpose. In this kind of exercise, the real final exam does not happen at the end of the semester or in a classroom, but in all the everyday settings in which we try to adapt democratic institutions and practices to meet the challenges of a changing world. In those settings as in others, we are all simultaneously learners and teachers.

RECOMMENDED READING Note: A list of recommended readings appears at the end of each chapter of this book. The lists are of course meant to be indicative, not exhaustive. They are also intended to be used cumulatively,so a book listed once will not appear on a subsequent list, no matter how many times its subject matter intersects with the text. Readers who wish to set French history and politics within a broader context may wish to consult Eric Hobsbawm’sfour-volumeset: The Age of Revolution, 1789-1848. New York: Vintage Books, 1962,1996. The Age of Capital, 1848-1875. New York: Vintage Books, 1975, 1996. The Age of Empire, 1875-1914. New York: Vintage Books, 1987, 1989. m e Age of Extremes, 1914-1991. New York: Vintage Books, 1994,1996.

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Excellent general accounts of modern French history include: Furet, Franqois. Revolutionary France, 1770-1880. Trans. Antonia Nevill. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995. Zeldin, Theodore. France 1848-1945, vol. 1, Ambition, Love and Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973. Agulhon, Maurice. The French Republic, 1879-1992. Trans. Antonia Nevill. Oxford: Blackwell, 1333. Cobban, Alfred. A History of Modern France. 3 vols. London: Penguin, 1974.

Key interpretive works, all discussed in chapter 5 , include: Tocqueville, Alexis de. The Old Regime and the French Revolution. Trans. Stuart Gilbert. Garden City, NY:Doubleday Anchor Books, 1955. Crozier, Michel. The Bureaucratic Phenomenon. Trans. Michel Crozier. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964. Hoffmann, Stanley. Decline or Renewal? France since the 1930s. New York: Viking, 1974. Hoffmann, Stanley, et al. In Search of France: The Economy, Socieg, and Political System in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge, M A : Harvard University Press, 1963.

Students interested in particular periods will fmd the volumes published by Le Seuil in its Nouvelle Histoire de la France contemporaine series especially useful. Most are available in Engltsh translation, as indicated below: Vovelle, Michel. The Fall of the French Monarcby, 1787-1 792. Trans. Susan Burke. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Bouloiseau, Marc. La Rdpubliquejacobine, 10 aoi2t 1792-9 themzidor an II. Paris: Le Seuil, 1972. Woronoff, Denis. The ThermidoreanRegime and the Directoly, 1794-1 799. Trans. Julian Jackson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Bergeron, Louis. France under Napoleon.Trans. R. R. Palmer. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981. Dufraisse, Roger, and Michel Derautret. La France napoldonienne,aspects ext&eurs, 1799-1815. Rev. ed. Paris: Le Seuil, 1999. Jardin, Andre, and Andre-Jean Tudesq. Restoration and Reaction, 1815-1848. Trans. Elborg Forster. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Agulhon, Maurice. The Republican Experiment, 1848-1852. Trans.Janet Lloyd. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Plessis, Main. The Rise and Fall of the Second Empire, 1852-1871. Trans. Jonathan Mandelbaum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Mayeur, Jean-Marie, and Madeleine ReErioux. The Third Republicfrom Its Origins to the Great War, 1871-1914. Trans. J.R. Foster. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1984.

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Becker, Jean-Jacques,and Serge Berstein. Victoire et frustrations, 1914-1929.Paris: Le Seuil, 1990. Borne, Dominique, and Henri Dubief. La crise des annkes 30,1929-1938.Paris: Le Seuil, 1989. Azema,Jean-Pierre.From Munich to the Liberation, 1938-1944.Trans.Janet Lloyd. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Rioux, Jean-Pierre. The Fourth Republic, 1944-1958.Trans. Godfrey Rogers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Berstein, Serge, and Jean-Pierre Rioux. The Pompidou Years, 138-1974.Trans. Christopher Woodall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Becker, Jean-Jacques, with Pascal Ory. Crises et alternances, 1974-1995.Paris: Le Seuil, 1998.

For fine introductions to contemporary French politics, see: Chagnollaud, Dominique,and Jean-LouisQuermonne.La Ve Rkpublique. 4 vols. Rev. ed. Paris: Flammarion, Fayard, 2000. Goguel, Frangois, and Alfred Grosser. Lapolitique en France. Rev. ed. Paris: Armand Colin, 1985.

Or, in English Ehrmann, Henry, and Martin Schain. Politics in France. 5th ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. Safran, William. The French Polity. 6th ed. New York Longman, 2002. Tiersky, Ronald. France in the New Europe: Changing Yet Steadfast. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1994.

Useful websites include: www.gksoft.co~go~/e/govt/en/fr.html. This is the website of “Governmentson the Web: France.” It provides links to national and local governmental and political institutions, and to other sources that provide political information.Some institutions offer information in Enghsh. www.cevip0f.ms.h-paris.fr. This is the website of the Centre d t u d e s de la vie politique franGaaise, a research unit at the Institut d&t&s politiques in Paris. CEVIPOF posts research papers (some in English), useful political information, and links with other relevant sites. www.lemonde.fr.This is the website of France’s newspaper of record, Le Monde. The same form can be used to connect to other periodicals with websites: thus the website for Le Figaro is www.lefigaro.fr, for Le Nouvel Obsmateur, it is www.nouvelobs.fr;and so on. www.cfdt.fr.This is the website for the Conf&i&ation franpzaise dhocratfquedu travail, or CFDT, an important trade union. The same form can be used to connect to other important organizations: thus the website for the Mouvement des entreprises de France, or MEDEF, the main employers’association, is www.medef.fr.

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NOTES 1. Oscar Wilde, “TheCanterville Ghost:A Hylo-Idealistic Romance,”in Wilde, The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (London: Collins, 1948), p. 194. Wilde’s point has been repeatedly reformulated and is often attributed or misattributed to others, including notably George Bernard Shaw and Winston Churchill. 2. See Isaiah Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” in Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), especially pp. 122-134. 3. In European parlance, conservatives are often called liberals, because they stood by the old liberal distrust of state power and were critical of the welfare state. This is confusing to American observers, since in the United States, li6eral is a term used to describe people on the left. In postwar Europe, broadly speaking, the right has been “liberal”and the left has been “socialist”or “socialdemocratic.” 4. See Michel Foucault, Histoire de la folie a rage classique (Paris: Gallimard, 1972), Les mots et les choses: une archt?ologie des sciences humaines (Paris: Gallimard, 1966), L’arcMologie du savoir (Paris: Gallimard, 1%9), Suweiller et punir (Paris: GalLimard, 1975),Histoire de la sexualitt?,3 vols. (Paris: Gallimard, 1976-1984). See also Gilles Deleuze, Foucault (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1986) and Didier Eribon, Michel Foucault, 1926-1984,2nd ed. (Paris: Flammarion, 1991).All of these books are available in English translation. 5. In 1947, de Gaulle did create a political movement, the Rassemblement du peuple fraqais. As its name suggests, it was intended as an antiparty: whereas parties divide, it would bring together; whereas parties appeal to specific groups, its constituency was le peuple. We will have ample opportunity to consider de Gaulle’s politics in later chapters. Plon, 6. Charles de Gaulle, Mkmoires deguerve, vol. 3, Le salut, 1944-1946(€%is: 1959),p. 290. All translations are mine unless otherwise indicated. Footnotes will therefore cite the French edition of a work; where appropriate, references to English translations will be provided in the “RecommendedReading” sections. 7. Ulrich Beck, What Is Glo6alization?trans. Patrick Camiller (Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press, ZOOO), p. 11.

PART ONE THE HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL FOUNDATIONS OF CONTEMPORARY FRENCH POLITICS

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“LeMiracle de la France”: French Nationalism What is “kmiracle & la France’?’ Charles de Gaulle thought it was national unity, but who are “the French”? French nationalism should provide a response. From the French Revolution of 1789 to the globalization debates of the early-twenty-firstcentury, nationalism has played a key role in French politics. The clues it provides about the political identity of the French are indeed important but complicated. Nationalism has never spoken with a single voice or been definitively appropriated by a single political camp. Its shifting atiliations are tangled up in France’s messy history, and if the primary purpose of this chapter is to introduce nationalism’s various positions and moods, an important secondary purpose is to map out, however summarily,the historical contexts in which nationalism developed: the prerevolutionary Old Regime, the Revolution, the constitutional monarchies, empires, and republics of the nineteenth and early-twentiethcenturies. Nationalism itself is an ambiguous term. Most students today would class@ nationalism as an ideology of the political right. Many would probably associate it with “ethnic cleansing,” racism, or military expansionism. In the post-1945 struggles against imperialism, however, nationalist movements often advocated socialism as well as independence from colonial powers, and so were classified on the left. This was true of the Vietminh, against whom the French fought unsuccessfullyto preserve their empire in Indochina (1946-1954). It was also true of the Algerian Front de Zibgration nationale (National Liberation Front, FLN), France’s opponent in the long and bitter war that hastened the demise of the Fourth Republic in metropolitan France and brought about Algerian independence(the war lasted from 1954to 1962; the Fourth Republic ended in 1958). In the 1990s, the political affiliation of nationalism again seemed confused, as politicians at both ends of the political spectrum mobilized nationalist arguments to contest the continuing advance of European integration. 15

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Nationalism is sometimes interpreted to involve the promotion of “national” interests and power at the expense of all other political and moral claims, including, for example,the claims of individualrights (to life, to due process and equal rights, to property). This suggests a natural affinity among nationalism, authoritarianpolitics, and military expansionism.But nationalism may mean more than simplythe chauvinisticglorification of a set of traits allegedlyembedded in a specific national culture, and while it may be martial qualities that are so glorified, it can just as easily be the love of freedom and an attachment to faimess. Some nations may delimit membership in terms of ancestry,that is, of race or ethnicity. Others may hold membership to be defined by a voluntary and rational allegiance to a constitutionalorder. Still others may stress emotional, cultural, and experientialcriteria, as did the French thinker Ernest Renan (1823-1892) when he argued national membership is defined by “the desire to live together, the will to see maintained and valued a heritage received intact.”2 Nationalismsdiffer in content; they also differ in the emotional charge they carry. A selfconfident nationalism, accustomed to success, will likely underwrite forms of political behavior different from those encouraged by a defensive, insecure nationalism, shaped by defeat. At least in France, defensive nationalism has tended to have a destabilizing effect on representative politics and constitutionalregimes. Disappointed nationalism is bad for freedom, whose norms and institutions are more easily sustained when citizens are satisfied with the fit between their view of their nation’s proper stature (what the French call rang) and their perception of their nation’sactual place in the international system. In France, nationalism has been mobilized by different political camps at different times for different purposes, and while it has sometimes brought the French together, it has just as often exacerbated domestic political divisions. This should not be surprising, given the political ambiguities of nationalism itself and the impressive array of political regimes to which France has played host in the two hundred years since the Revolution of 1789: five republics (including the current one), three monarchies (if one counts the constitutional monarchy briefly attempted during the first years of the Revolution), two empires, and the Vichy dictatorship of 1940-1944. Typically, nationalism has been used as an opposition ideology. Republicans have used it against their monarchist opponents, accused of riding back to power “dansles fourgons de l’etranger”(“in the wagon trains of the foreigner”3)after Napoleon’s defeat in 1815. Monarchists have used it against the Republic, a regime allegedly too weak willed to impose the return of the “lostprovinces,”Alsace and Lorraine, seized by Germany in the Franco-PrussianWar of 1870- 1871. Politiciansout of power in times of unemployment have used it, blaming incumbents for s u p posedly selling out to the forces of internationalcapitalism. Elites in office have responded by branding nationalist rumblings provocative and irresponsible; their alarm is indicative of the seriousness they assigned to nationalist concerns.

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The importance of nationalism as an opposition ideology is particularly clear in the record of the nineteenth century. For most of that century, nationalism was associated with the revolutionary rhetoric of popular sovereignty and used most effectively by the left, which was out of power. In the 188Os, however, after the creation of the Third Republic, nationalism became the preferred weapon of the new regime’s right-wing critics. Bonapartism, hostile to liberty but parasitic on the doctrine of popular sovereignty, provided an important bridge between left-wing and right-wingnationalism. Nationalism’s mood also changed, reflecting changes in France’s international position. Expansionist and optimistic at the beginning of the century, nationalism had become defensive and self-absorbedby its end.

NATIONALISM AND THE LEFT: FROM THE REVOLUl’ION TO THE COMMUNE Modern nationalism made its appearance at the end of the eighteenth century, as part of the revolutionary project to turn what had been an absolutist monarchy and a multilingual kingdom into une Rbpublique une et indivisible, a single and indivisible republic. This project soon embroiled France in civil and international war. The wellspring of nationalism was the doctrine of popular sovereignty. Sovereignty specifies the location of final authority. Under an absolute monarchy, the monarch is sovereign:from his decision,there is no (earthly) appeal. Under popular sovereignty, the final arbiter of all decisions is “the people.” Both the sovereignty of an absolute monarch and popular sovereignty presuppose state sovereignty:a state secure from foreign intervention in its domestic affairs and able to command obedience from all groups within its borders. Before the momentous summer of 1789,few people hoped-and still fewer expected-to see a republic based on popular sovereignty replace the Kingdom of France. Between the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century and the French Revolution of the eighteenth century, European state-building patterns had diverged around two sets of possibilities. One set had to do with state sovereignty: would a state emerge at all? The other set had to do with relations between state and society in places where states did emerge: how would the state secure compliance with its orders?In the German lands, religious strife and political rivalries decimated the population and prevented the emergence of a unified state in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In England, insularity facilitated state sovereignty, while power struggles inadvertently promoted the development of representative mechanisms. In the sixteenth century, Henry VIII, politically inconvenienced by the temporal claims of religious authority, broke with the Church of Rome; in the domestic conflicts of the next century, Parliament wrested important concessions from

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the Crown. In the end, the “King-in-Parliament”was held to be sovereign. France took a yet a third path: the unity of the kingdom survived the religious and political turmoil unleashed by the Reformation,but in the same years during which England finally reached a consensus around a constitutional monarchy (in the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688), Louis X N revoked the Edict of Nantes that had granted limited toleration to Protestants and made his court at Versailles the symbol of royal absolutism. In theory at least, the king would brook no rival or parallel powers: as he eloquently put it, “L’Etatc’est moi” (“I am the state”).Sovereignty was embodied in a single will. In 1774,Louis XVI ascended the French throne. The situationhe faced would have challenged the skills of even the most seasoned statesman;at age twenty, Louis x ” s great-great-grandsonwas the age of a college student. The Enlightenment-“man’s emergence from his self-incurredimmaturity,”as the German philosopher Immanuel Kant defined it4-was in full swing. Its thrust was to question the fullrange of assumptions on which authority in state and society rested. John Locke published his Second Treatise of Government in 1689 and his Essay Concerning Human Understanding in 1690. In France, the multivolumed EncycZopddie, whose list of collaborators reads like a who’s who of the French Enlightenment(Diderot,Voltaire, Montesquieu,and Rousseau were among the best known), appeared between 1751 and 1772. Rousseau put, lished 7be Social Contract in 1762. In Britain’s American colonies, some overexcited minds interpreted British efforts to raise revenue as a despotic design on the rights and liberties of all Englishmen.5 In the 1770s, the contest erupted into war. The war produced an unprecedented experiment in representative politics in North America, but in France, it left the monarchy, which had entered the conflict on the American side to take a swing at Britain, with a large debt. The political rigidities of the monarchy combined with changing social,eccl nomic, and cultural conditions to create a volatile situation. France was a center of intellectual ferment, but it was also in many ways a premodern country, characterized by subsistence agriculture, small towns, slow communications, and widespread illiteracy. In this setting, war and bad weather served as midwives at the birth of the French Revolution. Then as now, wars were costly, and because the economy was agricultural, bad weather was to governments then what recession and unemployment are to governments in our own day: bad economic and political news. The monarchy needed money, and given the enlightened spirit of the times, it thought it should ask before taking. In May 1789, representatives of the three orders, or “estates,”of the realm-the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners (the latter comprising the Third Estate)-gathered in Versailles. No such meeting had taken place since 1614; when in need of money (which he usually was), Louis XlV had preferred to take without asking. His descendant did not expect trouble, although weatherinduced crop failures were independently sparking unrest in the countryside.

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The king anticipated that each estate would vote separately, and since he believed that he could count on majority support within the first and second orders, he calculated that he would be able to secure the consent he required. Events, however, quickly took a different turn. On June 17, the delegates of the Third Estate voted to constitute themselves as a national assembly; three weeks later, the assembly accorded itself constituent powers. Now who was sovereign?In the view of the assembly, the king’s need for money was more than matched by the kingdom’s need for a constitution. The new body was dominated by progressive members of the clergy (like Sieyes, author of the famous pamphlet, What Is the Third Estate?) and the nobility (like Lafayette, who had served beside Washington in the American War of Independence) and by distinguished professionals from the Third Estate. These men hoped to establish a constitutional monarchy. A constitutionalmonarchy requires a willing monarch. In 1688,the British had sent an unwilling monarch packing. In the course of a very brief reign, James I1 had demonstrated his inclinations toward “Papism”and absolutism; the political class responded by shipping him off (fittingly enough) to France. In his place, ignoring the normal rules of succession, Parliament had called William and Mary to the throne to consummate a bloodless revolution. In contrast, the French revolutionaries chose to retain Louis XVI on the throne. They kept him there even afterJune 1791, when he openly displayed his hostility to the Revolution by trying to join counterrevolutionaryforces organizing across the border. The revolutionaryleaders’ decision was a fatal misstep in a situation that was already spinning out of control. The Revolution found itself besieged from within by domestic opponents and from without by hostile conservative powers on its borders. Rumors of plots and conspiracieswere especiallycommon after the King’sabortive flight, and they kept everyone on edge. Clarifying loyalties became an increasingly urgent political task. In the winter of 1791-1792, leading revolutionary figures argued that a declaration of war would force dubious characters to show their true colors. On April 20, 1792, France declared war on Austria. Despite occasional interludes, the country would remain at war for over two decades, until the combined powers of conservative Europe finally defeated Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815 and restored the Bourbons to the French throne. The war accelerated the political radicalization of the Revolution. In Sep tember 1792, a newly elected national assembly, known as the Convention, abolished the monarchy. In December, Louis XVI was put on trial, and on January 2 1,1793, he was gulllotined on what would become the Place de la Concorde in Paris; the Convention had found him “guilty of treason against the nation, and of attacks against the general security of the State.”The Revolution was now in the hands of the Jacobins (so named after the hall in which they met).6 Led by Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794), the Jacobins formed a cohesive minority in a fragmented assembly and so dominated the Convention

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and its executive body, the Committee of Public Safety. Popular sovereignty was a key element of their ideology. Under the Old Regime, the monarch had been sovereign. He alone had been the (earthly) source of all political authority and the ultimate arbiter of all political decisions. Now, the Jacobins declared “the people” sovereign. In the elections of 1792, universal male suffrage had been introduced. The Convention could thus claim that it embodied popular sovereignty.Like the monarch it had replaced, it allowed no checks on its powers. In practice, thisgave the Jacobin leadership absolute power, since it controlled the convention. The Jacobins effectively stifled debate within the assembly, purging critics within the revolutionary camp and justifying the use of “revolutionarylegality”against their many opponents. Popular sovereignty, national self-determination, and nationalism were linked doctrines. All soon became identified with the Revolution, but each was ambiguously related to liberty, understood as requiring the organized competition of ideas and interests, the limitation of public power through checks and balances, and the protection of individual rights. Liberty was the ostensible goal of Jacobin policies, but dictatorship and war were the immediate results. Popular sovereignty, national self-determination,and nationalism all undermined the legitimacy of competition by placing a premium on the idea of the nation as a unified whole-“one and indivisible,”as the Republic was declared in September 1792, on the motion, ironically enough, of a revolutionary leader (Georges-Jacques Danton, whose statue stands on the Boulevard Saint-Gennain in Paris, his outstretched arm designating enemies across the border) who would be purged and executed in 1794. Competition and conflict were considered characteristic of the nation’s relations with external actors; they had no place in the domestic life of the nation, where unity of general purpose was somehow supposed to generate consensus on specific decisions. On the battlefield, the “people in arms” defended their republic, showcasing their civic spirit and unity and scorning the mercenary armies typical of monarchical regimes. The citizen-soldiersof the Revolution would carry the Revolution’spromise of “liberty,equality, fraternity”in their rucksacks; theirs, they were told, was a war not of expansion, but of selfdefense and then of liberation. “Ah! l a ira, l a ira, l a ira,” they sang as they faced a Prussian army at Valmy in September 1792. Les aristocrates a la lanterne!

Ah! Fa ira, Fa ira, Fa ira, Les aristocrates on les pendra Le despotisme expirera La liberte triomphera Ah! Fa ira, Fa ira, Fa ira.7

The monarchy, acting on the principle of undivided sovereignty,had in its heyday sought to centralize political power in the king and the royal administration. Rival aristocratic houses, regional parliamentary bodies, and even the

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rich and powerful Catholic Church had been co-opted or coerced into s u b mission. TheJacobins continued the centralizing policies of the monarchy, but these policies were now justified by the doctrine of undivided popular sovereignty. The Revolution’s liberating ambitions, the revolutionaries argued, required a powerful instrument in order to overcome existing obstacles. Decentralization and the toleration of intermediary bodies would have increased the opportunities for resistance at a time when the success of the Revolution still hung in the balance. Instead, the “singleand indivisible”repub lic of citizens would be forged from and by the center: the revolutionaries redrew the map of local jurisdictions so as to disrupt traditional regional identities, revised the calendar (making 1793, when the Republic was declared, Year ,)l imposed French as the national language, and created mechanisms of political participation (including the army) that offered ordinary people the opportunity to see themselves as citizens and Frenchmen. New, supposedly more egalitarian, codes of dress and speech were promoted. The revolutionary tribunals of the Terror sought to repress political and social opposition, and the guillotine became an important symbol of revolutionary activism. In the Vendee, the revolutionary project met armed resistance, and the authorities met violence with violence. The Jacobin effort to monopolize political power, recast social relations, and reshape the hearts and minds of the French put the Revolution on a collision course not just with the Crown and the aristocracy, but with the Catholic Church. In the 1790s, the Church cast its lot with the forces of counterrevolution. The issues involved in the dispute between the Church and the Revolution were complex, but the break was decisive, and it inaugurated one of the most durable lines of cleavage in modern French politics. From the Revolution on, observant Catholics (cutholiquesprutiquants, as opposed to what we would call nominal Catholics) would tend toward conservatism and hos tility to the Republic, while republicans would make anticlericalism and the secularization of public life, or Zuziitk, central elements of their program. The conflict deepened in the 186Os, when Pope Pius M issued blanket condemnations of modern society and values in two crucially important doctrinal statements, Quanta Curu and the Syllabus (1864). The Pope anathematized science,political democracy,the secular state, and industrial society. The affirmation of papal infallibility in 1870 further alarmed French republicans. The republican quarrel with the Church was national, political, and philosophical. In its national aspect, it was about sovereignty: while the Pope asserted the superiority of spiritualover temporal authority,Jules Ferry (1823- 1893), a key member of the republican generation that created the Third Republic and a prime mover behind the Republic’s efforts to secularize primary education, spoke for a long series of French state builders when he retorted: “Theindependence and sovereignty of the state constitute the first principle of our p u b lic law.”8Priests were portrayed as “submissiveagents under the thumb of an

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occult and foreign power, accustomed no longer to thinking of themselves as French citizens.”9Politically,the republicans accused the clergy of embracing the role of a “politicalfaction,”of supporting the Second Empire and maneuvering to restore the monarchy, of giving up their role as “apostlesto become the instruments of power under the most corrupt and unlawful regimes.”*o Philosophically,the republicans stood with science and free agency and again clashed with the Church: The society born in 1789 has as its primary goal to make the political and social system dependent on the idea of the supremacy of reason over grace, on the idea of the superiority of citizenship over slavery. As against the doctrine of the Roman Church, which accustoms the mind to the idea of a mysterious Providence who alone understands the secrets of its favors and its rejections, which teaches that man is nothing but a plaything in the hands of God, the Revolution teaches the sovereignty of reason, the authority and the responsibility of human will, freedom of action, and looks for the cause of suffering and of humanity’s misfortunes in the ignorance or the misdeeds of men.11

Ferry called the secularization of the state “the principal achievement, the great concern, the great passion, and the great gift of the French Revolution,”l2and another republican leader, IKon Gambetta (1838-1882), summarized the republican program of the late-nineteenthcentury when he famously exclaimed, “Le clericalisme?Voila I’ennemi!”l3(“Clericalismis the enemy!”). “Jacobinism”came to denote a set of values and practices basic to French republicanism and increasingly constitutive of French political culture in general. The package included popular sovereignty, centralized government, nationalism, and luzcit6. Luzcitg encouraged the relegation of individual identities founded on anything other than reason to the private sphere; in the public sphere, citizens were expected to emphasize traits and capacities that made them alike. Jacobinism’s most characteristic expression was its insistence on the Rgpublique une et indivisible. The Jacobin dictatorship was overthrown in July 1794 by a coup launched from within the Convention. During the Thermidorian period (1794-1799), what was left of the revolutionary center tried to devise a constitutional settlement, but its efforts were thwarted by radical opposition from both the right and the left. Meanwhile, the country remained at war, and increasingly, political power in Paris came to depend on military support. In 1799, a young Corsican who had made his career as an officer in the armies of the Revolution grabbed power in Paris. Napoleon Bonaparte would have himself crowned as emperor in 1804, and his regime, known as the First Empire, would last until 1815. The First Empire was not a military dictatorship; in fact, military dictatorship is not part of France’sotherwise rich repertoire of regimes. The Emperor owed his fame to his military prowess, and his regime, continually at war, would not

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survive military defeat. But Napoleon did not staff his government with military officers. Instead, he modernized and professionalized the state bureaucracy, continuing the centralizing strategy initiated by the monarchy and developed by the governments of the revolutionary period. The prefect, a key figure in French political life until the decentralization reforms of the Socialist government officially did away with the office in 1982,was a Napoleonic invention.14 France’slegal code, known as the Napoleonic Code, was adopted in 1804.Convinced that a modern state required competent administratorssocialized to loyalty, Napoleon revamped the country’s system of secondary education; the &des would provide a pool of qualified candidates.We shall revisit the limits of the Napoleonic state in chapter 6, but its strengths were signrficant. Nationalismplayed a key legitimating role during the First Empire. Napoleon maintained the revolutionary commitment to popular sovereignty, but he explicitly detached it from representative politics. Freedom, he argued, had brought instability and disorder. He derived his right to rule from the charis matic, plebiscitary quality of his leadership:he claimed direct knowledge of the national interest and the people’s will, and he condemned parties and partisan politics as artificially divisive and self-interested.He borrowed imagery and institutionsfrom all of France’spolitical traditions,and he accepted the services of people with diverse political backgrounds. Only a united nation, Napoleon argued, could hope to achieve greatness, and if unity could be bought only at the price of suppressing dissent, the Emperor thought the deal was a bargain. He negotiated agreements with the Catholic Church, but on terms that so favored the authority of the French state that they were ultimately denounced by Rome; the Church continued to support a return to the monarchy. Napoleon muzzled the press and arrested opponents on both the right and the left. Only once had the Revolution organized an election on the basis of universal male suffrage; Napoleon restored universal suffrage, but allowed its use only for plebiscitary purposes. Instead of voting in competitive elections for their r e p resentatives,the French would now be called upon only to accept or reject the government’s position on major public issues-and the government would decide whether and how to ask the question. Napoleon seemed to keep up his end of his regime’s promise. The First Empire did provide-for a time-both order and national greatness.As long as Napoleon delivered the goods, the population remained relatively passive. But while the First Empire imposed peace at home, it meant continued war beyond France’sborders. War entailed economic disruptions and distortionsas well as conscription and death. We remember the disastrous campaigns in Spain and Russia in part because Goya immortalized in his art the ferocity of the former, in which “guerillas”fought regular troops (the word dates from this war), and in part because the Russianwinter did to Hitler’sarmieswhat it had earlier done to Napoleon’s. The Napoleonic Wars were, however, far less devastating demographicallyor significant economicallythan would be the world wars of

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the twentieth century. The real problem was that they seemed impossible to end and that, finally, the effort they required proved unsustainable. On March 31, 1814, Allied troops marched into Paris. A week later, Napoleon abdicated and headed for the island of Elba. The Bourbon pretender to the throne, brother to the executed Louis XVI, returned to Paris and reclaimed the throne as Louis XVIII. The Treaty of Paris (May 30), relatively generous, reestablished France within the borders that had existed at the outbreak of war in 1792.A week later, the King issued a constitutional document. The Charter, as the document was called, reaffirmed the sovereign character of royal power, but it also promised a bicameral parliament and the protection of civil liberties, including freedom of religion and of the press. The lower house of parliament would be elected by the tiny percentage of the adult male population able to meet the property requirement. The popularity of the new regime would depend on its ability to win the loyalty of the many people bound by material or ideological interests to the Revolution or the Empire: government officials, the officers and men of the army, and a host of people who had bought property confiscated from the nobility or the Church during the Revolution. But Louis XVIII, who had himself fled France in 1791, was surrounded in part by returning exiles who had “learned nothing and understood nothing” during their years abroad and by a clergy intransigent in its condemnationof the Revolution. These men hoped for a radical restoration of the old regime and took verbal and social revenge on their enemies whenever more concrete forms of retribution remained beyond reach. Thus, the monarchy missed its chance to achieve national reconciliation; it was a critical moment at which the political class failed to converge on a political settlement. There would be many similar moments over the next century and a half, as one regime succeeded another. In the short term, the nation’s misfortune was Napoleon’s chance: the deposed emperor saw in the monarchy’s ideologicalrigidity and partisanshipan opportunity to regain power. He landed in southern France in early March 1815 with a thousand men and headed for Paris, assembling an army as he went. Within three weeks, he was back in the capital-and Louis XVIII was again in exile. Napoleon, however, was equally unable to propose a durable political settlement: he faced armed opposition at home, and even more importantly, England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia were determined to be rid of him. He was vastly outgunned by the European coalition arrayed against him. On June 18, 1815, the Duke of Wellington routed Napoleon’s makeshift forces at Waterloo; four days later, Napoleon abdicated once again, bringing to an end the so-called Hundred Days. After some hesitation, the Allies decided to give Louis XVIII another chance. The second Treaty of Paris (November 20, 1815), however, dictated terms far less favorable than had the first. The borders of January 1790 were reestablished, and France was forced to pay reparations to the victorious Allies. Until

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the payments were made, an occupation force would remain in the country. It was a galling experience for a country whose armies had so recently swept across Europe. The original goal of the revolutionary elite had been the creation of a constitutionalmonarchy. With the defeat of the First Empire, that political project returned to center stage and dominated French politics for the better part of two generations, from 1815 to 1848. It failed, not least because it could not appropriate the nationalist sentimentsthat the Revolution had unleashed and the Empire had cultivated. In the late 1780s, the effort to create a constitutional monarchy had seemed like a bold step forward for France, entirely compatible with greatness and power. By 1815, this was no longer the case. Under the Restoration Monarchy (1815-1830) especially, France was an objectively diminished power, and its ruling circles-bent on revenge, identified with clerical reaction, given to obsessive lamentations about the allegedly irreparable evils of the Revolution and the dastardliness of those who had supported it-talked in ways that highlighted the contrast between a cramped,mediocre present and an immediate past which, for all its tragedy, had been laced with glory and exhilaration. The “Legitimist”kings of the Restoration Monarchy--Louis Xvm (reigned 1815-1824) and Charles X (1824-183O)-were too reliant on repression to nurture a coalition even among those favorable to a constitutional monarchy, and their regime never shed the opprobrium of owing its existence to the defeat of French arms. In July 1830, it was swept aside, and the “Orleanist” branch of the royal family took power. Charles X was replaced by Louis Philippe, the “citizen-king’’who, in a partial concession to the revolutionary doctrine of popular sovereignty, declared himself “kingof the French”(in contrast to the Legitimist title, “kingof France”).But the July Monarchy, as the new regime was called, while more innovative and forward-lookingthan its predecessor, labored under many of the same political handicaps: its coalition was too circumstantial and its legitimacy too fragile. In February 1848, elite discontent and social unrest again provoked the fall of a political regime. With royalist options exhausted, a republic seemed possible. Memories of the Terror had receded, while the conjunction of the romantic movement (represented by writers like Victor Hugo and artists like Eugene Delacroix) and socioeconomic change encouraged sympathy for a vaguely defined socialist response to new forms of urban poverty. The Second Republic seemed ready to reach out to all of France’s political families while promising the country’s neighbors continued peace. The new regime reestablished universal male suffrage, abolished slavery in the colonies, did away with the death penalty for political crimes, and renounced expansionary ambitions beyond France’s borders. Priests helped plant “liberty trees” along Parisian thoroughfares. The universal validity of the Revolution’sideals was reaffirmed, but what France had once tried to export by force of arms, it

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claimed it would now simply share by power of example. The result was a potent mix of nationalism and cosmopolitanism, of cultural self-affirmation and universalism. This mix was to remain a defining trait of French republicanism. Those who operated within its assumptions tended not to sense its contradictions. “France,”Michelet exclaimed, “is our glorious mother-and not just our own, but one who could mother any nation to liberty.”15A centwy later, Algerian nationalists would see France differently. The atmosphere of reconciliation that characterized the early spring of 1848 did not last. Even before a formal constitution could be drafted, the clash of social interests reactivated political divisions. The provisional government had initially sought to alleviate hardship among the capital’spoor by providing public employment in “nationalworkshops,”but in June, it moved to close the workshops. When desperate workers rioted, the government called out the largely middle-class national guard. The result was what one historian has called “class warfare in pure form.”16The cost in human lives, borne mostly by the workers, was stunning: thousands died, killed in street battles or summarily shot as the National Guard retook neighborhoods; another fifteen thousand were deported to Algeria, which France had occupied under the July Monarchy.” Once again, an opportunity to establish a political settlement had slipped away, although the new Republic appeared to have survived. It did not yet have a constitution. Republics were still a rarity, and the men charged with producing a constitutionaldtaft had only a speculative understanding of how their decisions might affect political behavior. Still, no one wanted to see a repeat of the First Republic, indelibly stained by the Terror, so different institutional arrangementswere devised. In the First Republic, all power had been vested in the Convention. In the Second Republic, a monocameral assembly was to be flanked by an independent executive. An elected president would serve for a nonrenewable four-year term. The first and only presidential election of the Second Republic was held on December 10, 1848. Its unexpected and overwhelming winner was Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of the great Napoleon. The unsuccessful candidates had well-defined political records. Bonaparte, in contrast, ran on what we would call name recognition. His supporters ranged from sophisticated conservativeswho mistakenly thought they would be able to manipulate him to peasants whose political motivations remain unclear. Once elected, Bonaparte showed no inclination to relinquish his office as required by the constitution, and the conservative elites who had helped p r o pel him to power showed little eagerness to defend the Republic. Their notsosecret wish was to give the monarchy yet another run,but they were outmaneuvered by Bonaparte,who staged a coup in December 1851.By 1852, France had embarked on another political experiment, the Second Empire. The Second Empire lasted a generation and is perhaps best viewed in terms

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of the domestic and international transitions with which it was contemporaneous; it contributed to the former and responded to the latter. At home, significant social, economic, and political change was taking place. The road and especially the railway network expanded dramatically, facilitatingeconomic exchange. The money supply grew, credit became more readily available as the banking system modernized, the Paris stock market assumed new importance, and industrial activity increased. Urban infrastructureswere renewed; rural poverty became less grinding. Illiteracy receded; between 1851 and 1881, the percentage of children between five and fourteen in school increased from 51 percent to 77 percent.18 Diets changed. Moderately repressive through the first decade of its existence, the regime became hesitantly permissive during its second decade. The opposition organized; the press acquired a new importance. Bonaparte’suncle, made of sterner stuff than his nephew, would have been horrified. Meanwhile, important changes were taking place on France’s eastern border. Previously, in the absence of a unified German state, England had been France’sgreat rival. Now, new patterns of international competitionemerged. In the 1860s, the Prussian Emperor Wilhelm 1’s prime minister, Otto von Bismarck, was, as he eloquently put it, settling questions in central Europe “by iron and blood.”19For decades, Austria and Prussia had vied for domination in central Europe. On July 3, 1866, Prussia defeated Austria and its allies at the battle of Koni@tz, and Bismarck closed in on his goal of forging a unified German state, without Austria but under Prussian leadership. The question of the Spanish succession and French blustering soon provided an occasion for completing the task. The Spanish throne was open, and the French let it be known that they did not wish to see a German sitting on it. A public that had refused to support the modernization of a demoralized and ill-equipped army now clamored for the overly assertive Prussians to be taught a lesson. The French were diplomaticallyisolated and outgunned in the field; for them, the Franco-PrussianWar was a disaster. On September 1,1870,Bonaparte was defeated and made prisoner at Sedan. The Second Empire collapsed. In the ensuing weeks, the former republican opposition attempted simultaneously to organize a new government and to rally the country militarily to repel the advancing Prussians. The task was too great. On January 28, 1871, the government capitulated. Hastily called elections, held on February 8, returned an assembly relatively open to making peace on unfavorableterms; the assembly decided to meet in Versailles, rather than Paris. Six weeks later, on March 18, more intransigent activists in Paris organized an insurrectionarymovement that we remember as the Commune. The Communurds espoused a potent blend of social radicalism and nationalism: though some elements were more motivated by one ideological program than by the other, the movement was generally hostile both to the Versailles government’s conservative social inclinations and to its apparent willingness

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to accept draconian peace terms. The VersuiZZuis,observing developments in Paris, feared that the hardships of military defeat were about to be compounded by social revolution. On May 10,1871,French representativessigned the Treaty of Frankfurt,ceding control of Alsace and Lorraine to Germany. During the last week of May, the Commune was crushed-at the price of some twenty-five thousand lives, almost all of them Communards. In fact, the wave of repression claimed more victims than had the Jacobin Terror.20 For neither the first nor the last time, domestic strife occasioned by foreign conflict had produced a river of bitterness and blood instead of a political settlement. And nationalism was still politically up for grabs, most likely to be appropriated by groups that found themselves on the outside of a contested political settlement.

NATIONALISM AND THE RIGHT: FROM THE BOULANGER AFFAIR TO THE GREAT WAR In the 1870s, another republic emerged-literally, for no formal constitution was ever adopted-because it was, as the conservative statesman Adolphe Thiers (1797-1877) noted, “the regime that divides us least.” The Third Republic began with three strikes against it. On the right, it was opposed by both royalist camps, the Legitimists and the Orleanists. On the left, it was rejected by those who considered the Commune to be an expression of working-class socialism and the savage repression visited on its supporters to be illuminated by Thiers’s claim that the Republic would be conservative or it would simply never be.21 And finally the new regime alienated nationalist sentiment, for although the Republic extolled martial qualities as the cornerstone of manliness and public virtue, considered service in the armed forces an obligatory aspect of citizenship, and made references to the “lost provinces” a constant theme of public discourse, it made no move to recover Alsace and Lorraine by force of arms. Instead, republican elites focused their energies on winning political converts at home (where in countless villages, republican schoolteachers squared off against the local priest in a contest for the hearts and minds of the population) and on projecting French power beyond the European theater, in places (southeast Asia and North Africa) where it was less likely to encounter superior force than would have been the case had French armies sought to retake Alsace and Lorraine. The republican combination of combativeness at home and caution abroad invited criticism from the right, which by the 1880s was using nationalism to win support for its antirepublican positions. Nationalism played a key role in both the Boulanger Affair of the late 1880s and the DreyfusAffair of the late 1890s,two central crises that marked French political life in the decades between the defeat of 1870 and the outbreak of

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war in August 1914. Each episode illustrated both the disruptive potential of nationalism and the fraghty of the republican political settlement. The Boulanger movement of the 188Os, like the Poujadist movement of the 1950s (named for its leader, Pierre Poujade), became a referent in discussions of the extreme right National Front of the 1980s and 1990s. All three movements developed against a backdrop of economic dislocation.All used populist rhetoric to attack political incumbents in general and republican incumbents in particular; “touspourris!” (“all rotten!”) was the usual accusation. All were plebiscitarianand antiparliamentaryin their institutionalpreferences. All relied on nationalism to win support across preexisting lines of left-right and partisan cleavage. This package of political traits is often called bonapartism.Taken individually,bonapartist episodes are typically ephemeral-of the three movements mentioned, only the National Front had any political staying power, and it never seriously threatened the stabilityof the Republic-but the tradition has proven durable, and its durability suggests a permanent vulnerability of republican politics. Bonapartism is inconceivable without the angry nationalism that was its trademark, and it was during the Boulanger Affair that urban, lower-middleclass nationalism made the move from left to right. The parliamentary elections of 1885 were held during a period of economic difficulty. Like so many other French elections,they produced no stable majority. The young republic already had enemies: they included monarchists who longed for a restoration and observant Catholicswho resented the Republic’smilitant secularism. But republicans were also deeply divided amongst themselves, and by appearing too weak to protect French national interests and too conservativeto promote social justice, the Republic was making new enemies out of past or potential friends. Workers, hard hit by the economic crisis, turned to socialism, syndicalism, and revolutionary anarchism. Nationalists held electoral and parliamentary politics responsible for governmental weakness at home and in the international arena and turned against parliamentarism. In their new-found antiliberalism, they made common cause with monarchists and others who rejected the Republic on principle. General Georges-Ernest Boulanger was named minister of war in January 1886. At the time of his nomination, he was considered a friend of the republican left, the so-called Radicals. He quickly confirmed his reputation by reassigningpoliticallyunreliable units, relieving royalist officersof their commands, attending to military preparedness, and improving living conditions for common soldiers. The restraint his troops showed during a lengthy miners’ strike won him sympathy among workers. Soon, however, the minister seemed engaged in a dangerous game of brinksmanship with Bismarck over the status of Alsace and Lorraine. Boulanger’sbluster played well with the public (so too did his dashing appearance), but it alarmed cooler heads in the cabinet. France was sparring with England for colonial dominationin Africa and elsewhere and

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had not yet struck an alliance with Russia; diplomaticallyisolated, the country could ill afford to pick another fight with Germany. Amidst continuing cabinet instability, Boulanger lost his cabinet position in May 1887.The new government inclined toward the center-right,and the moderates (or “Opportunists,”as they were often called) who supported it dis trusted Boulanger’s self-promotional tendencies. The moderates’ anxieties were exacerbated in July, when a crowd turned up at the Gare de Lyon to protest Boulanger’s transfer to the provincial city of Clermont-Ferrand.The Radicals, meanwhile, had little use for a government supported by moderate monarchists; the left was particularly hostile to the Opportunist leader, Jules Ferry, and to the president of the Republic,Jules Grevy (1807-1891). In this politically volatile atmosphere, a scandal erupted. Grevy’s son-in-law, it seemed, had been in the business of selling military decorations, and the president himself was tainted. Press reports suggested that Boulanger was implicated Boulanger defended himself in politically threatening language,publicly accusing the man who had replaced him as minister of planting the stories; the minister responded by slapping his fellow general in jail. At this point, however, Boulangerwas still a sideshow.The real drama pitted the Radicals against the Opportunists, and especiallyagainst Ferry, who appeared poised to replace Grevy as president. Ferry, who served intermittently as minister of public education and prime minister between 1879 and 1885, is remembered primarily for the decisive role he played in making public education free, obligatory, and secular-an important goal that all republicans shared. In the 188Os, however, the left reviled him for his hostility to the Commune, his emphasis on colonial expansion over the rivalry with Germany, and his general readiness to compromise with more conservative forces in order to achieve republican stability. Determined to block Ferry’s advancement,the Radicals were satisfied with the election of another moderate, Sadi Camot. The unedifying spectacle of republican infighting and scandal had a predictably negative effect on the image of the regime. Disgusted nationalists, many with left-wing credentials, began calling for new institutions. They argued that, in its existing form, the Republic had demonstrated its inability to provide the strong leadership the country required. Monarchists had been making this argument for years. Ambitious, popular, and personally thwarted by the incumbent leadership of the Republic, Boulanger seemed an ideal choice to lead a protest movement. Activeduty military personnel were barred by law from elective office. Forced into retirement by the government in March 1888, Boulanger was free to enter the political arena. On April 15, he crushed his opponent in a parliamentary by-election in the Nord, winning overwhelming support among workingxlassvoters. In parliament as on the campaign trail, he emphasized the need for both constitutional reform and progressive social legislation. A new government scrambled to defuse the discontent that was fueling Boulanger’sp o p

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ularity but was hampered by economic troubles, social unrest, and (as always) political divisions. Boulanger’s supporters, meanwhile, clamored for the opportunity to test support for the general in Paris, normally a bastion of Radicalism. In January 1889, the death of a Radical deputy gave Boulanger his chance. By now, most republican leaders, whatever their differences, were convinced that Boulanger was an aspiring dictator as well as a reckless demagogue. They united behind the rival candidacy of aouard Jacques, a moderate Radical. On January 27, Boulanger won an overwhelming electoral victory. Soon there was talk that a coup detat might be in the offing. Boulanger insisted that he had no intention of breaking the law and had every confidence that his supporterswould sweep the general elections scheduledfor September 22 and October 6, 1889. That indeed was the government’s other fear. The govemment responded with a series of repressive measures clearly intended to crip ple the Boulangist movement. Fearing he might be the object of foul play, Boulanger fled the country on April 1,1889.His support fractured, and the fall elections were a relative victory for republican forces.Boulangisme was a predominantly urban phenomenon; the elections reminded everyone that France was still an overwhelminglyrural country. In September 1891, Boulangercommimed suicide on the gave of his mistress. The crisis was over, but it had transformed the relationship between nationalism and the right, opening up new possibilities for the Republic’s oppo nents. While the Republic was now the country’s default regime, it was too deeply contested to make its remaining critics seem quixotic. Monarchism was no longer a compelling political program, but nationalism was,and the right-wing opposition seized on it, using its disappointments to bludgeon a regime the antirepublican right despised but could not replace. On the left, nationalism, by showing up too often in antirepublican company,had become an awkward ally: it was not abandoned, but it was demoted. Other ideals-liberty, equality, and solidarity-were more important. This shift disadvantaged the left. Especially in times of crisis, the left needed the extra support that nationalism could provide in order to maintain a working coalition in what remained a very divided country. Nationalism had become, and would remain, a devilishly destabilizing factor in French politics. Within a decade, the Dreyfus Affair cemented the link between nationalism and hostility to individual rights; it also associated nationalism more specifically with antisemitism. In September 1894, French military intelligence obtained information suggesting that someone had been leaking classified documents to the German military attache. Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935) was an artillery officer on temporary assignment to the army general staff. He had no unconventional political commitments that might explain treason, no professional grudges, no habits his resources could not support, and no links to women of ill repute. The evidence against him was thin,but he fit the prufile hastily developed by officers investigating the alleged crime, and he was

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aJew. He was not particularly popular with his peers, and he was not the protege of any more powerful officer in the hierarchy. In mid-October, Dreyfus was arrested, and just before Christmas, a military court, deliberating in closed chambers, pronounced him guilty of treason. Sentenced to life in prison, Dreyfus was sent to prison on Devil’s Island, off the coast of French Guiana in South America. Most people thought he had gotten off lightly. The document that had “established”Dreyfus’sguilt, however, turned out to be the work of another officer. By May 1896, the army command knew that a miscarriage of justice had occurred, and soon information exonerating Dreyfus was passed on to potentially sympathetic political figures. The antisemitic press also mobilized Gdouard Drumont’s newspaper, L a Libre Parole, was especially vicious), but still there was no “affair.”Then on January 13, 1898, the novelist Emile Zola published an article that would make history. The piece, in the form of an open letter to Felix Faure, the president of the Republic, owed its title to the republican politician Georges Clemenceau. Like Zola, Clemenceau had become convinced of Dreyfus’s innocence. “J’accuse!” the headline announced.22The Affair had been launched. The narrative of the Affair is immensely complicated,and some details have never been fully clarified. But the narrative need not detain us. The Affair pitted two competing definitions of France against each other; it occasioned a verbal civil war punctuated by incidents of real violence. The dreyfusards defined France in terms of the universalist, rationalist public values of the Republic: their France was open to all who were prepared to serve it and to adopt its cultural framework. Alfred Dreyfus’s family was Alsatian; after France’sdefeat in the Franco-PrussianWar, Alfred’sfather had chosen France, and Alfred himself had chosen the prestigious &ole Polytechnique and the army. The antidreyfusards defined French identity in terms of the great pillars of French history: the monarchy and the Church. People unattached to those pillars-Protestants, Free Masons, Jews, and socialists (among others)-were considered “foreigners” and potential traitors. The antidreyfusards believed in the necessity of authority and hierarchy, not individual rights: they were quite prepared to sacrifice the honor and freedom of an innocent man (especially a Jew) to the interests of the army. In July 1906, a court of appeals finally reversed Dreyfus’sconviction, cleared his name, and mandated his reinstatement and promotion in the army. Eight months earlier, the Republic had attempted closure on another burning issue: it had declared the separation of church and state. Relations between the Republic and the Vatican had been broken the previous year. The Dreyfus Affair and the church-state conflict were related, and in both cases, true closure would remain out of reach. Decades later, in 1940,the philosopher and polemicist Charles Maurras, a key figure on the antirepublican,nationalist right during the Third Republic, would find in the defeat of his country a fitting revenge for the defeat of the antidreyfvsards. The civil war occasioned by that later defeat

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would be fought with live ammunition, but the issues raised would resemble those of the Dreyfus Affair. In the short seven years between the end of the Dreyfus Affair and the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, the domestic divisions that had crystallized during the Dreyfus Affair and the church-state battle would find expression once again in a controversyover the length of compulsory military service. The military high command wanted the length of service extended to three years. Many socialists were antimilitarist and few republicans had unlimited trust in the political loyalties of the profes sional officer corps, but in an atmosphere of mounting international tensions, the Zoi de trois a m (three years’ law) won parliamentary approval in the summer of 1913. In February 1913, the newly elected president, Raymond Poincare, had laid out the rationale. He linked the law simultaneously to the Republic’s commitment to peace and to France’s vocation to remain a great power: “A people can preserve the peace only on the condition of being always prepared for war. A diminished France, a France exposed, by its own culpable actions, to challenges and humiliations,would no longer be France.”*3 Poincare’s words suggested the ways in which the affirmation of French greatness was central to all definitions of French identity, however conflictual those definitions might otherwise be.

WORLD WAR I For nearly a century after Waterloo, a balance of power (and the distractions afforded by imperialpolitics) had kept a relative peace among the major European countries. After German unification, the balance increasingly gave way to the formation of potentially hostile blocs around Britain and Germany. After 1905, international crises multiplied, compounded by the domestic destabilization of tsarist Russia and ongoing problems within the multinational Austro-Hungarian Empire. With each incident, the stakes rose. Still, in the summer of 1914, no one expected war-much less a long war, and least of all a long and catastrophic world war. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand-heir to the Austrian throne-by a teenage Serb nationalist might have produced one more episode of brinksmanship, but it is in the nature of such games sometimes to get out of control. In the wake of the murder, Germany supported Austria’s demands on Serbia; Serbia activated a series of interlocking alliances among France, Britain,and Russia; the process snowballed. On August 1,1914, the French government ordered a general military callup. Two days later, Germany declared war on France. In the bloodletting that followed, a generation of young men disappeared: killed, mutilated, gassed, psychologically destroyed. Much of the fighting took place on French soil,

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and the names of the killing fields-the Somme, the Marne, Verdun, the Chemin des Dames-would remain engraved in the nation’s collective consciousness for the rest of the century. Something like ten million people, mostly men between the ages of eighteen and forty, died during the four years of killing between August 1914 and November 1918, and about double that number were wounded. During the nine-month battle at Verdun (a battle the French “won”),nine hundred thousand men perished. France lost 1,385,000 men during the war, with another 750,000 totally incapacitated by their injuries. This meant that of every ten men who had been between the ages of twenty and forty-five in 1914, by 1918, two were dead, one was incapacitated, and three were handicapped in one way or another. Only four were whole, if any person can be whole after extended exposure to mud, lice, poison gas, dismembered bodies, and death. Human carnage on a previously unimaginable scale affected political life in the belligerent countries in different ways. The war led, directly or indirectly, to revolutionary violence and regime changes in Russia, Germany, and Italy. France entered the conflict with a contested regime and a well-earned reputation for domestic divisions, yet when put to the test, the nation united and the Republic survived. The so-called union sucrke (sacred union) of 1914-1917 and the absence of a regime change during or after the war obscure a more complex reality linked to the ambiguities of French nationalism and the framty of the political settlement represented by the Third Republic. To many people in government circles, the union sucrke was a happy surprise.Antimilitarismand pacificism were widespread in the working class and socialist movements, and the government had secretly prepared a list of activists-the so-called Curnet B-to be arrested in the event of war. The Curnet B was never used. In 1914, French public opinion was virtually unanimous in its view that Germany had been looking for a fight, whereas France had been dragged unwillingly into war. If the political right saw in Germany France’s hereditary enemy (les Boches, barbarous hordes who raped women and bayoneted children), the left condemned the Reich as an authoritarian,militarist regime. For the right, in other words, Germany was the enemy, simply by virtue of its geopolitical situation; for the left, militarism was the enemy, and the German regime was an exemplar of it; in either case, the fight engaged in August 1914 was a just and necessary fight. Thus the union sumke brought together parties that understood the causes and the goals of the war quite differently. It was a temporary, though critically important, union. After the war, the differences among the participants would come into play, with equally dramatic consequences. Poincare rightly predicted that France would be “heroicallydefended by all her sons, whose union sumbe in the face of the enemy nothing will break.”** Priests who had gone into exile during the church-state crisis returned home to join the army. In a politically divided nation, patriotism remained a common

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reflex. People who, for ideological reasons, would not join in the cry “Vivela Republique!”could always fall back on “Vivela France!” During and after the Second World War, Charles de Gaulle would habitually end speeches to the nation with both expressions. On August 15, 1914, L a Revue du clerge’ franGais articulated the French Church’sunderstanding of France’suniversalist mission. It made no mention of the Republic, but it left little doubt as to the patriotism of Catholic troops: “Francecannot perish. The world would miss her, for she gives it an exquisite flair.The Church would miss her, for she is its indefatigable apostle. God would miss her: she is his generous knight.”25 While the right invoked the eternal qualities of France, the left united behind the values of republican nationalism. On August 4,1914, Uon Jouhaux, leader of France’slargest trade union, eulogized Jean Jaures, the great republican and socialist leader who had been assassinated by a right-wingfanatic on the eve of the general mobilization.26 To the representatives of all of France’s political families,gathered to mourn a man many had viciously attacked while he lived, Jouhaux proclaimed: “Wewill be the soldiers of freedom.”27 As the front line stabilized and the fighting dragged on, missionary zeal dissipated; the determinationto defend France did not. Despite the murderous, miserable nature of the war, the only signrficant mutinies occurred in May 1917, and they were not politically motivated. Exhausted troops refused to return to the front lines, where they knew a pointless death awaited them. In mid-May, a change in command solved the problem: Philippe Petain replaced the disastrous General Robert Nivelle as commander of French forces in the main theater of operations. The union sacrke held up well in the trenches and had a noticeable impact in the corridors of power, where for the first three years of the war, socialists served in governments of national unity, but on balance it did little to broaden the base of democratic politics in France. It did not strengthen the party system, and if anything, it may have cultivated antiparliamentary sentiment on both the left and the right. These trends are particularly visible in leadership patterns at the national level and in the evolution of the socialist movement during the war. War typically promotes a redistribution of power away from the legislature and to the executive. This tendency, common to all democratic systems, created particular problems in France. Since the Third Republic was a parliamentary system, there was no independent executive, and since parliament was fragmented and the parties were weak, no parliamentary leader was likely to be supported by a strong coalition with deep connections to the electorate. During the early months of the war, the civilian leadership of the country (relocated to Bordeaux, since German armies were threatening Paris) was effectively sidelined by the army high command under GeneralJosephJoffre. For many on the right, this was like a dream come true: they still hoped to be rid of the Republic.

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When Joffre failed to deliver a quick victory, civilian leaders gradually reasserted their authority. They kept the armies in the field supplied (no mean feat), but they did not put a stop to war profiteering or protect the middle classes from the effects of wartime inflation. Their debates and activities seemed part of the generally unedifying life that continued behind the lines, and many men in the trenches spoke of them and their political games with contempt. Different groups emphasized different issues, but whatever the problem, parliament was not widely viewed as part of the solution. The war’s most memorable leader, Georges Clemenceau, “resolutely republican, viscerally anticlerical, passionately dreyfusard,”28 exemplified the possibilities and limits of republican leadership during the Third Republic. Clemenceau’s republican convictions made him an individualist and a patriot. They also hardened his disdain for the collectivist, antimilitarist ethic of the nascent working-class movement; he let it be known that he would have arrested the men whose names figured in the Carnet B had he been in power in 1914. His government included no socialists, and during a previous term in power (1906-1909), he had unhesitatingly used lethal force to break strikes. For the last year of the war and through the peace negotiations that followed, Clemenceau led the country, without trying to mobilize public opinion against the political class, but also without trying to organize systematic channels of communication between public opinion and the political class. He remained “aman without a broad parliamentary base, politically isolated among the Chamber’s important groups and parties, enjoying a public popularity that constituted his strength, but which, unlike Boulanger, he did not base on a critique of the regime and its institutions.”29To credit a democrat with not being a bonapartist is to condemn with faint praise. Single-minded in his pursuit of victory in 1917-1918, Clemenceau was equally determined to secure a peace agreement that would leave Germany unable to harm France; in his understanding of what the war was about, he was closer to the right than to the left. He understood the limits beyond which calls for revenge and reparations would become politically counterproductive (encouraging a similar revanchard movement in Germany), but he otherwise made the popular slogan “L’A1lemagnepaiera.f” (“Germanywill pay!”) his own, and he placed little stock in the possible benefits of collective security arrangements like the League of Nations. Clemenceau’sstrong personal leadership and clear hostility to collectivism may have helped preclude a radicalization of the right during or immediately following the war, but as strikes multiplied in 1917-1918, his hard-line views on domestic and international questions deepened the political alienation of a significant part of the working-classmovement. Clemenceau became prime minister ten days after the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia, in what was the second Russian revolution of 1917 (the first, in March, had led to the abdication of the tsar and the creation of a would-be constitutional govement

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under the leadership of Alexander Kerensky). In France, the socialist movement was in crisis, torn between a reformist wing and an increasingly militant faction. The latter drew its growing strength in part from disappointment at the meager results wartime working-class loyalty had produced in terms of social policy and political power at home and in part from the conviction that the war had created the conditions for revolutionary change. In 1920, the movement split, giving birth to the Parti communistefranGais (French Communist Party, or PCF). While the old socialist party (SectionfranGaisede Z‘Znternationale ouvri&re,French Section of the Workers’ International, or SFIO) would remain faithful to parliamentary politics, it had constantly to contend with a better organized, more radical force on its left, and it often did so by making rhetorical concessions to revolutionarypolitics (these developments are more fully discussed in chapter 5). Clemenceau bowed out of politics in January 1920. He had hoped to become president, and to make that figurehead office into a more effective executive position. The right was always clamoring for a stronger executive, and Clemenceau’s nationalist credentials were hard to match, but now the right remembered that Clemenceau had been a dreyfiard and remained committed to the secular republic. His France was not the right’sFrance, just as it was not the France of the socialists he and the right both despised. An inclusive nationalism would be articulated a generation later, by a man who at crucial moments would build his leadership around it. In one of the most famous political texts of French history, Charles de Gaulle wrote: Toute ma vie, je me suis fait une certaine idee de la France. Le sentiment me I’inspire aussi bien que la raison. Ce qu’il y a, en moi, d’affectif imagine naturellement la France, telle la princesse des contes ou la madone aux fresquesdes murs, c o m e vouee a une destinee Cminente et exceptionnelle. J’ai, d’instinct, l’impression que la Providence l’a creee pour des succes achevks ou des malheurs exemplaires. S’il advient que la mediocrite marque, pourtant, ses faits et gestes, j’en eprouve la sensation d’une absurde anomalie, imputable aux fautes des Franqais, non au genie de la patrie. Mais aussi, le c6te positif de mon esprit me convainc que la France n’est reellement elle-mCme qu’au premier rang; que, seule, de vastes entreprises sont susceptiblesde compenser les ferments de dispersion que son peuple porte en lui-meme; que notre pays, tel qu’il est, parmi les autres, tels qu’ilssont, doit, sous peine de danger mortel, viser haut et se tenir droit. Bref, a mon sens, la France ne peut Ctre la France sans la grandeur.30

De Gaulle, recounting in his memoirs his triumphant march down the Champs-Elyseesof liberated Paris on August 26,1944, embraced all the often contradictory projects that had made France great: A chaque pas que je fais sur l’axele plus illustre du monde, il me semble que les

gloires du passe s’associent a celle d’aujourd’hui.Sous l’Arc, en notre honneur, la flamme s’eleveallegrement. Cette avenue, que l’armee triomphante suivit il y

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a vingtcinq ans, s’ouvre radieuse devant nous. Sur son piedestal, Clemenceau, que je salue en passant, a l’air de s’elancer pour venir a nos c6tes. Les marronniers des Champs-Elysees, dont revait I’Aiglon prisonnier et qui virent, pendant tant de lustres, se deployer les @ces et les prestiges francpis, s’offrent en estrades joyeuses a des milliers de spectateurs. Les Tuileries, qui encadkrent la majesti de 1’Etat sous deux empereurs et deux royautes, la Concorde et le Carrousel qui assisterent aux dechainements de l’enthousiasme rkvolutionnaire et aux revues des regiments vainqueurs; les rues et les ponts aux noms de batailles gagnees; sur I’autre rive de la Seine, les Invalides, d6me etincelant encore de la splendeur du Roi-Soleil, tombeau de Turenne, de Napoleon, de Foch; l’hstitut, qu’honorerent tant d’illustres esprits, sont les temoins bienveillants du fleuve humain qui coule aupres d’eux. Voici qu’a leur tour: le Louvre, ou la continuite des rois reussit a biitir la France; sur leur socle, les statues de Jeanne d’Arc et de Henri IV;le palais de Saint-Louis dont, justement, c’etait hier la fete; Notre-Dame, priere de Paris, et la Cite, son berceau, participent a I’evenement. L’Histoire, ramassee dans ces’pierreset dans ces places, on dirait qu’elle nous sourit.31

Such an ecumenicalform of nationalism was still beyond the reach of French actors in the years following World War I, and so too were the institutions and political coalitions it would have permitted. The war had produced new political challenges, but the French went at the new problems with old tools: their institutions and their political culture were substantially similar to what they had been before 1914.The right was content with the smashingvictory it won in the parliamentary elections of November 16, 1919; the left was profoundly and durably divided. The Republic was still the country’s default regime: no more, no less. As the deeply flawed Versailles Treaty was concluded, an exhausted country entered a new world. Late in the war, American intervention (April 1917) and the Russian Revolution had had a profound impact on European events, but the full import of American and Russian involvement would only slowly become apparent. What was much easier to see, especially if one was French, was that German power, while wounded, had not been tamed.

CONCLUSION French nationalism had come a long way in the century between Valmy and Verdun. It had been made into a vehicle for the propagation of political and cultural values-what the French would call, with varying levels of enthusiasm or degrees of irony, “la mission civilisatrice de la France.” It had complemented the reinforcement and modernization of the centralized state founded by the Old Regime, renewed by the Revolution, and rationalized by Napoleon. It had fed on the ideology of popular sovereignty,which itselfcontained so many of the ambiguities illustrated by the Revolution, liberal one day and terrorist the next. As we have seen, nationalism had served both the

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left and the right. Just as importantly, it had expressed different moods. During the revolutionary period and on into the nineteenth century, French power seemed to be on an upward trajectory. Some people defined power materially, and they urged and applauded the acquisition of territory and markets. Others defined power culturally, and emphasized the universal appeal of liberty, equality, and fraternity, and the wide acceptance of French as the language of culture and refinement. All took for granted France’s continued status as a great power. The defeat of 1870 inaugurated a different mood, one obsessed with the idea of decline and as preoccupied with domestic sources of national weakness as with external threats. In this atmosphere,nationalism became “above all a movement of defense, of retreat, the huddling in on itself of a wounded body.”3*In 1874, Leon Gambetta emphasized the central importance of foreign policy and called France “a great and noble nation, defeated and discouraged”33-a sort of miracle denied, to return to the Gaullist language used in the title of this chapter. The bloodletting of 1914- 1918 produced a Pyrrhic victory, followed by a defeat in 1940, another in 1954, and another in 1962. When nationalism had been defensive, as during the Dreyfus Affair, French politics had shown a tendency to get mean. How mean would it get?To what degree was the defensiveness determined by external circumstances, and in what ways was it a product of domestic politics? To what extent could its flare-ups be neutralized by institutional safeguards (new tools for new problems) or reversed by skillful leadership?Could it be conjured away by a fundamental redefinition of solidarity, so that “lagrande amitie (“the great friendship”)-Michelet’s definition of la patrie (native land, fatherland)3*would include all of Europe?These questions would be raised again and again throughout the twentieth and on into the twenty-first century. Since the jury is still out on the last question, all the others remain open.

RECOMMENDED READING Arendt, Hannah.The Origins of Totalitarianism. Rev. ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973. Becker,Jean-Jacques. 1914: Comment les Frangais sont entrt‘s dam la guerre. Paris: Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1977. Furet, Franqois, and Denis Richer. The French Revolution. Trans. Stephen Hardman. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970. Johnson, Martin P. The Lh-eyfvsAffair:Honour and Politics in the Belle Epoque. New York: St. Martin’s, 1999. Mayeur,Jean-Marie.L a viepolitique sous la troisihe Rt‘publique, 1870- 1940. Paris: Le Seuil, 1984. Nere, Jacques. Le boulangisme et lapresse. Paris: Armand Colin, 1964. Nora, Pierre, et al. Les l i e u de mt‘moire. 3 vols. Paris: Gallimard, 1984-1992.

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Ozouf, Mona. L'kcole de la France: Essais sur la Rkvolution, l'utopie et l'enseignement. Paris: Gallimard, 1984. Rosanvallon, Pierre. La dkmocratie inachevke:Histoire de la souverainetk du peuple en France. Paris: Gallimard, 2000. -. Le peuple introuvable: Histoire de la reprksentation dkmocratique en France. Paris: Gallimard, 1998. -. Le sacre du citoyen: Histoire du suffrage universe1 en France. Paris: Gallimard, 1992. Thabault, Roger. Education and Change in a Village Community: Mazi&resenGatine, 1848-1914. Trans. Peter Tregear. New York: Schocken Books, 1971. Weber, Eugen. Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1976. -. The Nationalist Revival in France, 1905-1914. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968.

Novels Barbusse, Henri. Le Feu (Under Fire: The Story of a Squad). 1916. Barrks, Maurice. Le Roman de l'knergie nationale, a trilogy (1897-1302), especially vol. 1, Les dkradnks (1897). Flaubert, Gustave. L'Education sentimentale (SentimentalEducation). 1869. Hugo, Victor. 1793. 1874. Martin du Gard, Roger.Jean Barois. 1913. -. Les Thibault (The Thibaults). 1922-1940. Romain, Jules. Les hommes de bonne volontk (1932-1946), especially vol. 16, Verdun. Several volumes, including Verdun,are available in English translation.

Documents Bruno, G. [pseud. For Mme Alfred Fouillee] Le Tour de la Francepar deux enfants. 1878. Girardet, Raoul, ed. Le nationalismefrangais:Anthologie, 1871-1914. Paris: Le Seuil, 1983. Michelet, Jules. Lepeuple. (The People). 1846. Renan, Ernest. Qu'estce qu'une nation? 1882. Sieyks, Emmanuel. Qu'estce que le tiers Ctat? ( m a t Is the Third Estate?). 1789. TocqueviUe, Alexis de. Souvenirs (Recollections).Written in 1850-1851. Zola, lhile. L'affaire Beyfu:la vkritk en marche (Paris: Gamier-Flammarion,1969), a set of documents that includes the "J'accuse" article of 1898.

1. Charles de Gaulle, November 23, 1945: "But the trials of the awful invasion [of 19401 and the pride that came when victory was finally won, reunited . . . us all. This unity, forged in combat, was, once again, the miracle of France" [Charles de

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Gaulle, Discours et messages, vol. 1, Pendant la guewe, 1940-1946 (Paris: Plon, 1970), p. 6981. 2. Ernest Renan, “Qu’est-cequ’une nation,”originallydelivered as a lecture at the Sorbonne on March 11, 1882; excerpted in Raoul Gmrdet, ed., Le nationalisme franGais:Anthologie, 1871-1914 (Paris: Le Seuil, 1983), pp. 65-67, citation at p. 65. The contemporary German philosopher Jiirgen Habermas calls nationhood based on voluntary allegiance to a constitutional order “constitutionalpatriotism.” 3. Whenever possible, I have tried to leave expressions essential to the country’s political vocabulary in the original French, while also providing an English translation. 4. Irnmanuel Kant, “An Answer to the Question: ‘What Is Enlightenment?’” in Hans Reiss, ed., Kant’s Political Writings,trans. H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 54. “Immaturity,”Kant continues, “is the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another.” 5. See Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1%7). 6. For an introduction to these critical events, see R. R. Palmer, Twelve who Ruled: The Year of the Tewor in the French Revolution (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988). 7. The ca ira was first sung in 1790 and quickly became the favorite song of the socially less privileged and politically more militant elements of the revolutionary movement. It was set to a familiardance tune. The lyrics were by a popular singer named Ladre but varied from place to place and as the mood of the Revolution changed. The tone of the well-known verse reproduced here is hard to capture in English. The words mean: “Ah, all will be well [Benjamin Franklin had used the French expression to convey his optimism about the prospects of the American Revolution], all will be well, all will be well/The aristocrats,we’ll string them up/Despotism wilI breathe its last/Liberty will triumph/Ah, all will be well”The mood conveyed is simultaneously jovial and menacing. 8. Jules Ferry, June 6, 1889, cited in Jean-Marie Mayeur, La question lai’que, X X e - X X e siGcle (Paris: Fayard, 1997), p. 46. 9. Lkon Gambetta, SaintQuentin, November 16, 1871, in Joseph Reinach, ed., Discours et plaidoyers politiques de M. Gambetta, vol. 2, part 2 (February 19, 1871-July 24, 1872) (Paris: G. Charpentier, 188l), p. 176. 10. Gambetta, November 16, 1871, in Reinach, ed., Discours etplaidoyers politiques de M. Gambetta, vol. 2, part 2, p. 176. 1 1 . Gambetta, November 16, 1871, in Joseph Reinach, ed., Discours etplaidoyers politiques de M. Gambetta, vol. 2, part 2, p. 178. 12. Jules Ferry, Chamber of Deputies, June 3, 1876, in Pierre Barral, ed., Les Fondateurs de la TroisiGme Rtipublique (Paris: Armand Colin, 1968), p. 173. 13. Lkon Gambetta, Chamber of Deputies, May 4, 1877, in Barral, ed., Les Fondateurs de la TroisiGme Rtipublique, p. 176. 14. The decentralization law of March 2, 1982 did away with the title. We will consider what happened to the role later. Theprtifets missed their old title and got it back in 1986. 15. Jules Michelet, cited in Girardet, ed., Le nationalisme franGais: Anthologie, 1871-1914, p. 13. 16. Maurice Agulhon, 1848 ou l’apprentissage de la rtipublique, 1848-1852 (Paris: Le Seuil, 1973), p. 69.

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17. Agulhon, 1848 ou l’apprentissagede la r&publique,1848-1852, p. 73. 18. Alain Plessis, De la fgte imp6riale au mur des f6d&ds, 1852-1871 (Paris: Le Seuil, 1973), p. 134. 19. “The great questions of the day will not be settled by speeches and majority decisions,”Bismarck said in 1862, “but by blood and iron.”Cited in Otto Pflanze, Bkimarck and the Development of Germany, vol. 1, The Period of Un.@cation, 1815-1871 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), p. 184. 20. See casualty estimates in Jean-PierreAzema and Michel Winock, Les Communards (Paris: Le Seuil, 1964), p. 165. Grard Noiriel compares casualties from the repression of the Commune to casualties of the Terror; see Noiriel, Les ouvriers duns la soci6t6franGaise, X I X e - X X e siMe (Paris: Le Seuil, 1986), p. 119. 21. Thiers, as articulate and talented as he was ambitious, was a key figure in French politics from the early years of the Restoration through the crucial first years of the Third Republic. His basic political allegiances were Orleanist; as he told the National Assembly on June 8, 1871, “AlI my life, I have reflected on the type of government my country might desire, and if I had the power that no mortal has ever p o s sessed,I would have given my country what, to the best of my abilities,I have worked without success for forty years to achieve: constitutionalmonarchy as exemplified by England!” [text of speech in Dkscoursparlementaires de M. Thiers, ed. M. Calmon, vol. 13 (Paris: Calmann Evy, 1882), citation at p. 3171. Disappointed by the Restoration and the July Monarchy and opposed to the Second Empire (although he had voted for Bonaparte in 1849),Thiers was usually at his most impressivewhen in opposition. In 1871, he was elected to the National Assembly and became president of what was not yet the Third Republic; while the Assembly deferred the issue of what form the new regime would take, Thiers crushed the Commune and made peace with the Prussians. By November 1872,he had concluded that only a republic could provide France the stabilityit so desperatelyneeded; his ovemding concernswere stabilityand order, and so he urged the Assembly to consolidate a republic. His remark that the republic had become the least divisive solution to France’sconstitutionalquarrels is quoted so frequently that precise attribution has become unnecessary. Thiers laid out the case for a republic in a key message delivered to the Assembly on November 13, 1872; it is here that he warned republicans that the republic would have to be conservative in order to survive [see Discoursparlementaires de M. Thiers, ed. M. Calmon, vol. 15 (Paris: Calmann Evy, 1883), p. 281, but the theme recurs constantly in his speeches. In speech after speech prior to his resignation on May 24,1873, Thiers sought to convince his monarchist friends to bow to the inevitable and support a republic: “you yourselves know,”he exclaimed before the parliamentaryvote that prompted his r e s ignation, “that the monarchy is a practical impossibility.I need not remind you of the reason, since alI of you are aware of it: there is only one throne, and three people cannot sit on it!” [May 24, 1873,Discoursparlementairesde M. Thiers, ed. M. Calmon, vol. 15 (Paris:Calmann Evy, 1883), p. 2071. Thiers died in September 1877, during what would prove the decisive showdown between monarchists and republicans. 22. Text in Emile Zola, L’affaireDreyfus: la v6rit6 en marcbe (Paris: Gatnier-Flammarion, 1969), pp. 111-124. The article appeared in the Paris paper L’Aurore. 23. Raymond Poincare, addressing a joint session of parliament, February 20,1913, cited in Jean-MarieMayeur,La viepolitique sous la Trokihe R6publique, 1870- 1940 (Paris: Le Seuil, 19&1), p. 229.

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24. Raymond P o i n d , addressinga joint session of parliament,August 4,1914, cited in Mayeur, La vlepolitique sous la Troisihe Rkpublique, 1870-1940, p. 235 n. 1. 25. La Revue du c l q k franqais, August 15, 1914, cited in Jean-JacquesBecker, La France en guewe, 1914-1918: la grande mutation (Paris: Editions Complexe, l988), p. 44. 26. Jaures is more fuuy discussed in chapter 5. 27. LkonJouhaux,August 4,1914, cited in Becker,La France e n g m e , 1914-1918, p. 29. 28. Philippe Bernard,Lafin d u n monde, 1914-1929 (Paris: Le Seuil, 1975), p. 83. 29. Bernard, Lafin d u n monde, 1914-1929, p. 84. 30. Charles de Gaulle, Mkmoires de guerre, vol. 1, L’appel, 1940-1942 (Paris: Plon, 1954), p. 1. No translation can hope to do justice to this text. All my life, I have harbored a certain idea of France. My heart inspires it; so too does reason. My affective faculties naturally imagine France destined for an eminent and excep tional role, like the princess in a fairy tale or the madonna of church frescoes. J3y instinct, I feel that Providence has created France for perfect successes or exemplary failures. Whenever mediocrity incongruously marks her acts, I have the feeling of an absurd anomaly, explicableby the misdeeds of the French, not by the distinctive character of our native land. But at the same time, the more rational side of my mind convinces me that France is not really herself when she is not a major world player; that only great projects can compensate for the seeds of dispersion that lie within her people; that our country, given what it is, among other countries, given what they are, must, on pain of mortal danger, aim high and stand tall. In sum, as I see it, only in greatness can France be France.

31. Charles de Gaulle, M6moires deguerre, vol. 2, L’unit6, 1942-1944 (Paris: Plon, 1956), p. 313. With each step that I take on the most illustrious artery in the world, it seems to me that past glories combine with the glory of today. Under the Arc, in our honor, the flame leaps joyfully. This avenue, down which the triumphant army paraded twenty-five years ago, seems radiant before us. On his pedestal, Clemenceau,whom I salute as I pass, seems ready to bound to our side. The chestnut trees of the ChampsElysCes, of which the imprisoned Aiglon [Napoleon’sson, 1810-1832, officiallyknownas the duc de Reichstadt]dreamed and which witnessed, through so many ages, the display of French grace and prestige, offer viewing-poststo thousands of spectators. The Tuileries, which provided the setting for the majesty of the State under two emperors and two monarchies, the Concorde and the Carrousel which watched the wild expressionsof revolutionaryenthusiasm and the reviews of victorious regiments; the streets and bridges named for battles won; on the other bank of the Seine, the Invalides, its dome sparklingstill with the splendor of the Sun King, the tomb of Turenne [a seventeenth century military hero], of Napoleon, of Foch [army marshal credited with the victory in World War I]; the Institute, honored by so many illustrious minds, all are benevolent witnesses to the human river passing by. And there, in their turn:the Louvre, where the succession of kings succeeded in constructingFrance; in their place the statues of Joan of Arc and Henry IV;the palace of Saint Louis, whose feast-day happened to be yesterday; Notre-Dame, the prayer of Paris, and the CitC, its cradle: all join in the event. It is as though History, gathered together in these stones and in these squares, smiles at us.

32. Raoul Girardet, in Girardet, ed., Le nationalisme franqais: Antbologie, 1871-1914, p. 18.

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33. Lkon Gambetta, in a letter to Arthur Ranc, December 24,1874,cited in Jean-Marie Mayeur, Les &buts uk la IZIe Rtspublique, 1871-1898 (Paris: Le Seuil, 1973),p. 101. 34. Jules Michelet, Lepeuple (1846) (Paris: Flammarion, 1974), p. 199. The word patrie has an emotional charge that is hard to render in contemporary English. A patrie is a living thing: something one loves, identifies with, and sacrifices for.

CHAPTER 2

World War I1 and Its Legacies The ten years that preceded the Liberation of 1944-1945 were in many ways as dramatic-and almost as divisive-as had been the revolutionary decade a century and a half before. In 1934, many people feared the Republic would be overthrown by a right-wing coup. In 1944-1945, Resistance and Allied troops put German forces and their collaborationist henchmen to fight. The events of the intervening decade, which included the left-wing Popular Front government as well as the German Occupation, raised central questions about the nature of the state and the meaning of citizenship. Contentious at the time, these questions remained divisive, and as the answers changed, so too did perceptions and judgments of commitments made between 1934 and 1945.The recurring public arguments about Vichy, the Resistance,and the actions of specific individuals were not historians’ debates.’ They were important political skirmishes, and they became especially frequent during the 1990s because such consensual understandings of the state and citizenship as had existed were challenged by social change, economic crisis, and globalization.Men and women who had lived through the war often complained that younger people were playing fast and loose with a history they had neither lived nor learned and consciously or unconsciously misconstruing the meaning of difficult choices that had been made in a very particular historical context. To the extent that postwar generations did indeed revisit wartime choices in order to advance their own agendas and to demarcatetheir political world, the debates that resulted are indicative of important changes in French politics and culture. Evaluating debates about the war does require a history lesson, and that is where we shall start.

FRANCE, 193!+1945

‘Strange Defeat”2 The Armistice of 1918 did not make the world safe for democracy, nor did it bring peace, prosperity, or stabilityto the continent on which the war had been 45

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fought. In Germany, the terms of the Versailles Treaty inadvertently encouraged the revival of German militarism while doing little to promote a democratic domestic settlement. Even before the onset of the Great Depression, the domesticand internationalchallengesfacing France’sdividedpolity multiplied. Mussolini seized power in Italy in 1922, and by 1926, he had consolidated the first fascist state. In 1929, the American stock market crashed the Depression followed. By 1930, it was clear that democracy had failed in Germany; in January 1933, Hitler took power. In 1936, a renegade general named Francisco Franco took up arms against the fledghg Spanish Republic, initiating a bloody civil war that was in many ways a rehearsal for the world war that began in Sep tember 1939, when Germany struck Poland. In June 1940, France suffered a stunning military defeat. The defeat of 1940 was so sudden and unexpected-and so radical-that contemporariesimmediatelysaw fault rather than error as its cause. Their conclusions reflected the polarized character that politics had assumed during the 1930s and recalled the verbal civil war of the Dreyfus Affair. The new government in Vichy pointed an accusatory finger at the moral, social, and political “disorder”symbolized by the Popular Front government of 1936-1937, and in February 1942, the authorities put Lkon Blum (prime minister in 1936-1937), fidouard Daladier (prime minister after Blum, and defense minister from 1936 to 1940), and General Maurice Gamelin (commanding general of the army from 1935 to 1940) on public trial at Riom. Two months later, Vichy was forced to abort the court proceedings, which had occasioned a spirited defense of the Republic by the accused. For its part, the left--first in the Resistance, and then after the war-blamed the defeat on its conservative adversaries,whose economic greed and ideological hostility to the Republic had allegedlysapped the legitimacyof the regime and undermined the nation’s sense of solidarity. Errors alone cannot explain France’s defeat, but the relationship between the country’spolitical divisions and the disastrously inadequate military strategy it adopted during the interwar years is a complicated one. Hitler’srise to power should have triggered a nationalist response across the spectrum of French opinion, similar to the union sawbe of 1914. Military expansionism was central to Nazi ideology, and almost immediately upon taking power, the Nazis began preparing the country for war. The Versailles Treaty, with its clause holding Germany alone responsible for having caused the war, found few defenders in Germany. To many Germans (including many non-Nazis), an assertive foreign policy seemed part of the solution to the problems that had beset their country during the interwar years. The Nazis quickly silenced other views. The French read the writing on the wall, but for domestic reasons (and because the British were not interested in another confrontation with the Germans), the only response around which they could unite was a policy of avoid-

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ing war. Given Nazi aims, this was hardly an adequate strategy. Put another way, after 1933, a realistic response to what was happening in Germany was not realistic politically in France. Rearmament found few supporters in the 1930s. No one wanted war; people remembered too vividly the horrors and futility of the one they had just survived. But there was more to the story than battle fatigue-powerful though that sentiment was. Disagreementsover rearmament and foreign policy divided left from right, but also divided the left and the right internally. In 1914, the left had gone to war against German militarism and the right had gone to war against Germans. In the 1930s, the left should have been particularly sensitive to the threat posed by fascist takeovers in Italy and Germany. Instead, disappointment with the results (domestic and international) of World War I reinforced the pacifist faction within the socialist party (SFIO), while the Communist Party (PCF) followed whatever line communist leaders in Moscow decreed. Socialists who did favor rearmament had to defend themselves against conservative charges that they were motivated by opposition to fascism as a form of government and not by a more limited concern for French security. The right, which normally might have championed military preparedness against an expansionary Germany, was split between nationalists who did indeed demand rearmament and reactionaries who found their enthusiasm for rearmament blunted by the ideological affinities they felt for the new dictatorshipson France’s borders. Polarization and fragmentation were accentuated by the Popular Front episode of the mid-1930s. In the early 1930s, right-wing street agitation had increased. The antirepublican energies of the right were reactivated by governmental paralysis and economic anxieties. Right-wing organizations like Charles Maurras’sinfluentialand supposedly royalist group (and newspaper), I’ActionfranGaise, conservative veterans’ groups like the Croix de feu, and right-wing thugs like those who belonged to la Cagoule tapped into the bonapartist tradition, whose strength lay in its capacity to express disappointed nationalism, political anger, and social resentment. On February 6, 1934, an apparently insurrectionary crowd threatened to storm the Chamber of Deputies (touspourris . . .). In response, a heterogeneous coalition extending from the political center through the PCF came together in an antifascist “PopularFront” to defend the Republic. In the parliamentary elections of April 26 and May 3,1936, the Popular Front coalition won a majority of seats in the Chamber. The SFIO was the strongest party. Its leader, IRon Blum, became prime minister. Blum was the bCte noire of the old antidreyfusard right. Dreyfus was a Jew, but at least he was an officer. Blum was not only a Jew, but also a left-wing intellectual and a socialist. The right loathed him.Charles Maurras reviled him as a subhuman traitor, a “naturalized German Jew, or son of one,” “a monstrous creation of the democratic Republic,”someone who “shouldbe shot, but in the back.”3 On the specific question of rearmament, Maurras reiterated his demand that

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Blum and his political allies-“the assassins of peace”-be eliminated. Since “goodcitizens”did not control the guillotine, Maurras urged the use of alternative weapons: “an automatic pistol, a revolver, or even a kitchen knife.”* In the immediate aftermath of the Popular Front elections, wildcat strikes shut down factories across France. Striking workers occupied their factories, sometimes sequestering owners and managers. The government negotiated a settlement in earlyJune (the so-called Matignon Accords), but the strikes exacerbated the hysteria of the right. Just as seriously, they frightened the more centrist elements of the Popular Front coalition (people who, rather like Clemenceau, were for the Republic but opposed to socialism). When the Spanish Civil War began in mid-July, the Blum government was already politically beleaguered and too divided to risk military intervention on behalf of the embattled Spanish republicans. Intervention was particularly unpopular among French Catholics, since the Spanish republicans were allied with the communists and often virulently anticlerical. A promising moment to teach European fascists a lesson passed. In February 1937, Blum also declared a pause in the government’sprogram of domestic reform. The purportedly temporary pause soon looked permanent. When Blum’s team was replaced by a more centrist cabinet in January 1938, the left had good reason to feel bitter. France’sexternal posture was largely a function of its internal divisions.The policy of appeasement was already in place by the mid-1930s.While the Germans mechanized their army, remilitarized the Rhineland (March 1936), tested new weapons and tactics in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), marched into Austria unopposed (March 1938), and threatened the young Czech Republic, the French failed to take decisive action. They fortified the defensive Maginot line and neglected their offensive capabilities.A British prime minister went on radio and spoke words that would damn him in the eyes of history: “How horrible, fantastic, incredible, it is,”Neville Chamberlain declared before leaving for the fateful summit meeting in Munich, “that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-maskshere because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing.”5At the Munich talks, Hitler blackmailed the western democracies into abandoning the Czech Republic (September 29-30, 1938). One year later, having secured the neutrality of the Soviet Union (August 23, 1939), Hitler invaded Poland (September 1). France and England, bound to Poland by treaty obligations,declared war on Germany (September 3), but by the end of the month, Polish resistance had collapsed. The Russians invaded Finland and the Germansinvaded Norway and Denmark, but the western front remained tensely quiet. Then on May 10, 1940, the socalled phony war suddenly became a shooting war. The Allies had anticipated an attack through the Low Countries. That attack came, but its primary purpose was diversionary: the main German advance came instead to the south, through the lightly defended Ardennes forest. Within weeks, a great power lay prostrate. French troops had sustained

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high casualties: 92,000 killed, 200,000 wounded.6 But tenacity in the field could not overcome the incompetence of the French high command, which now paid the price for its earlier failure to grasp the military significance of technological change. Meanwhile, the political leadership of the country was paralyzed. Paul Reynaud, who had taken over as prime minister on March 20, wanted to continue the fight. General Maxime Weygand, however, who had relieved Gamelin as commander of France’s military forces a week after the German assault began, was convinced that the war was lost. He was looking for a way out. Marshal Philippe Petain, the now octogenarian World War I hero who had become minister of war in March, shared Weygand’sopinion. On June 17,1940, a brigadier general, who fifteen years earlier had served on Petain’sstaff and who had pleaded throughout the 1930s for tank units of the sort that Hitler was equipping, embarked for England. The next evening, using the facilities of the BBC, he urged a global perspective on his deeply insular and politically self-absorbed country. “France,”Charles de Gaulle told his compatriots, is not alone. . . This war is not limited to the unfortunate territory of our country. This war has not been decided by the battle of France. This war is a world war. All the errors, all the lapses, all the suffering do not change the fact that there are in the universe all the means needed to crush our enemies. . . .Whatever hap pens,the flame of French resistance must not go out and will not go out.’

Back in France, few heard the speech. Somewherebetween six and ten million people-about a fifth of the population-were on the roads? fleeing the German advance (and inadvertently hindering the movement of French troops); nearly two million men were or would soon be prisoners of war. British resistance also seemed to have reached the end of the line. Franqois Mauriac, a Catholic writer who, despite his conservative background, had taken Hitler’s measure earlier than most people and had sided with the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, now saw little room for maneuver: “Tr& beau,” he said of de Gaulle’s call to arms, “but irrelevant.”9 On June 22, representatives of the French government accepted German terms for an armistice. The document was signed at Rethondes, in the same railroad car in which the Germans had accepted defeat in 1918. The Reich annexed Alsace and Lorraine and occupied what was defined as the northern zone, which included the strategically vital Atlantic coast and the northern (and economically more developed, more densely populated) half of the country. The Germans granted the Vichy government administrativeauthority over both the northern and southern zones; the latter was unoccupied until the Allies invaded Morocco and Algeria in November 1942. Occupation costs were assessed to the French, at a disadvantageousexchange rate. The Germans agreed not to garrison the French Empire, and Vichy retained a small army and the fleet (which the British promptly took the precaution of bom-

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barding as it lay at anchor on July 3, 1940, in the Algerian port of Mers elKebir-a move that caused considerable consternation in French public opinion). It was assumed that a peace treaty would replace the armistice agreement as soon as the British were defeated-an event that the French negotiators expected would not be long in coming.

Vichy On July 10,1940,what was left of the Chamber of Deputies voted fullpowers (including constituent powers) to Marshal Pttain. The Republic was over, replaced by what was officially known simply as I‘Etat franGaais, the French state. Petain immediately used his constituent authority to arrogate to himself executive and legislative power, as well as the right to name his own successor. Civil servants would henceforth swear loyalty to his person. The Chamber had blindly handed over its powers to Petain, and Petain had forthwith used the power accorded him to execute what was in effect a coup d’etat. France’s new leader assured his compatriots that he, in contrast to de Gaulle, would remain with them in their time of difficulty. He offered them, as he said, “the gift of [his] person to attenuate their misfortune.”lOHe also warned them that only a “nationalrevolution” could root out the self-indulgence and moral decay that had, he claimed, brought disaster upon the country. “Travail, famille, patrie” (“work, family, fatherland”) replaced “liberty, equality, fraternity”on public buildings. Crucifixes reappeared on classroom walls. In the place of free, competitive elections, the regime sought to create consultativebodies staffed by appointed nominees. Communistshad been on the run since the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939;now Free Masons and Jews were also hounded out of the civil service. Initially, most people found Pitain’s paternal presence reassuring, and almost everyone agreed that profound reforms of some sort were necessary. In the months immediately following the defeat, Vichy attracted a broad but heterogeneous and fragile base of support, at both the elite and the popular level. Over the next four years, from the summer of the defeat to the summer of the Liberation, the regime would go through several phases, marked by different political orientations and different degrees of popular support. The men who contended for power under the umbrella the regime provided were diverse in their backgrounds, motives, and goals. They shared a willingness to use the new balance of power created by the defeat to continue the familiar game of settling political accounts, and they all contributed to the atmosphere of self-incriminationthat helped keep the country passive. Over time, the regime’s base of support would steadily contract and its repressive tendencies would become more pronounced. From beginning to end, two men played central roles in the regime. Marshal Petain (1856- 1951) was indispensable:whatever popularity the regime

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enjoyed was largely explained by his presence. Petain was not simply a national military hero, credited with the World War I victory at Verdun and remembered for his reluctance to send men needlessly to their deaths (“gunfire kills,”he reminded his colleagues). His authoritarianism answered the prayers of the segment of French opinion-conservative, Catholic, middle or upper class-profoundly traumatized by the sit-down strikes of 1936 and the Popular Front victory that had brought the left to power at precisely the moment when the stability of the social status quo, under pressure from the Depression, most urgently required state support. Petain believed in social harmony based on order, hierarchy, and obedience. He abhorred the kind of political mobilization that fascist regimes sponsored; indeed, had it been pos sible to do so, he would have done away with all the visible signs of political life. Vain, old, and unwilling to relinquish power, Petain would miss several opportunities to recover his lost honor. Pierre Laval (1883-1945) was one of the less attractive-though by no means the most reactionary-political products of the Third Republic. A selfmade man who attended to his constituents and carried little ideological baggage, Laval was prime minister throughout 1931 and again from June 1935 to January 1936. He was also foreign minister from October 1934 to January 1936, and undeterred by evidence to the contrary, fancied himself a clever international negotiator. He lost his seat in the Popular Front elections of May-June 1936. Cynical, arrogant, manipulative, and unscrupulous, by 1940 he was also embittered. Laval was instrumental in securing the votes by which the Republic committed suicide. He was promptly rewarded: on July 12, Petain named Laval as his eventual successor.Laval served as Petain’shead of government from July until December 13. The public identified him with the government’spolicy of collaboration with the Germans, symbolized by a meeting between Petain and Hitler in the village of Montoire toward the end of October. On December 13, Laval was arrested in a palace coup-not because Petain was having second thoughts about collaboration with the Germans, but because he feared that Laval’s unpopularity was rubbing off on him, and worse, that Laval wanted all power for himself. The Germans obtained Laval’s release. In April 1942, Laval returned to power. He remained there until the Liberation. His subsequent trial was a sham, but his sentence (death) was well earned. Many officials, prominent and obscure, distanced themselves from Vichy as the tides of war changed and as the regime grew more repressive and more clearly subordinate to the Germans. This was true, for example, of General Weygand and Admiral Franqois Darlan. Weygand had been on the side of the defeatists in June 1940; Darlan shared the Anglophobia common to most French naval officers. But neither was prepared to surrender France’sempire to the Germans, and so both shifted course in November 1942. Many state officials acted in apparently contradictoryways: thus Rene Bouquet, Vichy’s

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head of police from April 1942 to December 1943,also served the Resistance. Many technocrats whose projects had been blocked by the Byzantine politics of the Third Republic remained at their desks through the war, developing policies that would later be continued by the Fourth and Fifth Republics. Conservative though it was, the Vichy establishment never satisfied the most radical elements of the French right. Some, like Marcel Deat (a former socialist), Jacques Doriot (a former communist leader), and Joseph Darnand (a former member of the most virulently antirepublican right-wing organizations), pleaded for the formation of a single, fascist-style party (which each hoped to lead); they were particularly active in occupied Paris and kept up a constant barrage of criticism against Vichy’salleged moderation. Others, like Xavier Vallat (1891- 1972) and Louis Darquier de Pellepoix (1897- 1980), successively commissioners-general for Jewish affairs at Vichy, exploited the opportunity to act on longstanding antisemitic prejudices. No one stopped them, but the priorities of the regime were antirepublican,not antisemitic.

Tbe Resistance The Resistance was as varied in its personnel, motives, and goals as was Vichy, and it too changed significantly over time. For much of the war, it was “but a chaos of courage.”ll Passive opposition to the Vichy regime, and especially to its policy of collaboration,was widespread (despite continuing respect for Petain) and probably represented a majority position by the summer of 1941. * 2 Active resistance entailed writing and distributing tracts and underground newspapers hostile to the Occupation, passing military intelligence along to the Allies, forging identity papers or providing protection to threatened individuals (political dissidents, Jews, downed Allied airmen), refusing compulsory work service in Germany (Service du travail oblfgatofre, STO), or participation in sabotage and other military operations. It remained to the end a minority commitment. Those who made it risked torture, deportation, and death. It was generally an individual choice, but it was rarely a fully random choice. People with certain kinds of ideological convictions-Christian democrats, socialists, communists, antiGerman nationalists-made good candidates for the Resistance. Interest also played a role. Young men facing labor conscription had no risk-free option: they could go to work in Germany or go underground. Many made the latter choice, but absent the threat of conscription, they might have tried simply to wait out the war, as did most of the population. Finally, not all people had equal opportunities to engage in overt resistance. Resistance groups obviously did not advertise meeting times in the local papers, and the desire to recruit often conflicted with the need to maintain secrecy. Assuming equal motivation, commitment patterns differed according to where an individual lived, figuratively (i.e., socially and politically) and literally. And young people, rel-

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atively unencumbered by family and professional responsibilities, were more likely to be risk takers than were their seniors. From the beginning, the Resistance comprised many groups and operated in two quite different theaters: abroad and at home. De Gaulle’s Free French, based first in London and then in Algiers, initially privileged action outside metropolitan France. De Gaulle had immediately understood the war to be a planetary conflict. If France dropped out, it would cease to exist as an independent state, even if individual Frenchmen continued the fight by enlisting in Britain’s armed forces. De Gaulle ceaselessly emphasized the importance of the state, and he organized the Free French to press France’snational interests militarily and diplomatically in the context of a world war. Somehow, he had to make his small band of followers look like a government-in-exile and his few units like an army. Given the dearth of volunteers, the movement’s material dependence on British support, and relatively consistent American hostility, this was no easy task. De Gaulle pursued his goal with single-minded stubbornness and consummate political skill, and he achieved it in large part because of the unity he was able to forge between the Free French and the domestic Resistance.13 His indispensable ally was a former prefect, Jean Moulin, who parachuted into Provence on January 2, 1942. One month before his capture by the Germans, Moulin succeeded in gathering together sixteen Resistance leaders. They represented Resistance groups from both zones, northern and southern, as well as sympathetic political parties and trade unions. The men met on May 27, 1943, in occupied Paris, in an apartment in the Latin Quarter, under the noses of their enemies. The group would become known as the Conseil National de la Rksistance (CNR)-a sort of makeshift parliament for a country muzzled by a foreign occupation and an illegitimate dictatorship. The CNR recognized de Gaulle as head of the provisional government, and it was in that capacity that de Gaulle, who never wore anything but the barest indications of rank on his uniform, would return to liberated Paris on August 25,1944. The domestic Resistance itself operated in two different settings,the northern and southern zones. It went through three partially overlapping phases, defined by the receding fortunes of the German war machine and the evolution of public opinion in France. From the summer of 1940 to the winter of 1942-1943, the chances of an outright Allied victory seemed slim. Indeed, for several months after the French defeat, Germany seemed on the brink of total victory. In this context, resistance was a truly exceptional response. Often isolated from each other and from the outside world-the first radio transmitters arrived, via Spain, in January 1941; the first Lysander landed on a clandestine airstrip in September 1941 -resistance groups developed their own organizations and political positions. Some (“networks”)concentrated on transmitting military intelligence and smugglmg Allied pilots to safety. Others (“movements”)fought for

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the hearts and minds of the population with whatever weapons they could muster: clandestine newspapers, tracts, graffiti [as when a royalist turned rbsistunt scrawled “Je n’aurais pas collabore” (“I would not have collaborated”) on an equestrian statue of Louis XN in Montpellier141. Groups and leaders ideologically opposed to the Nazi project tended also to reject Petain’s regime; groups and leaders motivated primarily by anti-German nationalist reflexes often maintained ties to people in the Vichy government and expressed sympathy for the goals (but not the circumstances) of Petain’s “nationalrevolution.” Developments during 1941 gradually turned the tide of the war. Against all expectations, Britain held fast, as the Royal Air Force and bad weather dissuaded Hitler from mounting a cross-Channel invasion. On June 2 2 , 1941, Germany instead struck the Soviet Union, hoping to achieve victory before winter. With the socialist fatherland under attack, communist organizations outside the Soviet Union, among them the French Communist Party, lost little time in throwing their support to the antiGerman resistance. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor finally brought the United States into the war. By late 1942, the Allies had invaded North Africa and the Germans were bogged down in Russia. France was fully occupied, the German stranglehold on French resources (including labor) was becoming more and more onerous, and the Vichy regime was becoming increasingly repressive. A German victory now seemed as uncertain as it had seemed inevitable two years earlier. A second phase of the Resistance began toward the end of 1942 and concluded in the fall of 1943. As their prospects for achieving final victory dimmed, the Nazis and their French allies became more vicious and more exigent toward the population: food rations dropped, the persecution of Jews became more obvious and more lethal, special units sought out rbsistunts, often torturing or killing those they captured, and the creation of the STO in early September 1942 accelerated the alienation of an already wary population. Thousands of young men headed for the underground, or rnuquis, providing the Resistance movements with foot soldiers. This period marked the unification, politicization, and militarization of the Resistance. Moulin’s mission was the most significant effort to umfy the Resistance, but cooperative ties among groups were also created independent of de Gaulle’sdirectives. The politicization of the Resistance-the reemergence of prewar parties as important players, the awareness that the PCF might well sabotage the reestablishment of democratic liberties, the long power struggle between General de Gaulle and General Henri Giraud-was a sure sign that the Liberation was on the horizon, and with it, the return of everyday politics. Likewise, the expectation of impending AUied landings and the increasing numbers of young men in the underground encouraged the militarization of movements that had previously focused on propaganda.

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By early 1944, the defeat of Germany and the Liberation of the continent seemed only a matter of time-though the time they took would of course be paid for in blood and suffering. The Resistance entered its final phase. In March, the CNR published a program outlining the government’sgoals for the Liberation and post-Liberation period. In metropolitan France, German troops and the units loyal to Vichy moved to crush local insurrections and concentrationsof Resistance troops. Civilian populationswere not spared: on June 9 , SS troops hanged ninety-ninepeople in Tulle, which Resistance fighters had too briefly liberated on the 7th; on the lo*, SS troops massacred the population of Oradour-sur-Glane,shooting the men and burning the women and children in the local church. Merciless battles were fought in the Glikres (March) and the Vercors (July). But on August 25, Paris was liberated by an insurrectionand by the troops and tanks of General Leclerc’sfabled 2 e m e Division blindbe (or 2“e DB, 2nd Armored Division). From a balcony of the HBtel de Ville, Charles de Gaulle summarized what would become the orthodox account of France’swartime stance: Why should we conceal the emotion that holds us alI in its grip?Paris! Paris vielated! Paris broken! Paris martyred! But Paris liberated! Liberated by herself, liberated by her people with the help of France’sarmies, with the support and the help of all of France, of the France that fights, of the only France, of true France, of eternal France.15

As quickly as the country could be liberated, the Provisional Government established its authority, foiling American plans to govern France as an occupied country.

“VICHY, A PAST THAT STAYED”16 The defeat of 1940 and the resulting occupation of the country reshuffled the political deck in France, submerging republican elites and institutions and catapulting formerly marginalized dissident individuals and groups into positions of power and influence.People who for years had execrated the Republic-for its alleged impotence and apparent instability, for its hostility to the Catholic Church, for its promise (however imperfectly fulfilled) of human equality and its inclusiveness-accepted the political opportunity their country’s military defeat had created for them. In doing so, they underestimated the differences between their own fundamentally conservative values and the revolutionary goals of their Nazi masters. At the same time, they overestimated their margin of maneuver, stubbornly reinterpreting moves made in a remotely perceived global drama in terms of the Franco-French struggle that defined their world. The continuing relevance of the wartime decade-from the antiregime agitation of 1934 through the constitutional debates and coalitional hesitations of

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the mid- to late-1940s-appears in three episodes that marked public life half a century after the Liberation of 1944- 1945.In the 1990s,a public debate over whether or not the Republic owed Jews an apology reopened the question of the relationship between the “FrenchState” of 1940-1944 and the republics that preceded and followed it (the Third and the Fourth). A concurrent controversy over President Franqois Mitterrand’s Resistance credentials compelled a confrontation with the complex and often ambivalent choices people had made during the Occupation. Finally, at the close of the millennium, the trial of a former Vichy official, Maurice Papon, posed the problem of whether and how to hold politicians and civil servants responsible for failing to stand by republican values after the Republic had been defeated.

What Kind of State Was the “FrenchState”? In the 1930s, the more radical elements of the French right shunned party and parliamentary politics. Instead, they organized extraparliamentary ligues and exploited the propaganda potential of friendly intellectuals (Charles Maurras, Robert Brasillach, Pierre Drieu la Rochelle) and of a particularly venomous partisan press. The Zigues specialized in noisy and sometimes violent street demonstrations in Paris. To the left-which in the polarized atmosphere of the 1930s included all those prepared to defend the Republic-the Zigues seemed similar to “fascist”movements in neighboring countries. The Vichy regime, staffed and supported by people who had sympathized with the Zigues and owing its survival to its readiness to collaborate with the Nazis, was often classified as fascist by its opponents. Political scientists generally contest this amalgamation.Nazism was defined by its use of a single mass party and the radical extension of state power, its destruction of traditional elites, its mobilization of an industrial economy for the purposes of worldwide domination, and its racialized view of political conflict. The French right, in contrast, loathed parties in general and the mass mobilization associated with single parties in particular. It sought to take power away from “artificial”(elected) political elites and return it to traditional social authorities (fathers, priests, property holders). It longed to perpetuate the stability and conservatismof France’srural, small-towneconomy. Unlike Germany, France had a long democratic tradition, and it was within the context of that tradition that the right understood political conflict. Its primary quarrel was not with a race, but with a political system: the republic. Despite these differences, the Vichy regime and the Nazis had a number of enemies in common-even if the enmities rested on different arguments and suggested different resolutions (exclusion in the French case, extermination in the German case). The common enemies included communists, socialists, Free Masons, simple democrats, Christians for whom faith was something more than a social habit, and Jews. The Nazis had a “solution”to the problem

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posed by the presence of such people: under the Third Reich, the German landscape was dotted with concentration camps, whose prisoners were often exploited as slave laborers. The regime also organized extermination camps, along with traveling death squads. Their purpose was to kill Jews, gypsies, and other “undesirables.”Most of the killing took place during the war, but political and racial persecution began as soon as the Nazis took power. As persecution within Germany increased and German strength became more menacing, many of those most directly threatened (political dissidents and Jews) sought refuge in France. After France’s defeat, the Vichy government withdrew the protection that had been extended to European anti-Nazis-Spanish republicans, German socialists, Czech patriots-on French territory. Cinema buffs will recognize these developments; they form the backdrop to the movie Casablanca. In real life, they spelled disaster for those involved. Individuals who could not get out of France went into hiding; those who were captured faced deportation and often death. ForeignJews-of whom there were some 150,000(about half the total Jewish population)-were easy targets. As their numbers had swelled and their demographic profile had changed in the 1930s, they had become increasingly unwelcome even under the Republic.” Vichy, genericallyxenophobic as well as antisemitic,was anxious to be rid of them, and the Germans were increasingly eager to deport them. Even French Jews quickly discovered that citizenship would no longer protect them against homegrown persecution. Within months of the defeat, the Vichy government adopted discriminatorylegislation. Jews, like other targets of the regime’shostility, were associated with republicanism and cosmopolitanism,both of which Vichy proposed to root out as part of its “national revolution.” But whereas Protestants, Free Masons, and even communists could shed the classification that made them enemies in Vichy’s eyes,Jews could not. Laws and decrees promulgated in the summer and early fall of 1940 stripped naturalized citizens, and especially Jews, of their French citizenship.The measures lifted legal prohibitions on the public expression of racial hatred; excluded Jews from influential positions in the civil service, the military, and the cultural world; and established numerical quotas for Jews wishing to enter the liberal professions. In adopting these measures, the Vichy government was pursuing its own agenda, but in doing so, it encouraged attitudes, generated information, and created bureaucratic structures without which the later implementation of the more lethal measures that figured on the Nazi agenda would have faced serious obstacles, If the Vichy government did not know what to do with the Jews it had degraded, the Nazis did. In the most notorious incident, French police officers, executing a plan devised by the German SS officialTheodor Dannecker, rounded up 12,884Jews on July 16 and 17, 1942. Dannecker’s plan had called for the arrest of 28,000 men, women, and children in and around Paris, but word of it got out. Many people hid; some committed suicide. Those who were seized-3,031 men, 5,802 women, and

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4,051 children-were parked in an indoor sports stadium (the so-called Ve1 dHiv), from whence they were deported. Most ended up at Auschwitz. Of the 75,000Jews deported from France during the war, only 3,000 survived. When Paris was liberated in August 1944, some Resistance leaders urged General de Gaulle to declare the Republic. In their eyes, a new regime was again replacing a fallen competitor. It was a familiar scene in French history, but de Gaulle refused to reenact it. To do so, he argued, would be to concede an undeserved legitimacy to the Vichy government. In his view, no government owing its creation to the triumph of foreign arms and to its willingness to sacrifice national sovereignty could claim legitimacy. The Vichy regime had of course exercised de facto power, but it had never enjoyed rightful authority. With the Liberation, the Republic had “returnedhome,” but it had never ceased to exist and there was therefore no need to declare it anew.18 Henceforth, de Gaulle’s position would be adopted by all successive French governments, regardless of their political composition. Not until the 1990s was the consensus seriously challenged. In the summer of 1992, a half century after the round-up of Jews in the Paris sports stadium, a group of intellectuals published an open letter to Mitterrand, demanding that he declare “the French State of Vichy . . . responsible for the persecutions and crimes against the Jews of France.”19Mitterrand refused. On February 3, 1993, the government announced that the persecution would be officially remembered each year on July 16, but Mitterrand maintained his position on the question of responsibility: They want the Republic, they want France to fall to her knees, to apologize for Vichy’s crime. Well, that, . . . I will never accept it because historically it is not right. The truth is that on July 10, 1940, the Republic handed Marshal Petain a blank check, without knowing what he would do with the unlimited power he was receiving. And on July 11, he did away with all republican forms of power. The Republic therefore has nothing to do with what happened from July 1 1 to the Liberation.Vichy was an accidental regime that existed only because of the enemy occupation.20

The controversy continued, splitting the left and the right internally, until July 1995, when the newly elected Gaullist president, Jacques Chirac, publicly evoked a “collective moral failure (faute)” and an “unending debt.” “Yes,”the President declared, “the criminal insanity of the occupying power was, as each of us knows, helped by French people, helped by the French State.”21Raymond Barre (born 1924), a former conservative prime minister (1976-1981), sided with Mitterrand and suggested that conflicting perceptions might be dependent on generational factors. The older generation had a more statecentered view of public life and was more likely to take abstractions like sovereignty and the republic seriously. No one contested the assertion that French people acting under cover of authority had engaged in acts

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of persecution. The Republic, however, had not engaged in such acts. It had left its usual venues on July 10, 1940. The “FrenchState”that had claimed to succeed it had been a pseudostate, without sovereignty and therefore without a true (much less a legitimate) existence. Acts of persecution are always despicable. Mitterrand and others also thought that forced confessions from innocent parties are never a good idea. They are a particularly bad idea when the innocent party in question (the Republic) is the structure on whose strength the enforcement and expansion of rights depend and when the forced confession has the effect of compromisingthat structure’slegitimacy. Younger men and women were less likely than their elders to value the state as such and more likely to identify with civil society; they were less likely to understand themselves simply as citizens and more inclined to define themselves as members of specific groups (Jews, women, immigrants,gays). To them, all the talkabout the Republic going away and cominghome seemed ludicrous. To their ears, concrete facts spoke louder than abstractions. They wrote off the appeal to abstractions as evidence of a kind of closet antisemitism, or simply as an effort to cover up unpleasant realities. This debate would recur repeatedly over a range of issues in the 1990%and we shall return to it in chapters 7 and 8.

Frangois M i t t e r r a n d . Hero or Impostor? In September 1994, the political commitments Franqois Mitterrand had made as a young man during the turbulent years between 1934 and 1947 became the focus of public controversy. The debate was occasioned by Pierre Pean’s biographical study, sigmficantly and appropriately entitled Une jeunesse francaise (“aFrench youthhood”).22Pean, a journalist too young (born 1938) to have had any personal experience of the Third Republic or the Occupation, had set out to investigate allegations that Mitterrand had once harbored “fascist”sympathies. In speaking of the war years, Mitterrand had always emphasized his escape from captivity in Germany and his role in the Resis tance. Pean’s research produced a more complex picture. To partisans and opponents alike, Charles de Gaulle had appeared an extraordinary figure. Mitterrand, in contrast, seemed far more representative of his times.23The times had lent themselves to ambiguous choices, and throughout a long political career, ambiguity was Mitterrand’strademark. Mitterrand, a provincial, had arrived in Paris in the fall of 1934. He was seventeen, and he planned to study law and political science. The political temperature in the capital had not dropped much in the months since the mass demonstrations and counterdemonstrations of February. On the right, conservatives denounced the alleged corruption of republican politicians and clamored for institutional reforms to strengthen governmental authority. Many conservatives valued order over freedom; if the Republic failed to sat-

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isfy their longing for strong leadership, they would not hesitate to look elsewhere. But as we have seen, very few subscribed to anything that can be meaningfully described as fascism: divided amongst themselves, conservatives rejected the fascist idea of a single mass party as well as the dynamism and revolutionary rhetoric fascist parties typically espoused. Ideologically, the right was nationalist and xenophobic, virulently anticommunist,and less consistently antisemitic. The left was also divided, not just because republicans, socialists, and communists all competed for the allegiance of left-wing voters, but also because they differed over important substantive issues, including how far they should go in implementing social and economic reforms in the event of an electoral victory and how best to respond to the nascent fascist threat. The adolescent who got off the train and reported to his Catholic boarding house in 1934 was decades away from any socialistcommitment. Catholic,middle-class, and provincial, Mitterrand was, so to speak, born to conservatism.His immediate family was not hostile to the Republic, but many family friends and relations were: some were royalists, others were involved in extremist rightwing groups. In Paris, the young Mitterrand did what most seventeen-year-olds do: he tried to find himself. With the future of democracy hanging in the balance, he met risks at every turn:to his generation, experimenting with political ideas could be as dangerousmorally (and as exciting) as experimenting with drugs would be physically dangerous to a subsequent generation. Mitterrand read voraciously, attended to his religious duties, and flirted with the opposite sex, but he also joined the youth branch of a right-wingligue, the Croix defeu. Photographs show him in the company of nationalist students demonstrating against a Jewish law professor, otherwise unpopular because of the tough grades he dispensed, who was helping the Ethiopians plead their case in the League of Nations against Italian aggression. In the fall of 1938, Mitterrand began his obligatory military service. Normally, a young man of his social class would have served as an officer, but Mitterrand was too much of an individualist to be considered officer material: “a uniform,”he wrote the future wife of his brother Robert in November 1939, “wounds anyone who loves life.”2*He did, however, make sergeant, and it was as a sergeant that he sustained a chest wound near Verdun on June 14, 1940. Made prisoner, he was interned in a camp in eastern Germany. Twice he escaped, and twice he was recaptured; on his first attempt, he walked three hundred forty miles from Thuringia to the Swiss border before being apprehended. On his third try, he succeeded. Mitterrand returned to France in December 1941 (the month the Japanese attacked the American fleet at Pearl Harbor). By mid-January 1942, using family connections, he had secured a job at Vichy, working for the office in charge of former prisoners of war. He was now twenty-five years old. He admired Petain, and he identified with the thousands of men who, like himself, had

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escaped captivity in Germany and with the million and a half who were still languishing in German camps. But the political and military situation was evolving, and so was public opinion. The United States was now in the war, although neither the United States nor the Soviet Union had yet withdrawn diplomatic recognition from Vichy. On April 16, 1942, Pierre Laval returned to power, replacing Admiral Darlan, on whose staff Mitterrand’sbrother-in-law had served. On April 19, General Giraud, into whose family Mitterrand’ssister Colette had married, eluded his German captors. Both Darlan and Giraud moved to line up with the Allies after the Germansoccupiedthe southern zone in November 1942. Darlan was assassinated in December 1942; Giraud was supported by the Americans, who hoped to use him to counterbalance the less pliable de Gaulle. Meanwhile, collaborationist figures and policies became increasinglyprominent at Vichy. At the end of January 1943, Vichy created the Milice, a sort of auxiliary police force specializing in political repression and racial persecution, In February, three age cohorts were mobilized for obligatory work service in Germany. Sometime in the late spring or early summer of 1943, Mitterrand was awarded the Francisque, a decoration Vichy used to recognize people deemed to have served the regime’svalues before as well as afterJuly 1940. Normally, recipients were required to swear an oath of personal loyalty to Petain. Accounts of when and how Mitterrand received the decoration vary; Mitterrand claimed that he accepted the medal because its display in his buttonhole provided a useful cover for his Resistance activities.Mitterrand’sloyalties had in fact been shifting. Already in the summer of 1942, he had participated in discussions that would soon lead to the creation of a Resistance network in which he would be a key player. As “CaptainMorland,”Mitterrand would go to London in November 1943 and then on to Algiers, where he met General de Gaulle in early December. In many respects, Mitterrand’s Resistance organization-the Rassemblement national desprisonniers de guerre (National Movement of Prisoners of War, RNPG)-reflected his own personality, experience, and politics. Its primary audience was former prisoners of war, and it included many people who had gradually shifted their allegiance from Vichy to the Resistance. It was not Gaullist, and throughout and after the war, Mitterrand was bitterly denounced by de Gaulle’sintemperate nephew, Michel Cailliau,head of a rival but numerically weaker organization. Mitterrand’s group also kept its distance from groups sponsored by the Communist Party, with which Caillau, though more conservative than Mitterrand, was cooperating. Mitterrands leadership eventually prevailed-with de Gaulle’sassent. On several occasions, Mitterrand narrowly escaped arrest. At the Liberation, he was named acting minister in charge of the welfare of former prisoners of war. Such was the past that Pean’s book evoked. Mitterrand had cooperated with Pean, and had not anticipated the critical reactions the book would

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elicit. During the ensuing debate, the President added fuel to the controversy by claiming to have known nothing about Vichy’s anti-Jewish legislation while he was at Vichy and by defending his long postwar association with Rene Bousquet. Bousquet (1909-1993) had been charged and incarcerated at the Liberation. In mid-1949, the High Court had judged his behavior “regrettable,” but not treasonous; it had condemned him to five years of “indignite nationale” (a new penalty that entailed a loss of civic rights) but had immediately lifted the sentence in recognition of services Bousquet had rendered the Resistance during and after his term as chief of police. Bousquet subsequently pursued a successful career in business, and exerted political influence through his control over the DrfpGche du Midi, an important provincial newspaper. His wartime activities came to public attention again at the end of the 1970s,and in September 1989,Serge Klarsfeld (born 1935) demanded he be tried for crimes against humanity.25Mitterrand,by then president of the Republic, had sought to block prosecution of the case. On June 8,1993, Bousquet was shot dead in his Paris apartment by Christian Didier (born 1944), a mentally disturbed would-be writer looking for attention. On the left, many people found Mitterrands postwar relations with Bousquet even harder to swallow than the accounts of his lingeringprftuinistesympathies during the war. LionelJospin (born 1937)was the leader of the Socialist Party throughout Mitterrands first term as president and served as a cabinet minister during Mitterrand’ssecond term. “Onemight have hoped that the man who was the leader of the French left in the 1970s and 1980s could have had a simpler, clearer itinerary,”he told the newsweekly Le Point, adding: “WhatI can’t understand is that he maintained relations, right up into the 1980s, with people like Bousquet, the organizer of the great round-upsof Jews.”26 Mitterrand is in some ways a unique case. Few of his compatriots shared his lifelong penchant for games of duplicity and double identity (exemplified by his parallel family lives, one with his wife, the other with one of his mistresses). At the same time, few could boast his Resistance record, regardless of the ambiguities that attended it. But in other and important ways, Mitterrand was a representative figure. He had wasted few tears on the Third Repub lic; he had admired Petain and believed in the marshal’spatriotism; even in the Resistance, he had been neither a Gaullist nor a communist; and he had maintained contacts and friendships across political lines that to others (especially to those born later) looked like moral chasms. In 1995, the historian Philippe Burrin evoked “thevast gray zone which is, in fact, the dominant blot of color in the panorama of Zes unndes noires [“theblack years,” an expression commonly used to denote the years between 1940 and 1944].”27The Mitterrand of 1941 to 1943, like the Mitterrand of the mid-l93Os, belongs to that “gray zone.”Mitterrand, in addition to his duplicitous tendencies, had a wellearned reputation for remaining faithful to his friends. In the postwar years, he stuck by the people he had known in the gray zone. But by the 1990s,the effort to

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understand the world of the 1930s and 1940s seemed too demanding to a new generation raised in a very different world, and gray seemed simply uniformly comtemptible. Mitterrands leadership reshaped the left in the 1960s and 1970s. He was a complex and in many ways unattractive man. In the 1990%the ambiguities of his wartime record provided ready ammunition for people who, by taking aim at Mitterrand, in fact targeted a political style and a set of postwar political choices that had run their historical course. We shall hear a great deal more about that style and those choices later in this book.

Maurice Papon. The Responsibilities of a Schreibtischtiter28 The Allied landings in Normandy began on June 6, 1944. As community after community was liberated, there was dancing in the streets. There were also executions. About ten thousand people were put to death, the vast majority in the heat of the moment and before formal courts could be organized. In its p r o gram, the Resistance had promised to rid French public, social, and cultural life of people who had sided with the Germans or profited from the Occupation, but the existinglegal code did not facilitate what would in any event have been a difficult task. The offense for which “collaborators”were typically prosecuted was treason, not crimes against humanity; the Nuremberg International Tribunal, which created the jurisprudence that now undergitds charges of crimes against humanity (the crime itself was created by the London Charter, signed on August 8,1945), did not meet until November 1945 and rendered its verdict only at the end of September 1946. Top political figures and the most visible and vocal proponents of collaboration paid for their commitments. Petain was tried in the summer of 1945, convicted, and sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted, and he died in prison in 1951. Pierre Laval was tried in Octo ber 1945, convicted, and shot. Others were already dead Philippe Henriot, Vichy’s minister of information, was killed by the Resistance in June 1944. Joseph Darnand,head of the Milice, was tried in liberated Paris, convicted, and executed on October 10, 1945. Jacques Doriot was killed in Germany in February 1945, before French justice could lay hands on him,Marcel DCat fled to a Tyrolian convent. In the world of culture, Robert Brasillach, a talented and influentialjournalist who had vilified the Republic in the 1930s and pleaded the fascist cause in the columns ofJe subpartout in occupied Paris, was tried, convicted, and shot in February 1945;other well-knownfigures, including the novelist Louis-Ferdinand Celine, took refuge abroad Drieu la Rochelle committed suicide. In the economic world, the automaker Louis Renault died in prison in 1944; his company was confiscated and nationalized by the government. The state administration and the military were partially purged, despite an absence of uniform standards and an abundance of ambiguous evidence.

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The events of the war years were evoked in French courtrooms in the 195Os, but again, the focus was not on crimes against humanity. On June 21, 1943,Jean Moulin was seized by the Gestapo as he arrived for a meeting in Caluire, a small town near Lyon. Someonehad clearly tipped offthe Germans. Moulin died under torture, probably on July 8. The circumstances suggested that he had been betrayed by a Resistance comrade, Rent Hardy. Hardy (1911-1987) was tried amidst great publicity in 1947 and again in 1950, but never convicted. By the 1980s, interest had shifted-and the normal functioning of legal rules, especially statutes of limitation, also redirected legal strategies. The patriotism on which earlier generations had been raised now seemed at best quaint. The nature of Gaullism was changing: its heroic period was over. De Gaulle left power in 1969 and died in 1970. The war generation was being replaced by a new generation:Jacques Chirac, who recreated a Gaullist party in 1976, was born in 1932. The PCF, which had been so active in the Resistance after 1941 and had so vociferously exploited its Resistance image after the war, had entered a period of historic decline. For many on the left, the Jacobin republic had fallen from grace: it was too statecentered, too assimilationist, and too convinced of its own superior knowledge and competence. In this context, a new set of crimes and criminals assumed importance. In May 1987, Klaus Barbie (born 1913) went on trial in Lyon. Lyon was often referred to as the capital of the Resistance, and Barbie, an SS officer assigned to Lyon in November 1942 and given responsibility for repressing “political crimes,”was known as its “butcher.”Jean Moulin was only his most famous victim. In 1952 and 1954,French courts had found Barbie guilty in absentia of war crimes-the torture, murder, and deportation of arrested r&sistunts,the execution of hostages-and sentenced him to death. Protected by American intelligence and using a false name, Barbie had eluded punishment, eventually settling in Bolivia. By the time he was brought back to France in 1983,his sentence had lapsed and the statute of limitations for war crimes had run out. The Barbie trial demonstrated the importance of new constraints, constituencies, and concerns. Even before the war had ended, Allied and Resistance voices had warned that existing penal law and procedural rules might get in the way of “justice.”As the writer and r6sistunt Albert Camus put it, “Thereis no law that addresses the form of treason we have all known.”29As time passed, the legal situation grew more complicated. Forty years after the war’s end, the only crime for which Barbie could still be prosecuted was crimes against humanity: for this crime and this crime only, by virtue of a December 1964 parliamentary vote, French law recognized no statute of limitations. The French vote had been intended to keep legal options open should German statutes of limitations place Nazi criminals beyond the reach of German law. The Germans eventuallyabolished the statute of limitations for both genocide and murder, while in France, only crimes against humanity remained

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actionable. At Nuremberg and elsewhere, however, postwar prosecutors had shied away from charges based on crimes against humanity: they were uncomfortable with the retroactive character of the charge and the ambiguities of its definition. They preferred to cite defendants for crimes against peace and for war crimes, where jurisprudential traditions were more established. As defined by the London Charter, the Nuremberg Tribunal, and the United Nations, crimes against humanity are crimes (“Murder,extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts”)committed against civilians. The import of this stipulation became clear as French prosecutors sought to draw up articles of indictment against Barbie. Rgsistants, whom the Nazis had stigmatized as terrorists and bandits, had always insisted on being recognized as soldiers. This insistence now placed crimes committed against them beyond the reach of the law.Jews, in contrast, were clearly civilians;crimes committed against them were actionable.On August 1 1,1944, a train loaded with over 650 prisoners left Lyon for Germany: Barbie, prosecutorial authorities ruled, could be charged only for the deportation of prisoners who were Jews and were being deported for that reason alone. The ruling was partially reversed in December 1985 by the Court of Appeals, which interpreted another clause of the text defining crimes against humanity (“persecutionson political, racial or religious grounds,when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime”)to apply to the deportation of combatants as well as of civilians.30 The original ruling nonetheless contributed to latent tensions already building between the various constituencies most directly interested in the trial. Previous trials had pitted “France”or the Resis tance against traitors and war criminals.The central victims in the Barbie trial were Jews defined as such-not simply civilians and not r6sistants:the indictment held Barbie responsible for the round-up of eighty-sixmen, women, and children arrested at the offices of the Union g&n&ale des isra6lites de France on February 9, 1943 and for the arrest, on April 6, 1944, of forty-fourJewish children and seven adults who had been sheltered at Izieu, a small town near Lyon. Of the eighty-six people arrested at the UGIF offices, eighty-two were deported to Auschwitz, and of these eighty-two, three returned. The people arrested at Izieu were deported; one adult survived. The shift in emphasis from treason to crimes against humanity and from the imperialist character of the Nazi project to its genocidal program was not simply the result of legal accidents. By the 1980s, resistants were no longer politically and culturally dominant in France; they were old men and women, and the normal course of intergenerational interaction often made their children inclined to disown the official emphasis on la France rgsistante. Postwar Jewish generations,in contrast, questioned the silence and the assimilationist aspirations of their parents. This was true not just in France: it was during the 1970s and 1980s that the word Holocaust entered the public vocabulary and began

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to restructure understandings of World War 11.31In the United States,the series “Holocaust”captured a television audience; it was rebroadcast in France in 1978, in the wake of a particularly appalling interviewwith the still rabidly antisemitic Darquier de Pellepoix, undisturbed in his Spanish exile.32 Claude Lanzmann’s eight-hourmovie Shoah appeared,to acclaim and controversy,in 1985. But in France, special circumstances shaped the new assertiveness of the Jewish community: the hostility of the Jacobin state to identity politics, the relatively pro-Arab posture of French governments after the ArabIsraeli Six-Day War of June 1967, the rise of the National Front (whose racism was directed primarily against Arabs, but whose politics drew on a political tradition steeped in antisemitism), a series of antisemitic incidents in the 1980s, and, of course, the ongoing debate about wartime commitments.33As Resistance voices faded, Jewish voices grew louder. Serge Klarsfeld, who played an important role in the Barbie case as a lawyer for the civil plaintiffs,offered a magmfied version of a not uncommon evolution. Until the mid-l96Os, Klarsfeld’s career seemed unlikely to bring his name to public attention. He had studied history and political science, then taken a job first with the stateawned broadcasting company and later with Continental Grains. The birth of his son-named for his own father, who had died in the Nazi camps-and the Six-DayWar changed his life: he became a professional Nazi hunter and memorialist of Holocaust victims.34 On July 4,1987, Klaus Barbie was convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison. Other trials followed,attended by the same sorts of legal difficultiesand politicization. In 1946 and 1947,Paul Touvier (born 1915), a leader of the Milice for the region around Lyon, had been condemned to death in absentia on charges of treason. Touvier remained in hiding for over two decades, until his death sentence legally expired. He then surfaced and had the effrontery to demand that penalties assessed against his estate be lifted. In November 1971, he obtained a pardon from President Georges Pompidou. Soon, however, charges against him were revived, and again he disappeared. On May 24,1989,Touvier was arrested at a convent in Nice, where he had been hiding for years. As in the Barbie case, the only legally possible charge was crimes against humanity, but this time, the defendant was French. Touvier had been the committed and brutal servant of the Vichy regime in its most violent phase. This was the point the prosecution hoped to make. Touvier was charged with ordering the execution of seven hostages, all Jews, in retaliation for the assassination of Philippe Henriot by the Resistance. The hostages were killed in W e u x (near Lyon) onJune 29,1944,the day after Henriot’sdeath. The pros ecution assembled its case using the definition of crimes against humanity that had emerged from the Barbie trial. That definition,while blurring the prior dis tinction between civilians and combatants, had introduced a requirement that the acts in question have been committed in accordance with the “established plan” of a “state pursuing a policy of ideological hegemony.”In April 1992, a court dismissed the charges against Touvier; the judges argued that Vichy had

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lacked the political coherence necessary to quallfy as a “statepursuing a policy of ideological hegemony. The decision provoked a public outcry and protests by well-knownhistorians,and in November, it was partially reversed on appeal. Touvier was finally tried in the spring of 1994. He was convicted and given a life term but only because the prosecution argued-against its previous positions and its better judgment-that Touvier’scrimes could be traced to German orders.35 In the meantime, as we have seen, efforts to bring Rene Bousquet to trial were aborted when the former police chief was gunned down. Even without the assistance of assassins, death was thinning the ranks of those who could be brought to book for wartime acts. The elimination of Bousquet was particularly unfortunate, and not just because of the enormous effort public prosecutors and private parties (especially Serge Klarsfeld) had put into building the case against him. Jospin’sdescription of Bousquet as “theorganizer of the great round-ups of Jews” alluded to only half of Bousquet’s story. Bousquet was not a committed Nazi, like Barbie, nor was he an antisemitic, anticommunist, antidemocratic thug like Touvier. Bousquet’srapid rise through the administrative ranks of the state had happened during the decade before the defeat of 1940. His politics had been unremarkably centrist; his patrons, including Pierre Laval, were far more interested in the clientelist advantages of power than ideology of any sort. Bousquet apparently saw no reason why the defeat should interrupt his promising career. In September 1940, he became France’syoungest prefect. When he became Vichy’schief police official in April 1942, the job carried cabinet rank. His lack of ideological commitment did not prevent him from knowingly ordering and organizing police operations that led to the detention, torture, deportation, and/or death of a very long list of rksistants, Jews, and others. But the terrible things he did left his politics relatively untouched: he remained a centrist, which is why his actions had become ambiguous enough to prompt his arrest by the Gestapo in June 1944 and why he found his feet-and his friends-so quickly in the Fourth Republic. Bousquet had no need to flee to Spain, like Darquier, or to a reactionary priory, like Touvier. Unlike Darquier and Touvier, he did not embrace despicability;on the contrary, he was gray through and through, and thus far more representative of his contemporaries than were Darquier and Touvier. His trial might have served important educational functions, but it never happened. On October 8,1997,Maurice Papon went on trial in a Bordeaux courtroom. The eighty-seven-year-oldman, whose age and physical fragility were often cited by his lawyers, was not accustomed to appearing in a position of weakness. Papon was a commander in the Legion of Honor, a well-connected former civil servant, Gaullist deputy, and cabinet minister. Until 1981, his most controversial post had been his service as prefect of police in Paris from 1958 to 1966. On October 17,1961,a peaceful but unauthorized demonstrationby

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thirty thousand pro-independence Algerians resulted in fifteen thousand arrests and some one hundred deaths; beaten bodies were found the next day floating in the Seine. Papon defended his men: “The Parisian police did what it had to d0.”36 Twenty years later, Papon was serving as conservativePresident Valery Gis card d’Estaing’sbudget minister. The country was in the midst of a presidential campaign in which Giscard would ultimately be defeated. On May 6, 1981, the Parisian Canard enchain&,a well-financed, left leaning satirical weekly with a long record of investigative scoops, published an article implicating Papon in the deportation of Jews in 1942. From 1942 to 1944, Papon had in fact been secretary general of the regional government of the Gironde-a sort of deputy prefect, an official who did not make policy, but was instrumentalin overseeing its implementation.His hierarchical superior, the regional prefect, Maurice Sabatier,would die in 1990, when prosecutors still hoped to bring Bousquet to trial. Evidence of Papon’s role in the deportation of Jews had surfaced in the regional archives. Papon brushed off the charges made by the Canard. The right rose to his defense, denouncing what it considered politically motivated smear tactics undertaken in the midst of a closely contested presidential campaign. Papon had not cut a high profile in the Vichy administration, and he could point to a record of having assisted the Resistance from the beginning of 1943. Unlike Bousquet, he was not a man long known to have skeletons in his closetunless, of course, Algerian bones counted, and for most people, they did not (or not ye0.37 For sixteen years, the charges against Papon wended their way through the French judicial system. Finally, he was indicted for crimes against humanity: he was accused of having actively facilitatedthe arrest of over fifteen hundred Jews. The arrested men, women, and children had first been interned in the French holding camp at Drancy (outside of Paris, now on the rail line that links the city to Charles de Gaulle Airport), and then deported to extermination camps. Almost none had returned. The Papon trial lasted six months-a record in the annals of French judicial history. From start to finish, it was held under the spotlights of national (and international) attention. Politicians and civic leaders weighed in. Journalists provided day-byday coverage and commentary. Historians took the stand to testlfy in what many people saw as the trial of the French civil service. Self-styled representatives of Vichy’s victims appeared inside and outside the courtroom. Very few of the participants in the courtroom drama were old enough to have first-hand knowledge of the events and dilemmas under consideration. In the end, Papon was convicted of involvement in the unjustified arrest and sequestration of dozens of people and condemned to ten years in prison. He was, however, acquitted of being an accessory to murder. It was an odd end-

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ing for a trial that had been billed as the trial of the Vichy regime, and no one was fully satisfied. “Thisverdict,”h c Conan concluded, . . again illustrates the impossibility of melding the messages of law, memory, pedagogy, and Hist0ry.”3~ In a country and at a time when political battles seemed increasingly to erupt over issues of memory, identity, and history, the trial had at least suggested some of the pitfalls of framing political fights around such questions. I‘.

THE LEGACIES The defeat of 1940, however important its immediate causes, was not an iso lated incident. The political divisions of the 1930s were aggravated by “the exhaustion of a great power that felt itself becoming demographically and economically weaker, and that feared a decline in its status [ddchsement].”39 Postwar developments-the rise of the superpowers, the traumas of decolonization-seem to confirm that loss of rung, making memories of the defeat, the armistice, and the policies and politics of the Vichy government all the more difficult to process, both psychologically and politically. Political debate about World War I1 was shaped by what was happening to the French state and to civil society, and over the years, its focus changed (as did the interests of historians studying the period). In the first decades after the war, the emphasis was on definitions of treason and on how commitments could be measured against various definitions of loyalty. This emphasis was consonant with ongoing questions about institutional arrangements and political legitimacy, contested colonial wars, and the polarizing presence of a strong communist party. It generated a parliamentary inquest into the causes of the defeat.40 It fueled arguments about the options that had remained available to the government in Paris once it had become clear that French forces had been defeated in the field. It renewed the assertions of semirepentant supporters of Vichy, who contended that de Gaulle and Petain had been equally necessary defenders of French interests, the former serving as the defeated country’s “sword,”while the latter provided the country’s exposed population with a “shield.”It sustained debates about the role of the PCF in the Resistance and about the party’sgoals at the Liberation. It encouraged analyses of why hopes for a new kind of politics were disappointed at the Liberation. It was accompanied by a glorification of the Resistance and the celebration of French sacrifices. It reached what may have been its apogee in the ceremony marking the inscription of Jean Moulin’s name at the Pantheon on December 19, 1964. “Aux grands hommes,” reads the frontispiece of the building, “la patrie reconnaissante”(“to its great men, from a grateful country”). The novelist and former rdsistunt Andre Malraux (1901-1976), then serving as minister of culture in de Gaulle’s government, eulogized the Resistance hero in a speech that is both unforgettable and now

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very dated. “The homage we render today,” Malraux concluded, “can end only with the song we will now hear,“ ce Chant des Partisans que j’ai entendu murmurer c o m e un chant de complicite, puis psalmodier dans le brouillard des Vosges et les bois d’Alsace, m2le au cri perdu des moutons des tabors, quand les bazookas de C o d z e avanpient a la rencontre des chars de Rundstedt lances de nouveau contre Strasbourg. Ecoute aujourd’hui, jeunesse de France, ce qui fut pour nous le Chant du Malheur. C’est la marche funebre des cendres que voici. A cBte de celles de Carnot avec les soldats de 1’An11, de celles de Victor Hugo avec les Miserables, de celles de Jaures veillees par la Justice, qu’elles reposent avec leur long cortege d’ombres defigurees. Aujourd’hui,jeunesse, puissestu penser a cet homme c o m e tu aurais approche tes mains de sa pauvre face informe du dernier jour, de ses levres qui n’avaient pas parle; ce jour-lh,elle etait le visage de la Fran~e.4~

By the 1970s,de Gaulle was gone, republican institutions seemed secure, the Communist Party was trying to reposition itself as the anchor of a leftwing coalition capable of winning national elections, and economic worries had replaced foreign policy ambitions at the top of the public agenda. A new generation of historians reexamined the record of the Vichy government, arguing that Petain and his associates had not simply acted under German pressure, but had often taken the initiative in developing policies demonstrably hostile to republican principles and human rights.42 In the 1980s, the left was in power in France. The decentralizationreforms adopted by the government in 1982 were one indication among many that state-society relations in France were changing.Jacobinism was on the defensive. Republican secularism found it had no adequate response when Muslim parents demanded that their daughters be allowed to wear headscarves in school. Elements within the French Jewish community also became more assertive. In the meantime, the Soviet empire collapsed, and with the inauguration of democratization efforts across the globe, the invocation of human rights and the demand that perpetrators of human rights violations be held accountable became common elements of public discourse across national boundaries. Given the new scholarship on Vichy, the mobilization of the Jewish community, and the new emphasis on human rights, the focus on what had happened to Jews in wartime France and the effort to assign responsibility answered the priorities and responded to the sensibilities of a new generation. The past remained present, and each present held up a different image of the past. But beyond the ongoing debates, one thing was clear. World War I1 changed Europe-and France-forever. Culturally, the defeat and the subsequent realization that France’s fate was inseparable from the outcome of a truly global struggle helped forge elites who were less self-satisfied and less insular than their prewar counterparts. Economically, the war shook up assumptions and habits, paving the way for postwar planning and transformation. Politically, the Vichy experience disqualified dictatorship as a desir-

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able form of government, while participation in the Resistance brought both Catholics and communistsinto the republican fold. The Cold War would once again pit the PCF against the republican order, but while Zui’cite‘ would periodicallyreemerge as a contentious issue, the war between the Church and the Republic that had opened during the Revolution was now largely over. The military and political catastrophes of 1940 had demonstrated again the dangers of internecinedivisions. Resistance leaders hoped to find a political settlement that would allow Fmce to move beyond those divisions.As in the past, such a settlement proved painfully elusive. Instead of the anticipated domestic settlement, there was an unanticipated international settlement. Europe’s fate rested in the hands of the two new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. Peace came to Europe-but not, as it turned out, to France.

RECOMMENDED READING Azerna, Jean-Pierre,and Franqois Bedarida, eds. La France des annbes noires. 2 vols. Paris: Le Seuil, 1993. Boulanger, Gerard. Maurice Papon, un technocratefraqais dam la collaboration. Paris: Le Seuil, 1994. -. Papon, un inhus d a m la Rbpublique. Paris: Le Seuil, 1997. Burrin, Philippe. France under the Germans: Collaboration and Compromise. Trans. Janet Lloyd. New York: New Press, 1996. Conan, Eric and Henry Rousso. Vichy:A n Ever-Present Past. Trans. Nathan Bracher. Hanover, NH:University Press of New England, 1998. Conan, Eric. Leproces Papon: Unjournal daudience. Paris: Gallimard, 1998. Cordier, Daniel. Jean Moulin, L’inconnu du Pantbbon. Vol. 1, Une ambition pour la Rbpublique,juin 1899-juin 1936. Paris: J. C. Lattes, 1989. (Preface) Durand, Yves. La France dans la deuxiemeguewe mondiale. 2nd ed. Paris: Armand Colin, 1993. -. Vichy, 1940-1944. Paris: Bordas, 1972. Hoffrnann, Stanley. Decline or Renewal?France since the 1930s. New York Viking, 1974. (Part I> Jackson, Julian. France: The Dark Years, 1940-1944. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Kaplan, Alice. The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Kedward, H . R. In Search of the Maquis: Rural Resistance in Southern France, 1942-1944. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. -. Resistance in Vichy France: A Study of Ideas and Motivation in the Southern Zone, 1940-1942. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. Laborie, Pierre. L’opinionfraqaise sous Vichy. Paris: Le Seuil, 1990. Marrus, Michael R., and Robert 0. Paxton. Vichy France and the Jews. New York: Basic Books, 1981. May, Ernest. Strange Victoty:Hitler’s Conquest of France. New York: Hill and Wang, 2000.

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Michel, Henri. Les courants depenske de la Rksistance. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1962. Novick, Peter. The Resistance versus Vichy:The Purge of Collaborators in Liberated France. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968. Paxton, Robert 0.VichyFrance: Old Guard and New order, 1940-1944. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972. Rousso, Henry. The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944. Trans. Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991.

Documents and Memoirs Bloch, Marc. Strange Defeat:A Statement of Evidence Written in 1940. (1946) Trans. Gerard Hopkins. London: Oxford University Press, 1949. Bourdet, Claude. L’aventure incertaine: de la Rksistance a la restauration. Paris: Stock, 1975. Frenay, Henri. La nuitpnira. Paris: Robert Laffont, 1973. Iaval, Pierre. Leproc&sLaval. Paris: Albin Michel, 1946. Michel, Henri, and Boris Guetzevitch, eds. Les id6espolitiques et sociales de la Rksistance (Documents clandestins- 1940- 1944). Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1954. Perret, Jacques. Bande apart. Paris: Gallimard, 1951. Semprun, Jorge. Legrand voyage (The Long Voyage).Paris: Gallimard, 1963. Tillon, Charles. On chantait rouge. Paris: Robert Laffont, 1977. Le proc& de Maurice Papon, 8 octobre 1997-8 janvier 1998. 2 vols. Paris: Albin Michel, 1998. Quahe proc&sde trahison devant la Cour de justice a2 Paris: Paquis, Bucard, Luchaire,Brasillach,requisitoires etplaidoiries.Paris: Les Editions de Paris, 1947.

Novels Antelme, Robert. L’esp&cehumaine (The Human Race). Rev. ed. Paris: Gallimard, 1957. Camus, Albert. La Peste (The Plague). Paris: Gallimard, 1947. Curtis,Jean-Louis.Lesfor& de la nuit (The Forests of the Night). Paris:Julliard, 1947. Dutourd, Jean. Au bon beurre, ou, DLx ans de la vie d’un crkmier (The Best Butter). Paris: Gallimard, 1952. Malraux, Andre. La condition humaine (Man’sFate). Paris: Gallimard, 1933;rev. ed. 1969. Vercors. Le silence de la mer (The Silence of the Sea). Paris: Editions de minuit, 1942.

1. For a path-breaking analysis of these arguments, see Henry Rousso, Le syndr6me de Vichy de 1944 a nos jours, rev. ed. (Paris: Le Seuil, 1990), as well as Eric Conan and Henry Rousso, Vichy: Unpassd qui nepassepas (Paris: Fayard, 1994).

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2. The title of Marc Bloch’s penetrating contemporary analysis of the defeat: Strange Defeat: A Statement of Evidence Written in 1940, trans. Gerard Hopkins @ondon:Oxford University Press, 1949). 3. Charles Maurras, L’Action franGaise, April 9, 1935, cited in Louis Bodin and Jean Touchard, eds., Frontpopulaire 1936 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1972), pp. 31-32. Blum was as French as Maurras; he was born in Paris in 1872 to parents of Alsatian origin.Traitors were executed by firing squad; the implication of Maurras’s statement is that Blum deserved to be treated as something worse even than a traitor. 4. M a m , L’ActionfranGaise,October 13, 1935, cited in Bodin and Touchard, eds., Frontpopulaire 1936, p. 32. Until the left in power abolished the death penalty in 1981, murderers were guillotined. 5. Neville Chamberlain, September 28, 1938, cited in David Thomson, England in the TwentiethCentury, 1914- I963 (Harmondsworth,Middlesex, U.K.: Penguin, 1965), p. 175. In 1937, the year Neville Chamberlain became prime minister, his brother, who had served as foreign secretary in the 1920s,told him:“Neville,you must remember you don’t know anything about foreign affairs.”Cited in Peter Clarke, Hope and Cloy: Britain, 1900-1990 (Harmondsworth,Middlesex, U.K.: Penguin, 1996),p. 184. 6. Figures cited by Philippe Burrin, La France a l’heure allemande, 1940- 1944 (Paris: Le Seuil, 1995), p. 11. Ernest May puts French battle deaths at 124,000,with 200,000wounded; see May, Strange Victoy :Hitler’s Conquest of France (New York Hill and Wang, 2000), p. 7. 7. Text of speech in Charles de Gaulle, Discours et Messages, vol. 1, Pendant la guerre, 1940-1946@aris:Plon, 1970), pp. 4-5. “Francehas lost a battle” was the first line of a Free French poster that went up in London in July 1940. The next line read: “But France has not lost the war!” “Accidental leaders [Des gouvernants de rencontre] ,” the tract continued, “may have capitulated, yielding to panic, forgetting their honor, delivering the country into servitude. Still, the game is not over!” The text of the poster is reproduced in Charles de Gaulle, Discours et messages, vol. 1, Pendant la guerre, 1940-1946 (Paris: Plon, 1970), p. 21. 8. SeeJean-PierreAzema, De Munich a la Libkration, 1938- 1944 (Paris:Le Seuil, 1979), p. 62. 9. Cited in Philippe Burrin, La France a l’heure allemande, 1940-1944 (Paris: Le Seuil, 1995), p. 31. 10. Radio address, June 17, 1940, text in Philippe Petain, Discours a w FranGais, 17juin 1940-20 aoat 1944, ed. Jean-Claude Barbas (Paris: Albin Michel, 1989), p. 59. 11. Andre Malraux, “Transferdes cendres de Jean Moulin au Pantheon,”December 19, 1964, in Andre Malraux, Le miroir des limbes (Paris: Gallimard, 1976), p. 991. 12. These estimates are very hard to make and depend on definitions. Burrin puts the turning point quite early. Already in the fall of 1940, he writes, “the majority of the population wanted England to win and demonstrated attitudes toward collaborationism that ranged from skepticism to hostility” (from La France l’heure allemande, 1940-1944, p. 186). For a nuanced treatment of the many shades and determinants of public opinion, see chapter 12 of Burrin’sbook. 13. We will consider de Gaulle’s wartime role more fully in chapter 4. 14. The author of this act was Jacques Renouvin. Renouvin, by profession a lawyer, had been a member of the Action franGaise and the equally right-wing Camelots du Roi but broke with the right over its acceptance of appeasement at Munich: always

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ready to express his views in action, Renouvin responded to the news that the centerright politician Pierre-Etienne Flandin had sent congratulatorytelegrams to summit participants by slapping the former minister in public. When war came, Renouvin volunteered for a combat unit. He later helped organize the Resistance movement Combat. His efforts to demonstrate that passivity in the face of occupation had no excuse are regularly evoked in H. R. Kedward, Resistance in VicbyFrance:A Study of Ideas and Motivation in the Southern Zone, 1940-1942 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978). 15. Charlesde Gaulle, August 25, 1944,in Charlesde Gaulle, Dkscours etMessages, vol. 1, Pendant la guewe, 1940-1946(Paris: Plon, 1970),p. 464. 16. From the title of the book by Eric Conan and Henry Rousso: Vicby: Un pass6 gui nepassepas. (Paris:Fayard, 1994). In translating the book, Nathan Bracher used “Vichy:An Ever-Present Past” as the title (Hanover, NH:University Press of New England, 1998). 17. On the treatment ofJews during the 1930s and under Vichy, see Michael R. Marfus and Robert 0. Paxton, Vicby France and the Jews (New York: Schocken Books, 1983). 18. See de Gaulle’s account in de Gaulle, Mhoires de guewe, vol. 2, L’Unit6, 1942-1944 (Paris:Plon, 1956), p. 303, p. 308. 19. Text of the appeal in Le Monde,June 17,1992, p. 10. 20. Cited in Pierre Favier and Michel Martin-Roland,La dkennie Mittewand, vol. 4, Les d6chirements(1991-1995) (Paris:Le Seuil,1999), pp. 561-562. See also k c Conan and Henry Rousso: Vicby: Unpass6 qui nepassepas (Paris: Fayard, 1994), ch. 1. 21. Text of Chirac’sspeech excerpted in Le Monde,July 18,1995, p. 6. 22. Pierre Pean, Une jeunesse franGaise: FranGois Mitterand 1934-1947 (Paris: Fayard, 1994). 23. In entitling his biography of MitterrandMittewand, une histoire de FranGais, Jean Lacouture would reiterate Pean’s theme about the representative character of Mitterrands life; see Lacouture,Mittewand, une histoire de Franqais, 2 vols. (Paris: Le Seuil, 1998). 24. Letter quoted in Pierre Pean, Une jeunesse franGaise: Franqois Mitterrand 1934-1947 (Paris:Fayard, 1994), p. 113. 25. Klarsfeld, born in Paris in September 1935,lost his father in the Holocaust.Seconded by his German wife Beate and later by his son Amo, he has spent most of his adult life trying to bring to book people who played a part in the persecution of Jews. He was president of Fils et FiUes des DeportesJuifs de France. See further discussion below and Claude Bochurberg,Entretiens avec Serge Klarsfeld (Paris: Stock, 1997). 26. Interview, “Le solo de Jospin,”Le Point, September 10, 1994, p. 35. 27. Philippe Burrin, La France b l’heure allemande, 1940-1944 (Paris:Le Seuil, 19951, p. 9. 28. ”Schreibtischtiiter”is the German term for officials who never dirtied their own hands, but whose desk activities ordered or legitimated criminal behavior by others. The French speak of ”crimesde bureau.” 29. Albert Camus, Combat,January 5,1945, p. 1. 30. The definition of crimes against humanity and of related crimes (genocide, apartheid) and their applicabilityto events unrelated to Nazi Germany and World War

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I1 remain deeply contentious. For views articulated in France in response to the judicial proceedings discussed here, see Andre Frossard, Le Crime contre l’humanit6 (Paris: Robert Iaffont, 1983, Alain Finkielkraut,La M h o i r e vaine: Du crime contre I‘bumanit6 (Paris: Gallimard, 1989), and Pierre Truche, “La notion de crime contre I’humanite:Bilan et propositions,”Esprit, No. 181 (May 1992), pp. 67-87. Frossard (1915-1995) converted to Catholicism in 1935 and frequented Catholic Resistance circles in Lyon before being imprisoned as a Jewish hostage in December 1943.After the war, he was a well-known journalist and commentator on Catholic affairs; politically, he was a Gaullist. He testified against Klaus Barbie. Finkielkraut (born 1949) is a philosopher, from whom we shall hear again in chapters 7 and 8. Truche was the prosecutor in the Barbie case and was involved in the Touvier case, discussed below. 3 1. This development was partly related to developments in Israel; see especially Tom Segev, The Seventh Million: The Zsraelis and the Holocaust, trans. Haim Watzman (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993). 32. Darquier had been condemned to death in absentia in June 1947.He was interviewed in August 1978 by Philippe Ganier-Raymond; the interview appeared in L’Express under a title taken from Darquier’sremarks: ” ‘A Auschwitz, on n’a gaze que les porn’” [“‘Onlylice were gassed at Auschwitz’”],L’Express, October 28, 1978, pp. 164-199. 33. For a particularly interesting set of reflections on new communitarian trends among French Jews, see Annie Kriegel, R6Jexion sur les questfomjuives (Paris: Hachette, 1984), especiallypart I1 (pp. 109-265). 34. Klarsfelds books include The Children of Zzieu:A Human Tragedy (trans. Kenneth Jacobson; New York H. Abrams, 1985); the French title is Les enfants dZzieu: une tragedie juive (Paris: Fils et Nles des deportes juifs de France, 1984). For a bio graphical portrait of Klarsfeld written at the time of the Barbie trial,see Laurent Greilsamer, “SergeKlarsfeld: Un militant de la mkmoire,”Le Monk, May 10-11,1987,p. 7. 35. For a close analysis of this complicated case, see Eric Conan and Henry Rousso: Vicby: Unpmsb qui nepmsepm (Paris: Fayard, 1994), chapter 3. 36. Bernard Droz and Evelyne Lever, Histoire de la guewe dAlgdrie, 1954-1962 (Paris: Le Seuil, 1982), p. 325. 37. In 2001, on the fortieth anniversary of the pro-FLN demonstration, the newly elected socialist mayor of Paris, Bernard Delanoe, silently dedicated a plaque ”to the memory of the many Algerians killed in the bloody repression of the peaceful demonstration of October 17, 1961.”The plaque is on the Pont Saint-Michel.Conservatives vigorously opposed the memorial, which was debated in a Paris Municipal Council meeting on September 24. A national poll suggested that less than one-half of the p o p ulation had even heard of the events of October 17,1961,and only one-fifthwas familiar with what had happened. See “Le massacre du 17 octobre 1961 obtient un debut de reconnaissance officielle,”Le Monde, October 17, 2001, p. 12. 38. h c Conan, Leprocks Papon: Unjournal d’audience(Paris: Gallimard, 1998), p. 314. Papon was released from prison on September 18, 2002 because of his advanced age and ill health. His release rekindled public discussion of the case. 39. Philippe Burrin, La France a I’beure allemande, 1940-1944 (Paris: Le Seuil, 19951, p. 44. 40. The inquest produced a twovolume report and nine volumes of documents

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and testimony. See Les dvdnements sumenus en France de 1933 a 1945, Rapport fait au nom de la Commissionpar Charles Sewe, 2 vols., and Tdmoignages et documents recueillispar la Commission denqubteparlementaire,9 vols. (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1947). 4 1. Text (“Transfer des cendres de Jean Moulin au Pantheon”) in Andre Malraux, Le miroir des limbes, pp. 990-997, citation at p. 997. the Chant des Purtisuns that I heard murmured like a sign of complicity, then chanted in the fog of the Vosges [a range of hills and mountains in northeastern France] and the forests of Alsace, mingled with the occasional bleating of the sheep kept by Moroccan troops [colonialtroops, fightingfor France],when the bazookasof Correze advanced on the tanks that Rundstedt had again thrown into action against Strasbourg.Hear now, my young compatriots, what was for us the song of misfortune. It is the funeral march of these ashes [Moulin’sremains]. Beside those of Carnot and the soldiers of the Year 11, beside those of Victor Hugo and the Mis6rubles, beside those ofJaurks over which Justice stands vigil, may they rest, they and their long line of disfigured shadows. May those of you who are young think today of this man as if you could reach out your hands to touch his poor face on his last day, his face beaten beyond recognition, his lips that had not betrayed on that day, his face was the face of France.

Correze is a ddpartement in central France; Tulle, mentioned earlier in this chap ter, is its capital. Gerd von Rundstedt was a German marshal. Carnot, Hugo, and Jaures are all among the grands hommes buried in the Pantheon. Camot (1753-1823) organized the armies of the Revolution.Jean Moulin died without giving his German torturers any of the information they were seeking. 42. See especially Robert 0. Paxton, Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944
CHAPTER 3

Decolonization and Its Sequels The guns fell silent in Europe on May 8,1945. On August 6 and 9, American planes dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; within weeks, the Japanese surrendered, bringing to an end the war in the Pacific theater. By early 1948, the wartime alliance between the western democracies and the Soviet Union had turned into suspicion and enmity. The USSR tightened its control over the areas of Europe that its troops had “liberated.”The United States scrambled to shore up anticommunist regimes in western Europe, announcing the Marshall Plan in June 1947, discouraging continued communist participation in the governments of France and Italy, relaxing denazification efforts in Germany, and spearheading the formation of the Atlantic Alliance in 1949. For the next forty years, the superpower competition between the United States and the USSR, often cast as a conflict between the “freeworld” and the “communist bloc,” structured international relations, especially for Americans, who tended to view all overseas events in terms of Cold War antagonisms. Superpower rivalry also had a significant impact on domestic politics in several countries. In the United States, for example, it occasioned the rise of McCarthyism in the 1950s and helped make FBI director J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972) a formidable figure in Washington. In France, it sapped the vitality of republican politics by simultaneously weakening the democratic left and fueling the antidemocratic right. In the 1950s, when the Cold War was at its chilliest, the PCF still enjoyed the support of approximately onequarter of the French electorate. The party’s Stalinist tendencies made it an unattractive partner for the socialists (who polled between 15 and 20 percent). The SFIO therefore had to seek alliances with center-left and centrist parties. But those same alliances made the socialists vulnerable to communist attack, and socialists responded by using symbols and rhetoric designed to reassure their more left leaning supporters. This in turn would offend their centrist partners. The overall effect, as we shall see, was to encourage political paralysis at a moment when initiative and innovation were desperately required. 77

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At the same time, the Cold War lent a certain respectability to virulent anticommunism,which for decades had been one of the ideological mainstays of the antirepublican right. Pierre Laval had expressed this kind of anticommunism in June 1942, when he declared: “I want Germany to win, because absent a German victory, Bolshevism will prevail everywhere.”’ During the Cold War, many conservatives, still in search of a bulwark against communism, embraced American power as they had earlier acquiesced in Nazi domination; they remained antidemocraticas well as anticommunist. Dramatic though the Cold War could be (during the many Berlin crises of the postwar years, for example, or during the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962), the superpower conflict did not fully capture what was happening in the international arena. Imperial patterns established in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were breaking up. Even as the United States and the USSR squared off in Europe, India was celebrating its independence from Britain (August 1947)-and becoming the scene of terrible violence, as communal strife between Hindus and Muslims tore the new country apart. Decolonization struggles were sometimes turned into proxy fights between the superpowers, but they were driven by factors that had little to do with the Cold War. As an imperial power with important interests in Africa, the Maghreb (North Africa), the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, postwar France was as deeply implicated in the process of decolonization as it was in the Cold War. The British retreat from empire was accomplished with relatively few British casualties. In contrast, for the French army, its pride still wounded from its defeat in 1940, the post-1945 peace was but a fleeting moment. War began in Indochina in late 1946, after French military leaders on the scene sabotaged negotiated agreements that would have granted de facto independence to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. For nearly eight years, a French expeditionary force fought a bloody, frustrating war against Ho Chi Minh’s nationalist, procommunist movement, the Viet-Minh,only to be spectacularly defeated at Dien Bien Phu-a fortified mountain plateau that one reporter memorably dubbed “hell in a very small place.”2Then, on November 1, 1954, barely six months after the French debacle at Dien Bien Phu, a seriesof coordinated bomb attacks rocked Algeria. Algeria was literally and figuratively far closer to metropolitan France than was Indochina, and the rebellion that began there in November 1954 created hell on a different scale. The Algerian War was a watershed event in French postwar history; it would have enduring and intertwined effects on French politics, society, and culture. Politically, it precipitated the fall of the Fourth Republic. De Gaulle, who had left office in January 1946because he had been unable to impose the strong executive he thought the country needed, returned to power with a license to revamp republican institutions-which he promptly did, creating the mixed presidential-parliamentary system of the

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Fifth Republic. De Gaulle’s constitutional reforms and social change combined to promote a reconfiguration of the party system. Meanwhile, the outcome of the war made France’s preferred posture as a great power hard to maintain and opened the door to a new focus on Europe as a possible multiplier of French influence. Socially, the war intervened at a critical moment in postwar French history. The French economy was in the middle of what would be remembered as “les trente glorieuses,”a thuty-year period of ecunomic growth that began with postwar reconstruction and ended with the oil crises of the 1970s.3As the 1950s drew to a close, the expanding economy was experiencing a labor shortage. Immigrant workers were recruited; many of those who took relatively unskilled industrial jobs in France were Muslims from North Africa. Their families followed. By the time the recession began in the 1970s, France was irreversibly a multicultural country. Before and during the war in Algeria, the French had been unable to see their way to according Muslim Algerians full citizenship rights. Immigration brought the challenge home. The Republic had always been monocultural in its selfconception; now it would have to accommodate a population that was not only multicultural, but increasingly militant in its affirmation of cultural differences. This in itself demanded a massive psychological and cultural shift. But the Algerian War also provoked other kinds of cultural change. It nurtured a nationalism of disappointment and resentment that would later find expression in the right-wing National Front. And the French learned, a short ten years after the defeat of Nazi Germany, that they too were capable of sending troops into the field with orders not to take prisoners and of using torture as an instrument of national policy. This chapter begins a discussion of institutional arrangements that affected and then were affected by the war and introduces some of the identity issues brought into focus by the course and outcome of the conflict.We will continue these discussions in later chapters.

THE ALGERIAN WAR AN D REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS When the Algerian War began, Pierre Mendes France was in power in Paris. Mend& (1907-1982) had been elected to the National Assembly in 1932 from the normally conservative Norman town of Louviers. He had run as a member of the Radical Party. The republican politicians who fought to consolidate the Third Republic in the 1870s and 1880s were often described as Radicals, even in the absence of a formal party organization.As the Third Republic had become more established and as working class parties had begun to organize, the Radicals had become more centrist; Clemenceau,for example, was a Radical. The Radical Party was founded in 1901. It was dedicated to the defense of the Republic’s institutions (elections, representative bodies, individual

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rights) and values (lazcit&,rationalism, individualism,equality of opportunity, and so on). Like its most representative philosopher, Main (pseudonym for bile Chartier, 1868- 195l), the party was deeply suspicious of accumulated power, whether public (in the form of a charismatic leader or an independent executive) or private.* It was abstractly committed to social justice, but opposed to the collectivism espoused by parties to its left and precluded by its negative view of power from seeing in the state an instrument of constructive social change. Its electoral strength lay in its character as a congregation of local notables, each firmly implanted in his district: “a social club attached to an electioneering machine,”as one observer called it.5 Its national organization was correspondingly loose, and the voting discipline of its parliamentary group was generally lax. Precisely because it accommodated diverse political views so effortlessly, it was the largest party from its founding through the mid-1930s. Its members were ubiquitous in the cabinets of the Third Republic. Rene Bouquet’s political patrons were Radicals; Jean Moulin’spolitics were also Radical. Mendes was born nearly ten years before Franqois Mitterrand and in a markedly different milieu: his family was Jewish, his father an active d r q fusard, his family upbringing and formal education both resolutely lazc and republican. The young Mitterrand’s intellectual proclivities were conventionally literary; in contrast,the young Mendes, although like Mitterrand trained in the law and enrolled at the Parisian &Cole libre des sciences politiques (later renamed the Institut dt?tudespolitiques), showed an early and more unusual interest in economics. Mendes also unhesitatingly sided with the left and the Republic. Even before 1934,the streets of the Latin Quarter were the scene of frequent confrontations between the ligues and their victims or opponents. Brandishing canes, young men from the ligues roamed the Latin Quarter, shouting antiGerman,antirepublican,anticommunist,and antisemitic slogans and looking for trouble. In 1924, Mendts became a founding member of the Ligue daction universitaire rgpublicaine et socialiste,created to counter the rowdier elements of the right; in February 1927,he was elected leader of the group. Already in 1923,he had joined the Radical Party after hearing a speech by its preeminent prewar leader, Edouard Herriot (1872-1957). “Hespoke in a magnificent style,”Mendes later recalled, “in a clear, warm voice. He spoke of peace, of recognizing the Soviets, of evacuating the Ruhr [occupied by the French after World War I]. It was marvelous. I was seduced. . . . He embodied generosity, eloquence, youth; it was so pure.”6 Herriot represented the strengths and weaknesses of prewar Radicalism. His command of language (he had attended the prestigious h o l e normale) lent force to his expression of republican and internationalistideals; his ignorance of economics helped doom the left-led government he headed in 1924-1925 (known as the Cartel des gauches). Mendes sought to combine humanist idealism with technical competence. While Herriot was working on

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a life of Beethoven, his young admirer was publishing a study of the financial policies of the Poincare government and a treatise on the centrality of economic policy and international economic cooperation in the modern world.’ By the late 1930s, he was pleading in favor of Keynesian policies and economic planning to address France’ssocial and economic problems. Whereupon war intervened. When French forces were routed in 1940, a group of deputies and other officials (including Edouard Daladier) boarded a ship called the Massilia and headed for French North Africa, hoping the government would follow them. Mendes was among the twenty-six deputies who made the trip. All hoped to use the Empire as a springboard for continuing the war effort. Mendes, who had served during the battle of France as an air force lieutenant, reported to a unit in Rabat, Morocco. On August 31, he was arrested and charged with desertion for leaving France; his politics and his Jewish background made him a magnet for Vichy’shostilities. He was tried in May 1941 and sentenced to six years in prison; a month later, he escaped and joined the Free French in London. In 1944, de Gaulle made Mendes minister of the economy in the Provisional Government. In April 1945, the young minister resigned, arguing that the government needed to show more backbone in curbing inflation.Not yet forty years old, Mend& had demonstrated what would prove a lifelong penchant for speaking his mind and acting on principle. Both de Gaulle and Mendts believed that the Fourth Republic would neither prosper nor endure if it proved incapable of sustaining strong, innovative leadership. De Gaulle looked to an independent executive to provide such leadership. But in France, such constitutional arrangements raised the fear of bonapartist coups: Bonaparte had used the presidency to seize power in 1849, and in the late 1870s, Marshal Patrice de Mac-Mahon, arguing the need for a restoration of “moral order,” had also tried to use his position as president to subvert the Republic. Mendes was firmly attached to the Republic’s parliamentary traditions. He argued that parliamentary regimes could govern effectively if organized, disciplined parties offered voters clear choices and provided governments with coherent and stable majorities. The catch was the zf. Efforts to create broad-based, disciplined, and democratic parties at the Liberation-to build a sort of labor party on the democraticleft, or to turn the new Christian democratic party, the Mouvement rbpublicuin populuire (MRP), into a kind of Tory party-had failed.8 Nor did the Radical Party fit the bill. But in the spring of 1953, an influential newsweekly, L’&press, took on the task of promoting a new kind of reformist politics. L’Express made Mendes France its man. He was interviewed in the inauguralissue; the interview was printed under the typically mendbsiste title, “La France peut supporter la verite” (“Francecan handle the truth”).9 There matters stood as the Viet-Minh tightened their stranglehold on the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu. The unsuccessfulwar had been prosecuted

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by “ThirdForce” governments. These centrist governments had been led by socialistsand Christian democrats, against opposition from both the right and the communist left. The Radicals, as well as some more conservative groups, had often helped keep Third Force governments in power, but the Radicals were less identified with major governmental policies like the Indochina War than were the socialists and (especially) the Christian democrats.Mendes was simultaneously a relative outsider (a position dictated by his temperament as much as by his politics), an early and consistent critic of the war, and a man whose attachment to parliamentary institutions was beyond question. He therefore seemed just the person to negotiate a conclusion to the Indochina War, and on June 18,he took office as prime minister, charged with precisely that task. A month later, the Geneva Accords brought the French Indochina War to an end. In November, when the first FLN bombs detonated in Algeria, Mendes was still in power. Mendes, known not only for the role he had played in extricating his country from Indochina but for his detached lucidity and his willingness to speak unpopular truths, seemed unlikely to be drawn into an openended military response to another challenge to French imperial rule. Several members of his government, including Franqois Mitterrand, were committed to recasting France’srelationship with its remaining protectoratesand colonies.In the summer and fall of 1954, the government conceded de fact0 autonomy to Tunisia and accepted the legitimacy of that country’snationalist leader, Habib Bourguiba. Yet when the insurrection began in Algeria, the French response was intransigent. “Algeria,”FranqoisMitterrand declared on November 7, “ispart of France and France will recognize no other authority there.”On November 12, Mendes elaborated the government’sposition: “Letno one expect us to make concessions in the face of sedition, or to engage in compromise.There can be no accommodation when what is at stake is the domestic peace of the nation and the unity [intbgrite’]of the Republic.””JNo mainstreampolitician had made such claims about Indochina, despite the blood spilt, and France had not gone to war to preserve its positions in Tunisia and Morocco. Mend& lost power on February 6, 1955, before the war in Algeria began in earnest. His government fell because the resolution of the Indochina conflict left the government without a cohesive parliamentary majority. Mendts had not had the time to reorganize the Radicals. He had refused support from the Communist Party, and his skepticism regarding the proposed European Defense Community had earned him the lasting enmity of the pro-European Christian democrats. His fall was a foregone conclusion and a sad commentary on the Fourth Republic. But precisely because Mendes, had he remained in power, might have pursued different policies from those actually adopted, his initial reaction and that of his government to the events of November 1954 are noteworthy. They indicated that Algeria was not just another Morocco. Why was Algeria different?

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In 1954, nine and a half million people were living in Algeria. Of these, the overwhelming majority-about eight and a half million people-were Muslims. Most were Arabs; some, like Louisette Ighilahriz, the former FLN commando who in the summer of 2000 described how she had been tortured for months after her capture in 1957, were Kabyles. The non-Muslim minorityjust under a million people-was of European origin: French, Spanish, or Italian. Some four-fifths of the Europeans had been born in Algeria, and all but s i x t y thousand were French citizens. Most of the Europeans (collectively known in colloquial French aspieds noirs but otherwise referred to simply as Europeans) were Christian, but there was a significantJewish minority within the European community. For administrative and political purposes, the territory, like that of metropolitan France, was divided into dbpurtements. The three Algerian dbpurtements, like their metropolitan counterparts, were r e p resented in the French Parliament-but the Muslim majority, while not technically disenfranchised, was effectively disempowered. Algerian voters were divided into two separate electorates, or coll2ges. The first coll2ge was overwhelmingly European. The second coll2ge was reserved for Muslims. Each electorate sent an equal number of deputies to representative bodies, thus insuring a massive overrepresentation of the minority European community. Political disenfranchisement of Muslims brought in its train other forms of disempowerment, among them unequal access to public services, including schools. As late as 1953, less than one-fifth of the Muslim school-age population (ages six to fourteen) was enrolled in either a public or a Muslim school. Fully 86 percent of Muslim men and 95 percent of Muslim women were illiterate in any language." Only 15 percent of the men and 6 percent of the women spoke French; a mere 6 percent of the men and 2 percent of the women could read French. Among Europeans, ignorance of Arabic was the rule: 1.7 percent of the men and 0.5 percent of the women could read the majority language.12 For years, a small Muslim elite-French by education and culture and proud of the Republic's declared ideals-had fought within the system for greater political and economic equality among Algeria's populations. In the mid-1920s and again a decade later, reform proposals that might have paved the way toward a peaceful transformation of relations between metropolitan France and Algeria foundered.They failed for two reasons:one had to do with the particular character of republican political culture, the other with the realities of power politics. Culturally, French republicanism, deeply attached to rationalism and secularism and just as deeply Jacobin in its hostility to rnulticulturalism, could not find a way to enfranchise a largely illiterate population whose religious practices required exceptions to the civil code. Politically, the disenfranchised majority was caught in a classic Catch-22 dilemma: it could not secure its rights because it had no power, and having no power, it could not secure its rights. The European minority, in contrast, was well represented in

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the halls of power in Paris. In 1936-1937, maintaining the status quo in Algeria was the top priority of the pied noir lobby, whereas pushing through reforms was a relatively low priority for a Popular Front government far more preoccupied by the Depression, the Spanish Civil War, and German rearmament. The fight for reform in Algeria was lost before it was even joined. In any event, the government in Paris could atford to ignore its Muslim subjects-or so it seemed. Among Algeria’s undereducated and impoverished Muslims, political apathy was widespread; political activism was confined to a minority, and even that minority was divided between a legalist, secular, reformist wing that drew support from Arab intellectuals and professionals, and a more populist, messianic, nationalist wing that appealed to the underprivileged Muslim masses. Both wings were the frequent object of government repression. The key figure of the reformist movement was Ferhat Abbas (1899-1985; by training a pharmacist), who created the Union dbmocratique du Manifeste alg&en (UDMA) in 1946. The central figure of the nationalist, Muslim movement was Messali Hadj (1898-1974);he founded the Mouvementpour le triomphe des libertbs d6mocratiques (MTLD) in 1946. The first explosion came in May 1945, when a demonstration in SCtif turned violent and the rioting spread to other Algerian cities. During the days of unrest, some one hundred Europeans were killed. In the repression that followed, several thousand Muslims were slain. Politically,a major casualty of the indiscriminate killing was the legalist, reform-oriented wing of the Muslim community. It had little to show for its moderation. The Muslim population was growing rapidly. It was young, it was angry, and it had little use for a political-legal system that had sponsored not liberty, equality, and fraternity, but repression, discrimination, and prejudice. Moderates were now definitively distanced by their nationalist competitors: the MTLD and the new, more secular, still more militant FLN.13 “History,”Wail Gorbachev warned East German leaders in October 1989, “punishes those who come too late.” His words have a broader historical applicability:once passed by, opportunities for reform may never return. In 1954, the French found themselves in a trap of their own making: the government, unable to reestablish order in Algeria on its own terms, was unwilling to accept a settlement on terms laid down by the FLN. No available option was attractive. Between 1954 and 1962, successive governments would try to elicit the creation of a moderate Algerian “thirdforce” amenable to a solution short of independence, but it was too late. The UDMA had never been able to mobilize mass support, and by the mid-l95Os,its positions had long since been overtaken by events. One such event was yet another wave of repression. On August 20, 1955, regular units of the FL”s army attacked targets in the region around Constantine. At the same time, rioting crowds killed 123 people, 71 of them Europeans. The French army’s response was itself lethal enough, but French authorities

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were also unable or unwilling to curb the lynching of Arabs by enragedpieds noirs. Some 12,000 Arabs perished in a paroxysm of violence. The political effectwas devastating, as both communities radicalized.France began a call-up of reserve units. Troop levels in Algeria more than doubled in 1955,rising from 80,000 in January to 190,000 by February 1956.The military’s mission was to “restoreorder,”and while that goal seemed increasingly elusive, no exit strategy appeared on the political horizon. One of the great advantages normally attributed to democratic government is that when disaster strikes in some area of critical concern to the public, the system itself generates alternative leaders and policies. When Herbert Hoover failed to stem the Depression, Franklin Roosevelt got his chance. When Neville Chamberlain thought his compatriots would not be able to find Czechoslovakia on a map, Winston Churchill was ready to prosecute a war. In neither case was the constitutionalorder ever seriouslythreatened. In France, new options were less likely to materialize within the existing constitutionalframework. On December 1,1955, Edgar Faure announcedthe dissolutionof the National Assembly. Elections had been expected in June 1956 the new date (January 2) caught Mendes offbalance. His supporters had taken control of the Radical Party in May 1955 (margmabng and excluding Faure, who had also made his career as a Radical), but were only just beginning to mobilize and organize a popular base. The early electionsforced Mendes’steam to improvise an electoral alliance with the SFIO, led by Guy Mollet. Two smaller groups also joined the Front r6pubZicain:Mitterrand loyalists from the center-left Union &ocratique et sociaZLste de la Rdsktance (UDSR) and a handful of left-wing Gaullists led by Jacques Chaban-Deb. The mendsistes spearheaded the Front’s electoral effort. There had been no time to iron out programmatic statements or personnel questions, but on the major issue of the moment-Algeria-the Front’s position seemed clear. Mendes advocated a negotiated solution to the conflict and promised to go to Algiers to secure an agreement. His rapid resolution of the Indochina War in 1954 lent credibilityto his promise. Mollet, less disciplined in his pronouncements, even spoke of independence. It was generally believed that in the event of a victory for the Front rdpubZicain, Mendes would return to power. The Front did win,l*but it was Mollet, not Mendts, who became premier. The SFIO had ninety-five deputies; Mendes commanded about eighty. According to custom, the premiership went to the leader of the larger party. Mendes became a minister without portfolio in the new government. Free French veteran General Georges Catroux was given cabinet rank and responsibility for negotiating a solution to the Algerian uprising; Catroux was fresh from negotiating a settlement in Morocco and was well versed in North African affairs. Thus the electoral process appeared to have performed its critical democratic function of providing an alternative team and new policies in a crisis.

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On February 6, 1956, after five days in office, Mollet left for Algiers. Ignoring warnings from better-informedquarters, he expected a polite reception. Instead, a rowdy European crowd pelted him with tomatoes, eggs, and epithets. Representatives of the pied noir community demanded Catroux’s ouster; they got it. Catroux’s successor, Robert Lacoste, was a Resistance hero, but had no North African experience and little political imagination. The new government made negotiations conditional upon a cease-lire and elections;the FLN rejected the conditions.Mollet and Lacoste, under constant pressure from the European community, temporized by adopting long overdue (but by now largely useless) reforms and devoting increasing resources and energy to military efforts to “restoreorder.”In mid-March,the government sought and obtained special powers to deal with the Algerian crisis. On May 23, Mendes, sensing the government’sunwillingness or inability to devise a political solution to the war, resigned. Military service was lengthened to twenty-seven months, and conscripts were massively deployed to Algeria. By July 1956, France had 400,000men arrayed against the FLN. In October, the government, persuaded that the Algerian rebellion would fizzle if it could be cut off from the support it was getting from Gamal Abdul Nasser’s nationalist government in Egypt, committed France to the politically disastrous Suez expedition. Through most of 1957, the battle of Algiers raged; using torture and intimidation, GeneralJacques Massu’s 10th Parachute Division rooted FLN supportersout of Arab neighborhoods.In October,French commanders could claim victory, but no light went on at the end of the war’s long tunnel. Indeed, democratic politics seemed unable to illuminate a path out of the impasse. In the meantime, the army had become politically restive. The army had been long accustomed to serving under successive political regimes and had been dubbed “lagrande muette” (“the great silent one”) because of its reluctance to intervene directly in politics. Now, however, its tasks in Algeria included expressly political assignments. Officially, the war was not a war; it would gain that status only in the summer of 1999, decades after the last dead soldier was returned home.15 Since officially Algeria was part of France, officially the war was a police operation intended to restore “order.”Army officers found themselves thrown into roles more properly played by civilian officials. In their efforts to win Arab loyalties, they began to provide the kinds of services-schools, health clinics-that the European population had long denied to the Arab community. The officers often felt caught between apied noir community still unable to see the need for reforms and a government in Paris apparently too weak willed to provide the military with the material resources and political cover it needed to crush the rebellion. In May 1958,the Fourth Republic reached the end of the line. In Paris, a governmental crisis had begun in mid-April.In Algiers, insurrectionary crowds of Europeans were in the streets,protesting the alleged betrayal of their interests by the politicians in Paris. The army seemed prepared to throw its support to

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the protesters. By mid-May, political leaders in Paris in essence had a choice between a coup staged with their consent and one that would take place over their opposition.They chose to give their consent. Resistance might well have led to a takeover by authoritarian elements within the army and a dictatorship in the manner of Spain’sFranco or Chile’sAugust0 Pinochet. Instead, the leaders of the Fourth Republic invited General de Gaulle to return to power, knowing that he would impose the presidential institutions he had proposed in vain in the 1940s and conscious that he and his team might-or, like Napoleon I11 before him,might not-respect democratic norms. De Gaulle got his constitution. The new arrangements created an executive partially independent of the legislature. The president himself was fully independent. The prime minister was to be named by the president but accountable to the National Assembly, where he therefore needed the support of a majority of deputies; he in turn named the cabinet. Taken together, the president, the prime minister, and the cabinet constituted the government, and the constitution vastly increased the government’spowers, often at the expense of the legislature. New rules made a motion of censure against the government almost impossible to carry. The government not only controlled the parliamentary agenda but could challenge the Assembly to pass a motion of censure, absent which the government’sversion of a bill would automatically be considered to have been adopted (Article 49, paragraph 3, commonly referred to as “49-3”).In many areas, policy could be set through regulatory measures, bypassing the legislative process entirely. The president was given the authority to dissolve the Assembly and schedule new elections (Article 12). On institutional questions or treaty arrangements, the president could call for a popular referendum, again bypassing the legislature (Article 11). In the event of a national emergency, the president could declare a state of emergency, during which the constitution authorized him to take “measures required by the circumstances”(Article 16). New electoral laws favored de Gaulle’s supporters; in any event, the left seemed durably crippled by its own divisions, the identification of Guy Mollet’sSFIO with escalation and quagmire in Algeria, and widespread opposition within the left to the new institutions, which many (including both Mendes and Mitterrand) condemned as bonapartist. Given the disarray on the left, it was assumed that legislative and presidential elections, even though not chronologically synchronized, would produce politically consistent results and that the president and the prime minister would hail from the same political camp. The intended division of labor between the two put the president in charge of overall policy design and especially of foreign policy; he was to act as a national leader rather than a partisan figure. The prime minister was to attend to the details of domestic policy and would be more closely tied to partisan forces in parliament. De Gaulle thus had considerableleeway to chart a course of his choosing in

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Algeria. He was thought to be determined to keep Algeria French. Standing in the public square in Algiers onJune 4, de Gaulle told a predominantly European crowd, “Jevous ai compris”(‘‘I have understood YOU").^^ The crowd roared its support. But as the months passed, de Gaulle’s assessment of the Algerian situation changed. The turning point in the long conflict came when de Gaulle realized that Algerian independence was inevitable.’’ Once he reached this conclusion,he employed the resources created by his constitution and his own formidable arsenal of political skills to make Algerian independence seem like something other than a defeat. The survival of the Republic depended on the success of his effort. Sidestepping a political class disoriented by his institutional reforms and hesitant about his policies, he used referenda to mobilize public support for his exit strategy. Well aware of the opposition his policies faced within the army, he used military rotations to reduce the risk of successful conspiracies; just as important, he talked up the value of new missions to insure French greatness in a new world. Imperialism was part of a bygone era; in a famous and devastating phrase, de Gaulle declared “grandpa’sAlgeria” dead. The independent nuclear strike force (the force defrappe), in contrast, was portrayed as a harbinger of future power. When despite such precautions, a “quarteronde generam en retraite”(‘‘a foursome of generals in retirement”) attempted a coup in April 1961, de Gaulle invoked a state of emergency under Article 16 of the Constitution.And as he had between 1940 and 1944, the General used his extraordinary command of language to make his choices seem appropriate and indeed unavoidable.18 The end of the war was nonetheless traumatic. As negotiations began between the government and the FLN in early 1961, the most intransigent partisans of a “FrenchAlgeria,”among them the fugitive general Raoul Salan (one of the “foursome”),organized the Organisation Ambe Secr&te,or OAS. The OAS operated in metropolitan France as well as in Algeria, engaging in assassinations, bomb attacks, and less spectacular forms of violence and intimidation. The Evian Accords that ended the war contained provisions designed to protect the interests of Europeans who might wish to remain in Algeria. OAS violence, however, rendered those provisions inoperable. Instead, a mass exodus ofpieds noirs (and of harkis, Muslim Algerians who had sided with France) took place in the spring of 1962. Less ably led governments would have fallen, and de Gaulle was lucky simply to escape with his life. He was a tall man and should have made an easy target for his would-be killers. But fortune, it sometimes seemed, rode shotgun at de Gaulle’s side, and he used it to achieve political goals. He survived assassination attempts on September 8, 1961 and August 22, 1962. In partial response to the second attack, de Gaulle proposed a constitutional amendment. According to the constitution of 1958, the president was to be elected indirectly by an electoral college. The amendment made him subject instead to direct election by the people. Its purpose was to secure the future of the

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Fifth Republic’sinstitutions against anticipated efforts by the established parties to return the country to a parliamentary regime as soon as de Gaulle left the scene. To the end of his life, de Gaulle was always addressed and referred to as “theGeneral.”The appellationwas a tribute not to his military rank (thus the unadorned uniform), but to his Resistance role. The former leader of the Free French believed that he had been able to function as a strong executive figure because history had bestowed a special legitimacy on him.His successors, however, would need the ordinary democratic legitimacy that only direct election could confer. Absent such a tangible link between the president and popular sovereignty,the parties would reassert their influence,with (de Gaulle predicted) the usual disastrous results. The amendment was adopted by referendum in October 1962. The war was over, and the Republic had been transformed.

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK THE ALGERIAN WAR AND FRENCH IDENTITY In September 1983, twenty years after Algerian independence, the populist, right-wing, anti-immigrant National Front (FN) won a stunning 17 percent of the vote in a by-election in Dreux, a town of about thirty thousand people, sixty miles west of Paris. The FN’s leader was a lawyer and former Poujadist deputy named Jean-MarieLe Pen, and his most popular slogan was “laFrance a m Frangaais,” “Francefor the French.” Le Pen (born 1928) had served as a lieutenant in both Indochina and Algeria; rumors alleged that he had been involved in the torture of prisoners in Algeria. He had testified as a witness for the defense at the sedition trial of General Salan in 1962. In 1974, Le Pen ran as a presidential candidate, appealing to an extreme right and often exAlg6rie franCaise audience; he won less than 1 percent of the vote. Within ten years, something changed a recalibrated appeal resonated with a broader audience. Le Pen attacked immigrants,incumbents, the permissive culture he perceived as dominant, European integration,and people soft on crime. From the beginning, his supporters were predominantly male and urban; over time, his support became increasingly concentrated among less educated voters concerned about downward social mobility. Lowermiddleclass shopkeepers were attracted by Le Pen’s affirmation of authoritarian values and his attacks on immigrants;workers who felt abandoned by governmentsof both the left and the right applauded the verbal violence he turned on immigrants,incumbents, and globalization. For the two decadesafter the Dreux election,Le Pen was a disruptiveand troubling force in French politics. His presence created endless headaches for the SD called parliamentary or democratic right, for which the FN generated alliance problems and rhetorical temptations similar to those the Communist Party had

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created for the socialists in the 1950s (should conservative and FN candidates trade electoral support? should conservative spokespeople adopt the FN’s strident anti-immigmntlanguage?).Many people were disturbed by the ability of the FN to sustain itself over time and across different types of elections. In European Parliament(EP) elections,the FN benefited from the proportional representation electoral laws under which the elections were fought and from the relative unimportance of the EP as a decision-makingbody: the Front won 11 percent of the French vote in the EP of 1984, 11.7 percent in 1989, 10.5 percent in 1994, and 5.7percent in 1999, after the party split in 1998 (the other wing, led by Bruno M b e t , Le Pen’s former deputy, won 3.3 percent in 1999, for a total extremeright vote of 9 percent). But the FN also drew support in French parliamentary elections, despite generally unfavorable electoml laws and the higher stakes involved for voters: the Front won 9.7 percent in the legislative elections of 1986 (the only parliamentary elections of the Fifth Republic fought under rules of p r e portional representation), 9.7 percent in 1988, 12.4percent in 1993, and nearly 15 percent in 1997. Le Pen’smost memorable electoral performance came in a presidential race: after winning 14.4percent of the first-round vote in the presidential elections of 1988 and 15 percent in 1995, Le Pen came in second in the first-roundvote of the 2002 presidential elections. In the 2002 vote, abstention rates reached historic levels, and the left was badly fractured: two Trotskyist candidates took just short of 10 percent of the vote, a Green won 5.3 percent, a former socialist minister won 5.3 percent, and the leader of the PCF won 3.4 percent. As a result, Le Pen, with 16.9 percent of the vote, outscored the sitting socialist prime minister, Lionel Jospin, who won 16.2 percent. The press spoke of a political earthquake; the public reacted to Le Pen’s unanticipated feat with wounded disbelief.Jospin left public life. On May 5,2002, two weeks after the first-roundvoting, the electorate returned to the polls: with participation rates up (79.7 percent of registered voters), the sitting president, Jacques Chirac, trounced Le Pen, 82.2 percent to 17.8 percent. In the legislative elections of June 9 and 16,2002, with abstention rates again at record levels (35.6 percent on the fixst round), the extreme right vote declined to 12.7percent (1 1.3 percent for FN candidates). Polls, however, suggested the continued appeal of Le Pen’s anti-immigrant,law-and-order(“s6curitaire’’) rhetoric.19 A confluence of social and political factors helped create the conditions that allowed Le Pen to carve out a durable political niche for himself.20 The concentration of support in specific regions-in the Paris suburbs, in the east around Strasbourg, and in the southeast,around Toulon, Nice, and MarseiLlegave the Front a footing (and the advantages of power and incumbency) in local politics. At the national level, economic recession and high unemployment, left-wing victories that exasperated some voters on the right, growing social anonymity in France’s urban and suburban areas, the resentments that accompanied European integration and globalization, new electoral contests

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(for example, for the European Parliament, whose members were not directly elected prior to 1979), and the use of electoral systems that facilitated the r e p resentation of smaller parties all favored the Front’s success. In 2002, Le Pen benefited from widespread disenchantment with the political class and r e p resentative mechanisms. The populist authoritarianismof the FN recalled previous bonapartist movements. So did the angry, defiant quality of the party’s rhetoric. Like other bonapartist movements, the FN mobilized a sociologicallyand politically heterogeneous audience. Le Pen consistently denounced the political establishment, brandishing once again the bonapartist anti-incumbent slogan “tous

pourris!” But the longevity of the FN is without precedent among bonapartist movements, and absent immigration and crime as linked issues, it probably could not have happened.Thus, however complex the reasons for Le Pen’ssuccess, ultimately that success cannot be understood without reference to the legacies of the Algerian War. It was not an accident that Le Pen’s wartime activities-hardly the only disgrace to have blighted his career-again became front-pagenews in the aftermath of the 2002 presidential elections.21The war raised intractable questions about national identity and citizenship.The economic crisis reactivated those questions, and they may now have assumed a life of their own. Le Pen was both the agent and the beneficiary of a new kind of identity politics. In France as in the United States, immigration waves have been met with social resistance and political hostility; in both countries, xenophobic, nativist politics accompanied the more famed (and more flattering) image of the melting pot. But the two societies set quite different thresholds for assimilation. In the United States, the nation never existed independent of the constitutional order that defined it. Assimilation has generally involved the acceptance of a set of political and economic rules, the former summarized in the Constitution and the latter defining America’sversion of free market capitalism; the adop tion of Enghsh as the primary language of public exchange; and perhaps some familiarity with America’s rather short history. Other expectations vary from communityto community. Sincethe United Stateshas always been, sociallyand culturally as well as politically, a decentralized country, immigrants had some choice about the level of assimilation they would accept. In France, where the nation existed independentlyof transient constitutional orders and all regimes treated subnational identitieswith suspicion,republican citizenship has always been a more complicated and demanding affair. It involved the assimilation of French culture. High culture was taught in France’s centrally controlled school system; popular culture was imparted through neighborhood life, the trade unions, and the political parties. France’scivic culture was dispensed to primary schoolchildrenof all social backgrounds, briefly brought together to learn patriotism, rationalism, and moral duties on the

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benches of l’e‘cole de la Rdpublique.22An educated American has read Hamlet-a play written by an Englishman. An educated French person will automatically adopt a certain style of argument and draw freely on specifically French references. Passages from Racine and Corneille, Pascal and Rousseau, Alfred de Vigny and Baudelaire, Stendhal and Flaubert will be part of her mental equipment. He will be conversant in modern French history, understood to begin with Franqois Ier, who reigned (1 5 15 to 1547) before Shakespearewrote. Since the Catholic Church shaped both the history and the culture of modern France, a French person, no matter how distant personally from the Church, will be familiarwith its positions, its language,and its imagery. A less educated French person may have a more rudimentary command of high culture, but from his years in school and in the army, and perhaps also from struggleswaged in common with his workmates, he will have been stamped by a common cultural model. From the perspective of an immigrant, the good news was that one way or another, this culture could be acquired. The bad news was that it constituted a fairly intrusive program, and one dependent on the strength of key institutions (the school system, universal conscription, the parties, the unions, and so on). To this strategy of cultural assimilation,the republic added a special hurdle: the principle of Zazcite’. As we have seen, from the Revolution on, the Church had been the republic’s constant opponent, and lazcite‘was a founding principle of republican politics. While often translated as secularism, lazcite‘has no equivalent in English. It involves more than the simple separationof church and state (achieved in the wake of the Dreyfus Affair) and the acceptance of religious freedom. It denotes the active intellectual affirmation of secular values and secular forms of reasoning, argument, and explanation. Its meaning is best captured in Roger Martin du Gard’s novelJean Barois, which begins as the coming-of-agestory of a tubercular boy caught between the mutually exclusive imperatives of his religious faith and those of science, each of which promises him salvation.The boy opts for science, becomes a prominent dreyfusard, and is cast off by his Catholic wife.23 American presidents make a show of attending church and often conclude public addresses with “Godbless America.”This would be inconceivable in republican France, where the closest rhetorical equivalent is “Vivela France!”Religion is a strictly private affair.24 Thus far more than simple racism hindered the granting of citizenship rights to Muslim Algerians before independence, and opposition was not confined to the xenophobic right. Muslims wanted cultural acceptance of their distinctive heritage and public recognition of the rules imposed on them by their religion. This was not going to happen in a Republic founded on lazcite‘and still sufficiently Jacobin to insist that Breton families give their children proper “French”names! By the 1980s, when the National Front turned anti-immigrantfeeling into

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political capital, the republican model outlined above no longer provided even an idealized version of reality. France was no longer a cultural leader-in literature, the arts, or even the cinema-so the central place French culture had occupied in French schools became harder and harder to justify. No alternative curricular model emerged. Other melting pots-the army, trade unions, political parties-fell into disuse; the working class dissolved. Patriotism of the sort expressed in Andre Malraux’seulogy of Jean Moulin seemed outmoded. Meanwhile, civil society came alive, as various groups asserted their differencesand claimed their rights. Globalizationin turn provided alternative possibilities for both civic activity (through involvement in groups like Doctors without Borders) and cultural self-affirmation (as when the antiglobalization activist Jose Bove and his friends sacked a MacDonald’sin 1999).And European integration further complicated the story. Citizenship became a common subject for p u b lic reflection. In the absence of obvious and compelling answers to questions that sociocultural change had rendered inevitable, some people found resentment and hatred a satisfying response to the “strangers”in their midst. We will revisit the debates about citizenship in chapter 7.

EPILOGUE In a front-pagearticle published in Le Monde on June 20,2000,LouisetteIghilahriz described how she had been tortured for three months in 1957by ranking officers of the 10th Parachute Division,before a career Army doctor saved her life by securing her transfer first to a hospital and then to prison.25Jacques Massu, incriminated by Ighilahriz, conceded the plausibility of the former commando’sstory and expressed his regrets. “It all went with the particular atmosphere prevalent at that time in Algiers,” the former general explained, adding that civilian authoritieswere well informed of army practices. Another incriminated general, Marcel Bigeard, violently rejected Ighilahriz’ accusations, telling his interviewer, “Thepurpose is to demolish everything that is clean and good [propre]in France.” Referring to himself in the third person singular, he told the reporter: Bigeard remains a model for France. You are hurting a guy who lives for his country. I continue to receive hundreds of letters that refer to Bigeard, recognizing his worth and telling me [sic]:“Good thing that you are there, at a time when a l l values are going up in smoke.”One of these days, you’ll see, the suburbs [often disadvantaged, and sheltering large immigrant populations] are going to explode.2G

The systematic use of torture by French authorities had been an open secret during the war. The use of Gestapo tactics by the Republic was denounced at the time by left-leaning and Catholic intellectuals and by similarly inspired journals, as well as by a few particularly courageous army offi-

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cers.27 But the general public was more interested in ending the war and bringing the boys home than in hearing about the horrors being committed in army depots and police stations. Two generations later, when Le Monde ran Ighrlahriz’s story, the climate had changed-but in complex ways. In the 1950s, the debates about torture were inscribed in a broader political and philosophical debate about the moral dilemmas of political action in general and of revolutionary action in particular. Under what conditions and up to what point could ends just@ means? This was not simply an intellectual question, and in any event, the French intelligentsia, shaped by its role in the Dreyfus Affair and the fights of the 1930s and 1940s, considered politics to be part of its job. The Communist Party was an influential force in French society, and arguments for or against the PCF often turned on an assessment of the proper relationship between means and ends. The Resistance underground had also had to grap ple with the problem of “dirty hands.’I28There were no easy or definitive answers. Competing positions were staked out in the 1940s by Maurice Merleau-Ponty in his reply to Arthur Koestler’s indictment of Stalinism;29in the early 1950s in an exchange between Jean-PaulSartre and Albert Camus, occasioned by the latter’s book The Rebel, which appeared in 1951; and in the late 1950s, as opponents of French policies in Algeria debated whether or not they should support the FLN.30 By the 1990s, the terms of debate had changed. It was not just that the French were more prepared to see themselves in an unheroic light, although that was true. The more profound difference was that few people were inclined to understand political action in terms that would force them to grap ple with the inevitable conflicts between means and ends. Ends-oriented, “ideological”political projects were summarily rejected as “totalitarian.” Ideological politics did not disappear with the collapse of communism in the late 1980s, but people increasingly refused deferred gratification as an appropriate reward for political action. If the reward was not immediate, the action was suspect. The distinction between means and ends became blurred, as if the means were the ends. This had the advantage of discouraging political actors from sacrificing real human beings for distant and possibly iuusory goals. But it also made genuine discussions about difficult trade-offs hard to organize. Human rights and humanitarian intervention became popular in part because they seemed to offer a way out of the hard moral choices normally inherent in political action. The disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 199Os, among other events, would illustrate both the power and the limits of this kind of thinking. Just above the Le Monde article in which Ighdahriz recounted her ordeal, the lead story of the day announced that fifty-eight bodies had been pulled out of a refrigerator truck in Dover, England. The dead were iuegal immigrants. The article noted that the European Union was attempting to elabo-

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rate a general policy on asylum and immigration.Hard as it may have been to face the past, the present seemed even more intractable, and just as morally fraught. It would become even more so after September 1 1,2001.

RECOMMENDED READING Ageron, Charles-Robert.Modern Algeria: A Histoty from 1830 to the Present. Trans. Michael Brett. London: Hurst, 1991. Ambler, John Stewart. Soldiers against the State: The French A m y in Politics. Garden City, Ny: Doubleday/Anchor, 1968. Cohen, Samy. La afaite des gkn6rau.x: le pouvoir politique et l'armke sous la Ve Republique. Paris: Fayard, 1994. Dalloz, Jacques. Histoire de la guerre d'lndochine, 1945-1954.Paris: Le Seuil, 1987. Droz, Bernard, and Evelyne Lever. Histoire a2 laguerre d'Alg&e (1954-1962).Paris: Le Seuil, 1982. Girardet, Raoul. L'idke coloniale en France de 1871 a 1962.Paris: La Table ronde, 1972. Hamon, He&, and Patrick Roman. Lesporteurs de valises: la rksistancefranqaise et la guerre dAlg&e. Paris: Albh Michel, 1979. Hoffmann, Stanley. Le mouvement Poujade. Paris: Armand Colin, 1956. Julien, Charles-Andre, and Charles-Robert Ageron. Histoire de l'Alg&e contemporaine. 2 vols. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1964-1979. Lacouture, Jean. Pierre Mend& France. Paris: Le Seuil, 1981. Nora, Pierre. Les Franqais dAlg&e. Paris: Julliard, 1961. Slama, AlainGerard. La guewe dAlg&e: Histoire dune aZchirure. Paris: Gallimard, 1996. Smith, Tony. The French Stake in Algeria, 1945-1962.Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1978. Stora, Benjamin. La gangr2ne et l'oubli: la mdmoire de la guerre dAlgkrie. Paris: La Decouverte, 1991.

-.

Le transfert dune mkmoire: de l'rllgkriefranqaise au racisme anti-arabe.

Paris: La Decouverte, 1999. Williams, Philip M. Crisis and Compromise: Politics in the Fourth Republic. New York: Doubleday/Anchor, 1966.

M e m o i r s and documents Abbas, Ferhat. La nuit coloniale. Paris: Julliard, 1962. -. Autopsie duneguewe: l'aurore. Paris: Garnier, 1980. AUeg, Henri. The Question. New York Braziller, 1958. Aron, Raymond. LXlg&e et la Rdpublique. Paris: Plon, 1958. Aussaresses, Paul. Services spdciaux, Algdrie 1955-1957.Paris: Perrin, 2001. Challe, Maurice et al.Lesproc3s desgdn&aux Challe et Zeller, textes complets. Paris: Nouvelles editions lathes, 1961. de Gaulle, Charles. Mdmoires despoir. Paris: Plon, 1970.

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Debre, Michel. Mkmoires, vol. 3, Gouverner, 1958-1962.Paris: Albin Michel, 1988. Massu, Jacques. La vraie bataille dAlger. Paris: Plon, 1971. -. Le torrent et la digue. Paris: Plon, 1972. OASparle. Paris: Julliard, 1964. Salan, Raoul. Le proces de Raoul Salan, compte rendu st6nographique. Paris: Albin Michel, 1962. Soustelle,Jacques. Lapage n’estpas tourn6e. Paris: La Table ronde, 1965. -. L’Esp6rance trahie, 1958-1961.Paris: Alma, 1962. Tricot, Bernard. Les sentiers de lapaix, Alg6rie 1958-1962.Paris: Plon, 1972. Vidal-Naquet, Pierre, ed. La raison d6tat. Paris: Editions de minuit, 1962. Vidal-Naquet, Pierre. Face rt la raison d6tat: un historien duns la guerre d’Alg6rie. Paris: La DCcouverte, 1989. -. La torture duns la Rbpublique: essai dhistoire et de politique contempcraines (1954-1962).Paris: Editions de minuit, 1972. -. L’Aflaire Audin. Paris: Editions de minuit, 1989 [1958]. Vittori,Jean-Pierre.Nous, les appel6s dWg6rie. Paris: Temps actuels, 1983.

NOTES 1. Pierre Laval, June 22, 1942, cited in Philippe Burrin, La France u l‘heure allemande, 1940-1944(Paris: Le Seuil, 1995), p. 156. This is a very famous line from a major speech. 2. Bernard B. Fall, Hell in a Vety Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1966). Fall was killed in 1967 while covering the American war in Vietnam. 3. See Jean Fourastie, Les trente glorieuses, ou, La r6volution invisible de 1946 u 1975 (Paris: Fayard, 1980). 4. Alain is worth reading because his pessimism about power expresses a central and enduring element of French political culture; see Propos de politique (Paris: Rieder, 1934). 5. Philip M. Williams, Crisis and Compromise: Politics in the Fourth Republic (Garden City, NY: Doubleday/Anchor, 1966), p. 19. 6. Cited in Jean Lacouture, Pierre Mend& France (Paris: Le Seuil, 198l), p. 49. 7. Edouard Herriot, La Vie de Beethoven (Paris: Gallimard, 1929);Pierre Mendes France, L’Oeuvre$nanci&re du gouvernement Poincar6 (Paris: Librairie generale de droit et de jurisprudence, 1928) and L a banque internationale: Contribution a l’6tude du probleme des &tats-Unisd’Europe (Paris: Valois, 1930). 8. See Anne Sa’adah, “Le Mouvement republicain populaire et la reconstitution du systtme partisan franqais, 1944- 1951,”Revue franGaise de sciencepolitique, Vol. 37, No. 1 (February 1987), pp. 33-58. 9. L’Express, May 16, 1953, p. 6. 10. These universally cited passages are quoted by Bernard Droz and Evelyne Lever in Histoire de laguerre d’Algkrie, 1954-1962 (Paris: Le Seuil, 1982), p. 62. 11. See Droz and Lever, Histoire de la guerre dAlggrie, 1954-1962,p. 43 and Charles-Robert Ageron, Histoire de l’Alg6rie contemporaine, vol. 2, De l’insurrection

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de 1871 au ddclencbement de la guerre de libdration (1954) (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1979), p. 533. 12. See Charles-Robert Ageron, “ A w origines de la Toussaint 1954,”in Laurent Gervereau, Jean-Pierre Riow, and Benjamin Stora, eds., La France en Guerre dAlg&e, novembre 1954juillet 1962 (Nanterre, France: Bibliothkque de documentation internationalecontemporaine, 1992), p. 21. 13. The continuing competition between Messali Hadj’s allies and the FLN led to ugly intranationalist violence during what was in any event a very ugly war. Ferhat Abbas, the UDMA leader, joined the FLN in 1956. In September 1958, he was made president of the Provisional Government set up by the FLN. He was replaced in the summer of 1961 and after independence was often out of grace with a regime he criticized as authoritarian. See Jean Lacouture’s lengthy tribute to a moderate whom France ignored until it was too late: Lacouture, “La mort de Ferhat Abbas: patriote, nationaliste, contestataire,”Le Monde, December 26, 1985, pp. 1 and 3. 14. By French standards,that is, it won a plurality, not a majority. 15. See editorial in Le Monde, “Memoiresd’Algerie,”June 12,1999, p. 24. 16. This was the first line of de Gaulle’s prepared text. For the full speech, see Charles de Gaulle, Discours et messages, vol. 3, Avec le renouveau, 1958-1962 (Paris: Plon, 1970), pp. 17-18. 17. For accounts of de Gaulle’s evolving assessment of the Algerian situation, see analysis in Bernard Droz and Evelyne Lever, Histoire de la guerre dAlg&e (1954-1962) (Paris: Le Seuil, 1982),and accountsin Alain Peyrefitte,C‘dtaitde Gaulle, 3 vols. (Paris: Fayard, 1994-2000) and Michel Debre, M6moires, vol. 3, Gouverner, 1958-1962 (Paris: Albin Michel, 1988), especially ch. 6. De Gaulle gives his own account in M6moires despoir (Paris: Plon, 1970). Debre was one of the architects of the constitutionof the Fifth Republic and served as prime minister from 1958 to 1962. Peyrefitte was a cabinet minister. 18. The “foursome”was composed of Generals Maurice Challe, Raoul Salan, Edmond Jouhaud,and And16 Zeller. For the speech, see Charles de Gaulle, Discours et messages, vol. 3, Avec le renouveau, 1958-1962, pp. 328-330. 19. See for example the SOFRES poll conducted for RTL and Le Monde on May 23-24, 2002, available through SOFRES and reported in “Plusd’un Franqais sur quatre adhere a w idees de l’extr6medroite,”Le Monde, May 29, 2002, p. 7. 20. On the National Front, see especially Franqoise Gaspard,A Small City in France, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995); Pascal Perrineau,Le Symptome Le Pen: Radiograpbie des 6lecteurs du Front national (Paris: Fayard, 1997); and Norma Mayer, Ces FranGais qui votent Le Pen (Paris:Flammarion, 1999). 21. See, for example, articles in Le Monde,June 4, 2002. 22. This “curriculum”is exemplifiedby G. Bruno’s famous school text, Le Tour de la Francepar deur enfants:Devoir etpatrie (Paris: Eugene Belin, [ 1878]), reprinted repeatedly under the Third Republic. 23. Roger Martin du Gard, Jean Barois, trans. Stuart Gilbert (New York: Viking, 1949). The novel, actually written in a form we would associate with a telescript, was originally published in 1913. For a more academic treatment of lai’citk,seeJean-Marie Mayeur, La question lai’que,XZXe-xXe siecle (Paris: Fayard, 1997). We will return to the problems created by the principle of laicit6 in chapter 7.

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24. The most notable exception, other than state funerals, was the Te Deum sung in Notre Dame on August 26, 1944,to celebrate the Liberation of Paris. 25. Florence Beauge, “Torturee par l’armee franqaise en Algerie, ‘Lila’recherche l’homme qui l’a sauvee,”Le Monde, June 20, 2000, p. 1. 26. See separate interviews with Jacques Massu and Marcel Bigeard, published in Le Monde, June 22,2000, p. 6. 27. Among the journals, Esprit played an important role; see for example “L’histoire d’un acte responsable: le cas Jean Le Meur,”Esprit, December 1959, pp. 675-708. Le Meur, a conscript who accepted an army commission, was sent to prison after he refused to serve in Algeria. Other key texts included Henri AUeg’sfirst-hand account of torture in La question (pans: h t i o n s de Minuit, 1958), which was quickly banned in France, and Pierre Vidal-Naquet’sL’aflaire Audin (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1958) and La raison d‘dtat (Paris:Editions de Minuit, 1962). 28. Jean-Paul Sartre’s1948play, Les main sales (Paris: Gallimard, 1948),deals with the ethical dilemmas inherent to revolutionary action. 29. See Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon, trans. Daphne Hardy (New York: Macmillan, 1941) and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Humanisme et terreur, essai sur le probl6me communiste (Paris: Gallimard, 1947). Koestler’sbook appeared in French translation as Le zdro et l’infini (Paris: Calmann-Evy, 1947). 30. Albert Camus, L’bomme rdvoltd (Paris: Gallimard, 1951). A first-highly critical-review of m e Rebel for Sartre’sjournal, Les temps modernes, was written by the philosopher Francis Jeanson: “AlbertCamus ou 1’9merevoltee,”Les temps modernes, no. 79 (May 1952), pp. 2070-2030. The exchange between Camus and Sartre followed in the summer (no. 82, August 1952), and included a rejoinder by Jeanson: Albert Camus, “Lettre au directeur des Temps modernes,” pp. 317-333; Jean-Paul Sartre, “Reponsea Albert Camus,”pp. 334-353; and Francis Jeanson, “Pourtout vous dire,” pp. 354-383. For a sample of Camus’s political writings in English, see Albert Camus, Resistance, Rebellion, and Death, trans. Justin O’Brien (New York: Knopf, 1960). Jeanson later actively aided the Algerian FLN; he and members of his underground network were prosecuted in a well-publicizedtrial in September 1960, and Jeanson was condemned in absentia to eight years in prison. See Herve Hamon and Patrick Rotman, Lesporteurs de valises:la rdsistancefranGaise a la guewe dzlgdrie (Paris:Le Seuil, 1979).Sartre and others associatedwith Les Temps modernes adopted positions close to Jeanson’s.Camus, deploring the injustices and excesses committed by both sides in the Algerian War, pleaded with increasing desperation for a negotiated, compromise settlement. He died in a car accident in January 1960.

CHAPTER 4

Putting Sovereignty First: The Gaullist Vision Charles de Gaulle has already appeared several times in this book. In 1940,he vowed to reestablish the independence and freedom of his defeated country; in 1958,he came out of self-imposedretirement to craft a new constitution and resolve the Algerian crisis. In each instance, he found the state compromised“bafoue”(“slappedaround”),as he often said-and he attributed France’s misfortunes to the design of its political institutions. In each case, he sought to restore the strength and integrity of the state. Institutionsthat gave fullexpres sion to the multiple and deep divisions of the French body politic and that were therefore prone to paralysis, de Gaulle argued, would be the death of the nation. The experiences of the 1930s and 1950s seemed to bear out his analysis. Reasoning along similar lines, Napoleon had created a dictatorship. De Gaulle did not believe in dictatorship, though many of the people who s u p ported his virulent campaign against the constitution of the Fourth Republic in the late 1940swould probably have welcomed one.’ Dictatorship could create momentary strength,de Gaulle thought, but not stability:dictatorsalways overreached themselves abroad and provoked impatience and opposition at home. The First and Second Empires illustrated his point. The time had come, de Gaulle argued, for the French to stop alternating between ineffectual republics and temporary dictatorships. A redesigned republic could provide both the strong leadership France normally found only in dictatorship and the respect for rights on which the long-termlegitimacy of any French regime depended.2 In 1958, de Gaulle got his redesigned republic, and for the next decade, until his sudden resignation in April 1969,he presided over its destinies. The “domaine rbserve of the president was foreign policy, because it was there that state sovereignty was most directly in play and most regularly at stake, and during his tenure in power, de Gaulle sought to preserve the country’s rung and to make France count in the international arena. De Gaulle embodied many of the most admirable and interesting elements 99

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of French nationalism.The nationalism expressed in his policies has deep roots in French institutions and culture, and the patterns he set in French foreign and security policy have proven correspondingly durable. Yet the nationalism that informed his assessment of the role France could play in the international system now seems in many ways anachronistic, as do his similarlyinformed views of the Atlantic Alliance and European integration. In his constant, almost obsessional insistence on the importance of state sovereignty,de Gaulle employed a language and operated in a conceptual world increasingly remote from us. Decades after his death, his views would continue to surface: in debates about missile basing in the 1980s,German unification in 1989-1990, the Gulf War of 1991, the Maastricht Treaty and continuing European integration, the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, the war in Bosnia, NATO intervention in Kosovo in 1999, and the aftermath of September 11, 2001. The contradictions embedded in de Gaulle’s vision provide a fascinating window on an international system and a country in the midst of a major transitional period, and so before turning to the debates about European integration and Yugoslavia later in the book, we will probe here the view of the state and the policies that de Gaulle bequeathed to his successors.

THE GAULLIST CONCEPTION OF STATE SOVEREIGNTY A sovereign state, in de Gaulle’sview, protects its borders from invasion, its decision-making processes from foreign influence, and its institutions from domestic disruption. A state that fails to establish or that gives up its sovereignty is nothing but a pseudostate, by definition illegitimate. This was the essence of de Gaulle’sbrief against the Vichy regime, but it was also at the heart of his critique of both the Third and the Fourth Republics. At different times during de Gaulle’s political career, squabbling politicians, German armies, Allied intrigues, the Communist Party, rebellious generals, proponents of European integration, NATO’s integrated command, and striking students were seen as threats to French sovereignty. While sound institutions and policies could minimize domestic challenges to the state (from, for example, squabbling politicians or rebellious generals), the anarchic character of international politics guaranteed that sovereigntywould always have to be jealously protected from external threats (like German armies and Allied intrigues). But why should sovereignty be valued?Sovereignty,in de Gaulle’saccount, is important because political communities are created from the top down, not from the bottom up: the state makes the nation possible. De Gaulle argued that this was particularly true in France, where citizens were especially fractious. The British produced two cheeses (Stilton and cheddar) and two parties; the French required many cheeses and many parties. But differ-

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ences in difficulty did not change the nature of the community-buildingoperation. In de Gaulle’s account, whatever affinities people living in proximity to one another may share, they will remain effectively divided by their conflicts until a leader creates institutions that can both resolve conflicts authoritatively and, by proposing and pursuing some common project, remind people of their shared interests and values. A community exists when shared interests and values loom larger than residual conflicts and can serve as a basis for common action; this, in essence, was Renan’sdefinition of the nation (see chapter 1). Communities are important because they generate culture in the broadest sense of the term, that is, a set of interlinked responses to the human condition. Culture is expressed in language, art, architecture, religion, modes of economic exchange, cuisine, philosophy, and politics. Culture, finally, is important because it helps individuals find meaning in their lives and sustains a continuing basis for cooperation. This is, of course, a simplified summary of a complicated position, but it illuminates important elements of de Gaulle’s politics. First, it explains the tremendous importance de Gaulle assigned to political leadership: great leaders create institutions and formulate projects that mobilize the energies and capture the imagination of their communities. Secondly, it distinguishes de Gaulle from the right-wing nationalists who, during and after the Dreyfus Affair,used arguments emphasizingreason of state (and thus sovereignty) to trample on individual rights. De Gaulle, in contrast, valued sovereigntyin part because it created an arena within which political participation could be organized and freedom could be protected, while freedom encouraged the kind of moderation and stability that helped keep the state strong. Finally, the summary account of de Gaulle’sview of sovereigntysuggestswhy he was suspicious of all efforts to construct supranational institutions, such as the United Nations or a hypothetical “UnitedStates of Europe.” Distinct national communities might well share s i m c a n t interests and values. During World War 11, France, Britain, and the United States, all democratic powers, had had a common interest in securing the defeat of Nazi Germany, and their soldiers had fought shoulder to shoulder to achieve that goal. But at the same time, no country was above poaching on the territory of another, wherever the fences were down and whenever there were gains to be had. The Americans would have preferred a docile ally in Paris and tried repeatedly to squeeze de Gaulle out of the postwar equation,while the British and the Free French vied openly for continued imperial influence in the Middle East. To ignore the inevitability of such clashes, de Gaulle believed, was to deny reality, and those who deny reality, he warned, generally end up its victims. The boundaries of legitimate political authority cannot be extended by treaty agreements, he asserted, because culture (understood again in the broadest sense) cannot be extended by decree. Where supranational arrangements are nonetheless concluded, they often cloak the hegemonic designs of one of the participants,

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which may hope to impose its project as the “common”project and acquire new resources with which to pursue it. Even if no such hegemonic project emerges, the states participating in the agreement will have surrendered the authority and the ability to pursue their own projects; they will have gone from being a group of legitimate states with partially competing and partially overlapping projects to being an artificial and illegitimate but energyconsuming entity with no project.

CHARTING POLICY OM nationalists were not alone in associating French greatness and power with France’sempire. Many people who resigned themselves to Algerian independence deplored in the retreat from empire what they saw as a retreat from power and a decline in rung. De Gaulle saw events differently. From 1959 on, the Generalargued that colonialwars were a costly distractionin a world where the critical power struggles were taking place at a different level. The advent of the superpowers and the invention of nuclear weapons had transformed international politics. The rise of German power-the “German problem”had brought about two world wars in a quartercentury.The Cold War ”solved” the German problem by dividing the country, while the threat of mass destruction deterred the superpowers from attacking each other. In war-weary Europe, this was good news. But it came at a price, and not just to Germany. The same conditions that preserved the peace on the European continent reduced the autonomy of all European states, including that of former great powers like Britain and France. Within each Cold War camp, ultimate decisionmaking authority rested with the superpower. The United States did not plunder its allies or trample on their freedom, as did the Soviet Union in its sphere of influence, but the United States did seriously constrain its allies’ foreign policy options. Britain, in de Gaulle’s view, had been content to become the long arm of American foreign policy. The General did not want that role for France. Instead,he sought to define some running room between the superpowers.His efforts unfolded as he reshaped France’s relations with the superpowers and with Europe. They involved a recasting of both the ends and the means of French foreign policy. De Gaulle simultaneouslydistanced his country from Washington and the Atlantic Alliance and made overtures to communist powers. France had been a founding member of NATO in 1949. In September 1958, after a mere four months in office, de Gaulle demanded the creation of decision-making procedures within NATO that would have placed the United States, Britain, and France on an equal footing. President Dwight D. Eisenhower refused. Over the next several years, de Gaulle graduallypulled France’s naval and air forces out from under NATO control. In March 1966, he completed the process by

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withdrawing French land forces from NATO’s integrated command structure and demanding the departure of Allied forces stationed in France. At issue was never the desirability of a defensive alliance among the western democracies; France remained part of the political arm of the Alliance and would, at critical moments (during the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, for example), be unstinting in its expressions of support. At issue, instead, was sovereignty: France, de Gaulle told an audience in Strasbourg in 1959, “having lived long centuries and endured great dramas, knows that her army must belong to her alone, and that . . . otherwise, no army holds together.”3 France’s army had been repeatedly humiliated in recent memory. OAS nationalists bitterly accused de GauLle of betraying the nation and turning his back on French greatness by abandoning the empire: “capitulationwith a lot of fancy talk,”Raod Girardet called it, while denouncing the “Swissification” of France, “the reconversion of a great people with a longstanding vocation for adventure and messianism into a circumspect, well-behaved, limited nation.”*But de Gaulle reversed the tables. He denounced the archaic and seditious character of the OAS project, and, insisting on the theme of national independence, acceleratedthe modernization of the French military. Back-toback unconventional or guerilla wars in Indochina and Algeria had halted efforts to reorganize and retool the military after the Liberation: the military had not demanded tanks, jets, and submarines, which were of little use in Vietnamese jungles or Algerian villages. De Gaulle redirected the military’s (and the public’s) attention. France, the General told his compatriots,needed a new military for a new world: a nuclear strike force under independent French command, the capacity to project land, sea, and air power anywhere in the world, and the ability to guarantee the defense of France’sborders. On February 13, 1960, France detonated a nuclear device. Even as de Gaulle modernized and reasserted national control over French arms, he looked for ways to introduce flexibilityinto the rigidified antagonisms of the Cold War. In January 1964, France extended diplomatic recognition to the People’s Republic of China. De Gaulle regularly sought out avenues of communication with Moscow and made a tenday trip to the USSR in June 1966. In a speech delivered in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, on S e p tember 1,1966,de Gaulle criticized the American escalation of the war in Vietnam. De Gaulle’s early-and perceptive-critique of American policy in Vietnam provided an opportunity for the French leader to question underlying patterns in American foreign policy and to score points with audiences in the Third World.5 When de Gaulle returned to power in 1958, European integration was still in its early stages. The European Coal and Steel Community had been created in 1951, on the initiative of Robert Schuman (1886-1963), a Christian democrat who was foreign minister when he launched the idea in May 1950. The Treaty of Rome, creating the European Economic Community (EEC, often

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called the Common Market), was signed in March 1957. Between these two successful proposals, efforts to create a European army, the European Defense Community (EDC), had foundered after months of bitter debate. De Gaulle had been particularly vehement in his opposition to the EDC. Proponents of European integration, especially numerous in the ranks of the Chris tian democraticmovement, had little reason to feel encouragedby de Gaulle’s return to power. They hoped to use economic integration as an entering wedge to pave the way for political integration. Now the fate of their project lay in apparently hostile hands. De Gaulle’s European policy was informed by three goals. First, he was determined to prevent the EEC from becoming an instrument of American foreign policy. It was for this reason that he twice blocked Britain’sapplication to join the Common Market (in the winter of 1962-1963, and again in 1967). Secondly, against the Christian democratic ministers in his own government, he staunchly opposed any move that would have involved a sacrifice of French sovereignty. As always, he favored intergovernmental cooperation whenever and wherever possible, but he ridiculed the idea of a supranational European entity as illegitimate and naive. How would it work, he asked at a press conference in May 1962: There is no way, in these times, for a foreign majority to force action on recalcitrant nations. It is true that this “integrated”Europe, as it is called, might not have any policies at all. That would simplirjr lots of things. Indeed, once there was no France, no Europe, no policy because it would be impossible to impose one on each of the Six States, we would stop making policy. But in that case, perhaps our European world would fall into line behind an external power, and that power would have a policy.6

To this troubling prospect, de Gaulle proposed an alternative. It was the third, most ambitious, and most elusive goal of his European policy: while a Europe under American tutelage was clearly unacceptable, a Europe under French leadership was a temptation. In order to turn Europe into a multiplier of French influence and power, F m c e would have to enlist West German s u p port. De Gaulle’smost notable move in this direction was the treaty he signed with West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer inJanuary 1963.But the West Germans had their own agenda. They knew they were barred by their past from political leadership in Europe; should they wish to forget, there were de jure and de fact0 limits on their sovereignty to remind them.’ By definition, they were therefore going to be someone’sjunior partner. The question was whose junior partner they would choose to be. In wooing them, de Gaulle had to compete with the United States-and mitigate West German anxiety about the Russians. In the uncertain atmosphere of the late 1940s,when Europe still

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lay in ruins, de Gaulle too had feared that the USSR might make a play for power in western Europe. By the early 1960s,that possibility seemed less plausible, increasing de Gaulle’smargin of maneuver vis-a-vis the United States and NATO. But West Germans still looked across a fortified border into the cold steel of the Russian army, and they were much less inclined than the French to antagonize their American protectors. De Gaulle, looking to Europe for support on the world stage, correctly assumed that British loyalties were durably Atlanticist. West German proclivitieswere profoundly ambivalent: sufficiently European to encourage de Gaulle, but too Atlanticist, and perhaps, at a deeper level, too conflicted about playing second fiddle to another continental power to provide him with a reliable political resource. De Gaulle worked single-mindedlyto assemble the political, military, economic, and cultural means necessary to make his ambitions for France seem realistic. His first move, as we have seen, was to rewrite the constitution.Without the powers the new constitution placed at his disposal,he would have been unable to end the Algerian War, and so the rest of the project would have collapsed. The pursuit of independence required both the modernization of France’smilitary establishmentand the kind of diplomaticactivism in which de Gaulle willingly engaged. Economically, the policy required a strong economy and a strong franc. The student and worker strikes of May 1968, by depleting France’s reserves, therefore dealt a serious blow to de Gaulle’s foreign policy ambitions. The cultural component of de Gaulle’s policy is perhaps the least examined. De Gaulle insisted that France’s voice be heard, but what exactly did the voice have to say-other than that it deserved to be heard? When we think of de Gaulle the international strategist,we are more likely to think of the nuclear strike force than of Andre Malraux’swork as minister of culture (sandblasting Parisian monuments grown filthy with pollution, setting up Maisons de la Culture in provincial towns), more inclined to remember de Gaulle’scareful speech in Phnom Penh than his impetuous remarks in Montreal (“Vivele Quebec libre,”July 26, 1967). In its loftier moments, French nationalism had always cast France as the unique agent of an important mission civilisatrice. The content of that mission had been variously defined: more political and republican for some, more cultural for others, sometimes inclusive of the Catholic tradition and sometimes militantly lui‘c.De Gaulle seemed unwilling to choose among these different missions. For him, each represented something genuine and valuable. His project was that France be in a position to pursue a mission, to “viser haut et se tenir droit” (“aim high and stand ta11”).8 He repeatedly asserted that the fact, and especially the projection, of sovereignty were the necessary conditions of national unity, but what such unity would look like in everyday domestic politics was not always clear.

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THE GAULLIST VISION AN ASSESSMENT De Gaulle’s nationalism, politically inclusive and appealingly optimistic about France’s prospects in a newly competitiveworld, resonated across the divide between the political left and the political right. The policies he pursued were not abandoned by his successors,and the dilemmas he faced resurfaced regularly. With the changes brought about by the end of the Cold War and globalization,they reappeared increasingly as common European problems. De Gaulle had hoped to equip France with a military that could answer to any situation anywhere and to develop policy priorities and commitments independent of those set in Washington. But as the European Union would discover decades later, this was easier said than done. The mere possession of nuclear weapons, even with delivery systems, does not make a great power, and the addition of conventional forces still does not make a great power. Logistical support and intelligence operations,when added to nuclear forces and combat units prepared to fight either conventional or unconventional wars or to deploy as peace-keeping forces, represent a heavy burden, even for the United States and even in a world where the United States is the only remaining superpower. What kind of military establishment does political independence require? And what does such independence really mean? When push came to shove-in the Cuban missile crisis or when the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in August 1968-Paris always lined up with Washington. Gaullist “independence,”perhaps like its later European counterpart, sometimes seemed to mean the right to criticize, to act the part of the gadfly while Washington played the part of power. But de Gaulle may have correctly assessed the importance of international rank and greatness to the vitality of French culture and the centrality of a dynamic and creative culture to domestic political cohesion. The Gaullist state is not what it was. France is a medium-sized power; European integration and globalization have placed Gaullist sovereigntyout of reach. The glory days of French culture seem to lie in the past. The puzzles of contemporary French politics focus on how these developments will reshape the actors, institutions, and culture of democratic politics.

RECOMMENDED READING Agulhon, Maurice. De Gaulle:bistoire, symbole, mytbe. Paris: Plon, 2000. Aron, Raymond, and Daniel Lerner, eds. La Querelle de la CED: Essab danalyse sociologique. Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1956. Charlot,Jean.Le gaullisme dopposition, 1946- 1958. Paris: Fayard, 1983. Cohen, Samy, and MarieClaude Smouts, eds. La politique ext&eure de Va1h-y Ciscard dEstaing. Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1985.

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de Gaulle, Charles. Discours et messages. 5 vols. Paris: Plon, 1970. -. Mdmoires deguerre. 3 vols. Paris: Plon, 1954-1959. -. Mdmoires despoir. 2 vols. Paris: Plon, 1970. de Porte, Anton W. Europe between the Supetpowers: The Enduring Balance. 2nd ed. New Haven, COM.: Yale University Press, 1986. Gordon, Philip H. A Certain Idea of France: French Security Policy and the Gaullist Legacy. Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1993. Grosser, Alfred. La W e Rdpublique et sa politique ext&eure. Paris: Armand Colin, 1961. Hoffmann, Stanley. The European Sisyphus: Essays on Europe, 1964-1994. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995. -. Decline or Renewal? France since the 1930s. New York: Viking, 1974. Part N. Kolodziej, Edward A. French International Policy under de Gaulle and Pompidou. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1974. Lacouture, Jean. De Gaulle. 2 vols. Trans. Patrick O’Brian and Alan Sheridan. New York: Norton, 1990. Touchard,Jean. Le gaullisme, 1940-1969. Paris: Le Seuil, 1978. Viansson-Ponte, Pierre. Histoire de la Rdpublique gaullienne. 2 vols. Paris: Fayard, 1970- 1971.

NOTES 1. In April 1947,de Gaulle created the Rassemblement dupeuple franGais (RF’F). The main goal of the movement was to force institutional change on the fledgling Fourth Republic. De Gaulle’shostility toward what he called, in his kinder moments, “le regime des partis,” combined with his denunciations of the Communist Party, attracted many people who, unlike the General, were simply opposed to republican politics. The movement mobilized broad support at the municipal elections of October 1947, but enthusiasm quickly waned. De Gaulle distanced himself from what remained of the movement in 1953. See Jean Charlot, Le gaullisme dopposition, 1946-1958(Paris: Fayard, 1983) and Jean Touchard,Legaullisme, 1940-1969 (Paris: Le Seuil, 1978). 2. For a more complete analysis of de Gaulle’s view of sovereignty, see Anne Sa’adah,“Sovereigntyand Citizenship: The Old France and the New Europe,”in Linda B. Miller and Michael Joseph Smith, eds., Ideas and Ideals: Essays on Politics in Honor of Stanley Hoffmann (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993), pp. 333-358. 3. Charles de Gaulle, November 23, 1961, Discours et messages, vol. 3, Avec le renouveau, 1958-1962(Paris: Plon, 1970),p. 393. The text of this speech (pp. 392-396) provides an overview of how de GauUe understood the mission of the military. 4. Raoul Girardet, Pour le tombeau d u n capitaine (Paris: L’Esprit nouveau, 1962), pp. 7,22. Girardet, a former rdsistant and a respected professor at the Institut d’dtudespolitiques in Paris, was an OM sympathizer. 5. For the text of de Gaulle’sPhnom Penh speech, see Discours et messages,vol. 5, Vers le terme, 1966-1969(Paris: Plon, 1970),pp. 80-84. For an analysis, see Anne Sa’adah, “IdeesSimples and Idees Fixes: De Gaulle, the United States, and Vietnam,”

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in Robert 0.Paxton and Nicholas Wahl, eds., De Gaulle and the United States: A Centennial Reappraisal (Oxford: Berg, 1994), pp. 295-315. 6. Charles de Gaulle, May 15, 1962, Discours et messages, vol. 3, Avec le renouveau, 1958-1962, p p . 436-437. De Gaulle’s remarks at this press conference precipitated the resignation of his MRP ministers. 7. These were lifted when Germany was unified in 1990. 8. Charles de Gaulle, Mbmoires de guewe, vol. 1, L’appel, 1940-1942 (Paris: Plon, 1954), p. 1,from the end of the famous paragraph, cited in chapter 1, in which de Gaulle describes his “certaineidee de la France.”

PART TWO THE INSTITUTIONS, PROCESSES, AND PRACTICES OF FRENCH POLITICS

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Political Representation in the Fifth Republic: Back to the Marais? We must now turnto France’scomplicated party system.De Gaulle suggested an analogy between France’s political parties and its innumerable cheesessome strong, smelly, and of limited appeal, others bland and widely accepted; some made purely for local consumption, others with international audiences; some the same across a range of localities, others less uniform.The variety of cheeses makes for a delicious course between the main dish and the dessert in proper French meals. The fragmented and polarized character of the party system, in contrast, often spoils the taste of democratic politics. Bipolar party systems, and especially centripetal two-party party systems, facilitate representative government because elections automatically produce a majority and an opposition. Voters are given a clear choice at election time, and rulers are given the means to govern effectively. In over two hundred years of experimentationwith republican government,France has rarely had a bipolar party system, and it has never had a two-party party system, either centripetal or centrifugal.1 French public opinion rarely divides neatly into a “right”and a “left,”although we often speak as if that were the case. Party systems everywhere are shaped by institutions (electoral laws, for instance, or the choice of a presidential over a parliamentary regime), the calculations of political actors (de Gaulle’srefusal to identrfy himself with a political party at the Liberation, for example, or Edgar Faure’sdecision to dissolve the National Assembly in December 1951, while Mendes France was still trying to organize his popular base), and the structure of public opinion, itself in part the product of factors exogenous to the political system (social structure, for example, or cultural differences). In France, single issues are rarely important enough to relegate other issues to the political sidelines. Instead, multiple lines of cleavage produce multiple 111

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clusters of opinion and unstable alliances among them. The French do not simply argue, even now when no one directly attacks republican institutions, about economic policy and distributive justice. They also argue, and with comparable heat, about the proper balance of power between the state and civil society and how it should be expressed institutionally (how “Jacobin,” that is, how powerful and centralized should the state be?), about Europe and the Atlantic Alliance (how much sovereignty should France give up, under what conditions, and to whom?), about the rights and obligations of citizenship (does the mere fact of being born on French soil suffice to make someone a citizen?), and about the organization of political representation (how should the three branches of government divide up the labor of governing?); historically, of course, they have also argued about church-state relations and the republic itself. The multiplicity of issues has made political settlements difficult to create, and the repeated failure of attempted settlements has multiplied and exacerbated divisions. Some issues cut across the left-right divide: European integration, for example, has defenders on both the right and the left. Almost all issues also generate divisions within each camp: European integration, to stay with that example, has proponents but also opponents within both the left and the right. In the 1950s, the fragmented, polarized character of the party system compounded the Fourth Republic’s difficulties. De Gaulle argued and Mendes conceded that, given the party system, the parliamentary regime set up by the constitution of 1946 was producing ineffective, illegitimate governments. Both thought that leadership could provide a way out. Mend& argued that leadership could act directly to attenuate political fragmentation: by offering the public a new kind of party, he believed he could attract a majority to a new kind of politics. He lost his bet-as de Gaulle had predicted he would. Mendes’sstrategy threatened too many powerful groups and people, and the institutions left him exposed to their machinations; his enemies cut him down before he could organize his political base. De Gaulle, in contrast, contended that leadership should be used to change institutions. He argued that new institutions (an independent executive, a less powerful parliament, new electoral laws) could immediately neutralize the adverse effects of persistent fragmentation. New institutional arrangements could, for example, confine the expression of diverse strands of opinion to a parliament largely stripped of its power to obstruct policy. In the longer run, de Gaulle hoped that his new institutions, and especially the presidency, would change the calculations of political actors and the expectations of the public and so bring about durable and significant changes in political behavior. Initially, the new institutions would seem an artificial imposition, constraining the “natural”impulses of the body politic to fragmentation and annoying elites accustomed to other rules. Over time, new patterns of expectation and behavior would emerge in response to the new incentives created by the

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institutions, and eventually these new patterns-and the institutions themselves-would seem “natural.” De Gaulle did not lose his bet as quickly or as clearly as Mendes had lost his, but nor did things-parties, political behavior, institutions-turn out quite as he might have wished. For two and a half decades, however, the Gaullist bet seemed likely to succeed: the institutions retained their original logic, the party system became less complex and increasingly centripetal, and voters flocked to the polls at election time, where the choices they made seemed to matter. Sometime in the mid-l980s,under multiple external and internal pressures, the trend went into partial reverse, moving France out of what we will call a bipolar moment in its history. Conflictingpresidential and parliamentary majorities (“cohabitation”)created new uncertainties in the institutional sys tem; those uncertainties were soon compounded by decentralizationreforms and deepening European integration. The party system became quite volatile as major players imploded and new actors appeared. And political behavior also went in unanticipated directions, as citizens, increasingly alienated from partisan and electoral politics, looked to new groups and social movements for alternative avenues of political participation. The new Republic’s rules and, while it lasted, de Gaulle’s towering pres ence, gave the right an advantage in the competitivecontests of the early Fifth Republic. During this period, the more dramatic changes took place on the left, where Frangois Mitterrand rebuilt the socialist party, forged an alliance with the Communist Party, won the electionsof 1981,and then watched with mixed satisfactionand anxiety as the once-mightycommunist movement collapsed. By the time the right awoke from the shock of its 1981 defeat and began to look for a politically adequate response, the tide had turned against the logic of de Gaulle’sreforms. But our story must start with the left.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE LEFT, 1958-1986 In 1958, the SFIO found itself in an unfavorable competitive position. Guy Mollet’sAlgerian policies had alienated a generation of young activists, many of whom were more drawn to Mendts. During and after the crisis of May 1958, Mollet’s support for de Gaulle and his new institutions had further divided the party. But the SFIO’sbiggest problem was structural and of much longer standing: it was that the party had cumbersome company on the left, in the form of the French Communist Party (PCF).

The Communist Party The PCF was created in 1920, when the SFIO met in conference at Tours and a majority of delegates voted to join the newly established Bolshevik

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Third International (Comintern). A minority, led by Lion Blum, stuck with la vieille maison (the old house). The PCF accepted Leninist principles of party organization and discipline that in practice entailed the suppression of intraparty dissent and the acceptance of policy preferences and political strategies emanating from the Comintern. Comintern decisions in turn reflected Soviet perceptions and interests-or, if one believed the communist account, the interests of the international working class. French communists were expected to put class solidarity ahead of national solidarity; loyalty to the socialist fatherland under construction in the Soviet Union was to trump loyalty to a bourgeois state in France. The PCF claimed to be “the”party of the French working class. In the mid-l930s, the party gained control of France’s most powerful trade union, the Confkdkration gkn&ale de travail, or CGT. Throughout the interwar period and again during and after World War 11, electoral support for the PCF waxed and waned. The party recruited members and voters most easily when it identified itself with the defense of the republic, as it did during the Popular Front years in the 1930s, and again in the Resistance and at the Liberation,when from 1944to May 1947,communistministers participated in the government: in the elections of November 1946, for example, it won 28.2 percent of the vote and its parliamentary group was the largest in the National Assembly. The party was most marginal during periods when it flirted with illegality and trumpeted the language of class warfare, as it did in the 1920s and during the tense early years of the Cold War. In bad times as in good, the PCF retained its organizationalcoherence and strength-and its practice of infiltrating groups it might someday aspire to control. Preserving its organizationalintegrity was in fact its top priority, far more important than the patently less realistic goal of fomenting revolution. Twice the party actually acted to defuse potentially revolutionary situations: once by ordering its Resistance troops to disarm in 1944-1945, as de Gaulle’s Provisional Governmentwas establishingits authority,and a second time during the worker-studentstrikes of May 1968,when it channeled worker demands away from political questions and back to wages and benefits. Such hesitation in crisis situations did not imply a conversion to reformist politics: the PCF regularly attacked the left-wing credentials of the openly reformist SFIO, ostensibly because it detected in the socialist party a natural inclination to betray working-class interests, but in fact because it hoped to immunize its supporters against overtures from the SFIO. Indeed, it is generally more useful to think of the PCF as a countercommunitythan as a revolutionary party or as a would-be agent of social and political change. Workers were the out-groupin French society. As wage earners, they were dependents in a society that valued independence. They sought to further their interests through collective action, but they operated in a culture dominated by individualists. They were propertyless urban dwellers in a society that glorified and promoted its smallholding peasantry. Working-class children were inno-

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cent of Latin declensions and the Greek middle passive in a land where education and culture conveyed power and prestige, where even Jean Jaw& the great socialist leader assassinated on the eve of war in 1914, quoted classical authors in the original. Not all communists were workers and not all workers were communists, but the PCF never portrayed itself as an interclass party. Rather, it staked its legitimacy on its claim to be the one and only party by and for the working class. It got workers involved in the political process and gave them a voice: it saw to it that working men (and occasionally women) were elected to public office, and that once elected, they spoke in the idiom of the working class and articulated working-class demands and grievances. The party published a daily newspaper (L’Humanit4,which its members hawked on street comers; it organized meetings where local and national issues were canvassed; it ran leadership training schools and sponsored camps and vacation trips (often to the USSR) for people to whom travel and leadership opportunities would in all probability otherwise have been denied. While generally excluded from power at the national level, the party controlled a number of predominantlyworking-class municipalities (for example, in the so-called Red Belt around Paris) and ran them reasonably well. In short, the PCF offered workers a kind of alternative community in which they felt valued and empowered: it made them into citizens. From a democratic viewpoint, the party was certainly not the ideal instrument of workingclass integration into the political life of the republic. Neither the internal organizationnor the culture of the party was democratic: it was as Stalinist as a party not in control of the state could hope to be; its debates, internal and external, often resembled exercises in verbal assassination; it supported the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. But for complicated historical reasonsthe country’sslow, reluctant, and incomplete embrace of capitalism;the bitter legacies of the June Days of 1848 and the Commune of 1871-the PCF was the primary instrument of working-classintegration the republic had. Its presence was disquieting to most people who did not belong to or support the party and even to some people who did, but it could not be wished away.

The Socialist Party The SFIO never acquired, or even sought, the monolithic quality and organizational strength the communists so diligently cultivated. Its creation, in 1905,reflected an accommodation between two quite different political families, represented by Jules Guesde and Jean Jaurks. Guesde (1845-1922), a journalist radicalized by the experience of prison and exile, was a Marxist, sectarian and rigidly doctrinaire even in his occasionally unconventional interpretations of Marx’s positions, fiercely centered on the working class as the proper agent and beneficiary of socialist action and on class warfare as an adequate descrip tion of social reality, and a firm believer in the ability of a revolutionaryparty to

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bring about change. In many ways, Guesde drew on the left’sJacobin past (his Marxist and revolutionary proclivities notwithstanding, he supported the war effort after 1914) and anticipated its communist future. While his influence seemed to diminish with the creation of the new party, the tradition he represented would remain potent through most of the twentieth century. Jaures (1859-1914), in contrast to Guesde, was profoundly attached to both the institutions and the ideals of the republic. He began his political life as a republican and a drqfusard.For him, socialism was simply the full realization of the republic’s promise, an interclass project that all citizens were called upon to promote and from whose achievement all would benefit. Jaurks was as flexible as Guesde was rigid, as inclined toward continuity and incrementalism as Guesde was attracted to ruptures and radical discontinuities; he excelled in the art of synthesis, weaving ideas and people together. A brilliant orator and a professor of philosophy in his rare moments away from politics, he believed in the transforming power of reason and persuasion. He had no use for violence: he did not advocate its use and he never glorified it rhetorically. His influence was ascendant when he was shot dead by a nationalist on July 31,1914-the day before Germany and France mobilized for war. Home to ideologically diverse factions, the SFIO was also sociologically heterogeneous.Jaures’svision of socialism as the realization of the republican project appealed to left-wing republicans, and the party attracted support among civil servants (especially teachers) and salaried workers. The party did have a working-class base, especially strong in the mining and industrial regions of northeastern France, but it was neither the political arm of an organized trade union movement (as was the Labour Party in Britain, which was organized around the same time) nor was it ever able to create or capture a trade union on whose political and material support it could rely (as communist parties did). In the early 1900s, France’s trade union movement, numerically much stronger than the SFIO, wanted nothing to do with political parties, elections, or parliament. Instead, the programmatic charter adopted by CGT at Amiens in 1906 (the “Charte d’Amiens”)suggested that parties, socialist or otherwise, were superfluous. Revolutionarysyndicalism, the Charter proclaimed, paves the way for complete emancipation, which can be achieved only through the expropriation of capital. Syndicalism chooses the general strike as its means of action and considers the trade union to be the founding block of social reorganization. Today, trade unions offer a means of resistance; in the future, they will organize production and distribution.2

Working-classseparatism (ouvri6risme)and revolutionary syndicalism’s“big bang” theory of sudden and total change through a general strike undermined the appeal and legitimacy of a socialist party wedded to democratic politics and dependent on interclass support.

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During the interwar period, as la vieille maison slowly recovered from the split at Tours in 1920, the party remained diverse and divided. It was led by Paul Faure and Lkon Blum. Faure (1878-1960), a former guesdiste, was secretary-general of the party from 1921 to 1938 and controlled its apparatus (such as it was). His anticommunism and unconditional pacificism survived the 1930s unshaken and led him to embrace Vichy after the defeat of 1940. Blum, reminiscent of Jaures in his intellectual qualities and political preferences, was editor of the party newspaper, Le Populaire, and the de facto leader of its parliamentary group. He was, as we have seen, prime minister when the Spanish Civil War began, and thus a central figure in the anguished debates about whether or not the democratic powers in general and France in particular should intervene to defend the Spanish Republic. The government decided against intervention, and in later years Blum remained deeply affected by his political inability to stop the fascist advance in Europe before it became a tidal wave.3 From 1920 through the early 1980s, the socialist party-internally diverse and organizationally weak-would repeatedly face a fundamental political dilemma. Since its audience never exceeded about one-fifth of the electorate, it could not hope to govern alone. It therefore needed allies, and it could look for them on either its left or its right. Both strategies were fraught with danger. If it chose to tie its fortunes to those of the PCF, it ran two risks: first, that of scaring off a significant fraction of its own supporters and second, that of being swallowed up by an unscrupulous and organizationally superior partner. If it opted instead for a center-left alliance, excluding the communists in favor of Radicals, Christian democrats, and other centrists, it also courted failure: many left-wing socialists would be convinced by communist claims that the socialist leadership was selling out, while the leadership itself would be held hostage in its policy initiatives by the conservatism of its allies and so unable to deliver on promises of meaningful reforms. The institutional changes implemented by de Gaulle in and after 1958exacerbated this longstanding dilemma. The changes encouraged a bipolarization of the party system, thus making centrist alliances more difficult;at the same time, the new arrangements disadvantaged coalitions that included a party (in this case, the PCF) viewed as illegitimate by a significant portion of the electorate. The SFIO was caught between a rock and a hard place. Under the Fourth Republic, elections for the National Assembly had been conducted on the principle of proportional representation: the number of seats a party got in the assembly was roughly proportional to its share of the vote.* The new electoral system-a modified plurality system, with two rounds of voting except in districts where a candidate won an absolute majority of votes in the first round-rewarded parties that struck alliances before the second round, allowing them to pool their votes around a single candidate. This tended to produce a second-round competition between the top

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first-round vote winner from the right and the top first-round vote winner from the left. Where one camp remained divided at the second round (any first-roundcandidatewhose support exceeded 12.5percent of registered voters was legally entitled to compete in the run-off), creating a triangular race, the candidate from the opposing camp was likely to win election by mustering a plurality of the vote. Socialists and communists had relatively few qualms about voting for each other’s candidates, even in the absence of directives from party leaders. “Republicandiscipline,”as this habit was called, was a longstanding tradition on the left, left over from the early days of the Third Republic, when conservative candidates tended to be hostile to the republic. The presidential race-a clearly bipolarizing contest (only two candidateswere allowed on the ballot in the second round)-was another matter. Parliament was not very powerful and was itself always divided: since support for competing parties within the left and the right was geographically concentrated, even the new electoral laws could not reduce the number of nationally important parties below four. The presidency, however, was now an office vested with vast powers, and winning it was an all-or-nothing affair. A communist candidate could never win, and a nonsocialist candidate beholden to the communist vote would face an uphill battle in his quest for centrist votes. Without some share of centrist votes, he would lose, for taken together, the communist and socialist votes tended to reach a ceiling around 45 percent. This was the unattractive situation that confronted the SFIO, and the noncommunist left in general, in the early 1960s. The first response was to try to build a center-left coalition, stretching from the SFIO on the left, through the remains of the Radical Party to the Christian democrats on the center-right. The effort was led by Gaston Defferre (1912-1986), the longtime mayor of Marseille, once a supporter of Mendes, a regular critic of Guy Mollet’s policies and politics, and, much later, the minister who would oversee the decentralization reforms adopted in the early 1980s, during Mitterrand’s first term as president. Within two years, Defferre’s “grande federation” initiative, launched in the fall of 1963 (again by L’Express,which a decade earlier had supported Mendes), failed miserably. Defferre had intended to run as a presidential candidate in 1965;in June, it was clear that his candidacy was going nowhere, and he withdrew. Almost immediately, Frangois Mitterrand stepped into the breach with an alternative strategy. Mitterrand had never belonged to the SFIO. In 1965, he was the head of the Convention des institutions rbpublicaines (CIR), founded the previous year to serve as an umbrella organization for political clubs. The clubs-most a cross between a political think tank and a support group-had been created in the late 1950s and early 1960s by disappointed mendbsistes, disgusted socialists, and civil servants afraid that a country in desperate need of reforms was about to embark instead on another bona-

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partist adventure. On September 10, 1965, Mitterrand announced the formation of the Fkdkration de la gauche dkmocrate et socialiste (FGDS), bringing together the CIR, the SFIO, and what was left of the Radical Party. He was interested in securing communist support; he was not interested in courting Christian democrats or other groups in the center. On December 5 , 1 9 6 5 , Mitterrand won enough votes (32.2 percent) to force de Gaulle (43.7 percent) into a run-off election. There, de Gaulle beat him, 54.5 percent to 45.4 percent. Organizationally,Mitterrand had come from nowhere, and de Gaulle was hardly a nobody; Mitterrand’s 45.4 percent was therefore considered a very promising achievement.

M a y 1968 At this point, the debate among socialists about alternative strategies might have seemed settled, but that would have been too simple. In early May 1968, weeks of student unrest and protest-over issues ranging from overcrowded classrooms, outmoded curricula, and parietal regulations restricting mixed-sex socializingin dormitories to de Gaulle’sseemingly endless hold on the reins of power-boiled over into strikes and sit-ins.The strikes spread through the educational system and spawned continuous street demonstrations. On May 13, workers joined the striking students;a week later, ten million workers were on strike. The country was effectively shut down. Initially, there was broad public support for the striking students, and as the movement gathered momentum, it was widely assumed that the strikes would sweep away not just the government, but also the ten-year-old Fifth Republic, its aging leader, and its peculiar institutions. But as the street demonstrations in Paris became increasingly destructive and the strikes created more and more inconvenience,public opinion began to change. Support for the May movement was already waning when, on May 28, Mitterrand urged the constitution of a provisional government under the leadership of Mendes France. Mendes, who remained irreconcilably opposed to presidential institutions and who had therefore refused overtures to stand as the standard-bearer of the left in 1965, declared himselfwilling to serve during what was envisioned as a transitional period to a new parliamentary republic. The communists immediately muddied the waters by demanding the formation of a “people’s government” Cpouvemement populaire, the selfdescription often used by communist dictatorships). And while all this was happening, de Gaulle staged a dramatic disappearance. Flying too low to be picked up by radar, his helicopter conveyed him to a French military base in Germany for a one-day morale-boostingvisit to General Massu. Not even his prime minister, Georges Pompidou (191 1 - 1974), who seemed to be eclipsing his bewildered boss, knew where de Gaulle was. But on May 30, everyone discovered that the General was back, literally and figuratively: in yet another brilliant

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speech, he reasserted his control and announced the dissolution of the National Assembly. On June 23 and 30, the electorate gave the right an overwhelming victory in legislative elections. The left, tom by recriminations after its defeat and seemingly more diverse, divided, and (except for the PCF) more deinstitutionalized than ever, appeared to be back at square one. And there it seemed to remain, even when, in April 1969, de Gaulle lost a referendum on a complicated set of proposed reforms and abruptly resigned.5 In the ensuing race to fill de Gaulle’s vacant office, Mitterrand did not run.On the first round, the communist candidate, Jacques Duclos, won 21.5 percent of the vote; Gaston Defferre c a p tured only 5 percent. The second-round contest opposed de Gaulle’sformer prime minister, Pompidou, to a centrist candidate, Alain Poher (1909- 1996); the left was unrepresented (as it would be again, for quite different reasons, only in 2002). The abstention rate, normally between 15 and 20 percent, rose to 31 percent. Pompidou won handily, 57.5 percent to Poher’s 42.4 percent.

The Two Lefls Mitterrand returned to the task of building a left-wing coalition. People now began to use a new terminology to discuss the enduring divisions on the left, distinguishingbetween a (chronologically) “first”left and a “second”left. The two lefts preferred different means and emphasized different ends; their rhetoric differed; the bases of each were sociologically distinct. The first left, with roots going back to Guesde, was best represented in the 1970s and later by the PCF and by the Centre dbtudes, de recbercbes et d6ducation socialistes,or CERES, a political club created in 1964 by Jean-Pierre Chevenement (born 1939). In its selection of means, the first left was Jacobin and state-oriented. Its rhetoric was aggressively working class (oum*6rikte), insistently lazc, and often sectarian.It was conventionallyMarxist in its understanding of socialist goals (it espoused, for example, state control over the means of production) and generally hostile to European integration. The second left admired the humanism of Jaw& and Blum, but was even more inclined to identify itself with the legacy of Pierre Mendes France. It was represented individually by Michel Rocard and Jacques Delors and organizationally by a political party and a trade union:the Parti socialiste unifi6 (PSU) and the Conf6d6rationfrangaise d6mocratique du travail (CFDT). The PSU was a socialist splinter group formed in 1960 to protest the Algerian War and resist what were seen as fascist tendencies in the Fifth Republic; Rocard (born 1930), a high-level civil servant, became its secretary-generalin 1967. The French trade union movement, like its party system,was fragmented, and one line of cleavage reflected the continuing sociopolitical relevance of the Catholic tradition. For years, elementswithin the Conf6dbationfrangaise des travailleurs catboliques (CFTC) had been moving away from that union’s

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identification with the Church and with socially and politically conservative positions. The CFDT was formed in November 1964, when a majority of the CFTC voted to make its new, more secular and leftist orientation official. Jacques Delors (born 1925), an important figure on the left in the 1980s and 1990s,was representative of the Catholic trade union movement’s contribution to the second left; he joined the CFTC in 1950 and quickly gained importance as a technical advisor and political player. The second left was antijacobin: it advocated decentralization; it encouraged initiatives emanating from civil society; in the socioeconomic sphere it promoted autogestion (self-management) and the market over nationalization and state control; and it looked favorably on European integration (Delors is perhaps best known for his service as president of the European Commission from 1985 to 1995 and as one of the architects of the Maastricht Treaty). Like Mendes, the second left preferred frank,pragmatic talk (parler vrai) to ideological posturing. Many of its supporters were either Protestants (like Rocard) or people whose Catholicism was or had once been important to them (like Delors). It sought to build interclass coalitions, and in fact, it appealed broadly to elements of the intellectual elite and to the new middle classes. For all these reasons, it often seemed to have more in common with an illdefined political center than with the giant on the left, the PCF. In order to achieve power, Mitterrand had somehow to bring the first and the second left under a single roof-and keep them there. It was not an easy task, and it did not get any easier when, in the late 1970s, the PCF realized that it was likely to suffocate in Mitterrand’s embrace. But it was a task at which Mitterrand succeeded, assisted by circumstances. In June 1971, the new Parti socialiste (PS) was constituted at Epinay, and Mitterrand was immediately named as its leader. His coalition included the CIR, Jean-Pierre Chevenement’sCERES, and the northeastern federations of the SFIO, led by Pierre Mauroy (born 1928),the mayor of Lille. The new party was committed to the elaboration of a common program with the PCF, and on June 27,1972, the two parties signed a Programme commun de gouvernement, with, as chapter headings, “Mieuxvivre, changer la vie,” “Democratiserl’kconomie,” “Democratiser les institutions,” and “Contribuer a la paix.” In the tightly fought, high-turnoutlegislative elections of March 4 and 11, 1973, the PS and its Radical allies ran neck-and-neck with the PCF, winning 20.7 and 21.4 percent respectively of the first-round vote. On March 11, with 81.8 percent of the electorate voting, the left won about 47 percent of the vote; the right, with about the same level of support, retained its parliamentary majority because of centrist support. In April 1974, when Pompidou died in office, Rocard threw his support to Mitterrand; at the Assises du socialisme in October of the same year, important elements of the PSU and the CFDT followed suit. In the interim, Valery Giscard d’Estaing (born 1926) had beaten Mitterrand by a hair’s breadth in the presidential elections of May 5 and 19, 1974:

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the second-roundresults were 50.8 percent for Giscard, 49.2 percent for Mitterrand, with just 12.7 percent of the electorate abstaining. In the days following the 1978 legislative elections, a team of political scientists asked voters in a representative sample whether they identified with the left or the right; 44 percent professed a preference for the left, 37 percent an identification with the right. When the real voters had gone to the polls on March 12 and 19, however, the left had been defeated, prompting the political scientists to entitle their analysis of the election, “Francede gauche, vote a droite.”6 Why, they asked, were voters acting in contradiction to their expressed preferences?The answer seemed to be that despite growing impatience with the deepening economic crisis, voters had once again been deterred from voting for the left by their fear of the Communist Party. The PCF, sensing the threat posed to its position by the new PS and by the slow dissolution of the old working class, was in one of its less conciliatory phases. According to an old expression, French voters wear their hearts on the left and their wallets on the right. Three decades of postwar prosperity had changed the social compositionof the electorate. Figuratively speaking, more people had wallets, and while their values made them sympathetic to the PS, their desire to protect and increase their material wealth made them especially allergic to the PCF. Until they could be convinced that the PS would be the controlling force in any left-wing government,they would shy away from voting for the left.

Mitterrand’s VZctmy:F

m Triumph to Disaway

Over the next few years, as electoral and survey statistics indicated a continuing decline in support for the PCF, fear of the role the communists might play in a coalition government receded. At the same time, disgruntlement with the incumbent conservative team spread. Giscard’sgovernment was discredited by scandals, handicapped by divisions on the right, and apparently unable to reverse double-digit inflation and rising unemployment rates. On April 26, 1981, French voters went to the polls to elect a new president. In this first round of voting, the incumbent Giscard won 28.3 percent of the vote; his Gaullist rival,Jacques Chirac, won 18 percent. Mitterrand won 25.8 percent; his communist competitor, Georges Marchais, won 15.3 percent. The right seemed to have a slight edge, but Chirac’svoters proved unreliable. In the run-off, held on May 10, Mitterrand defeated Giscard, 51.8 percent to 48.24 percent. The bipolarizing tendencies of the Fifth Republic that had served the right so well for two decades had now brought the left to power, and the left in power could mobilize the competitive advantages bestowed by the institutions. Mitterrand, following through on a campaign promise, quickly dissolved the National Assembly that had been elected in 1978. He needed a legislative

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majority in order to implement his program, and he got one: in June 1981, the electorate returned a new assemblyin which the PS enjoyed an absolute majority (269 out of 488 seats; the socialists’center-leftallies controlled another 20, and the PCF won 44). The new cabinet, led by Pierre Mauroy, included four communist ministers. In political and press circles sympathetic to the new government, triumphant talk about “lepeuple de gauche,”a broad popular majority for the left, marked the end of nearly twenty-fiveyears of conservative rule. The winners’ euphoria proved very short-lived.The government’spolicies did not put an end to the economic crisis. We will consider the economic and institutional side of this important story in the next chapters; here, we need to focus on the political miscalculations that, in a matter of months, undid the government’s electoral coalition. The heterogeneity of that coalition was obvious. Mitterrand’s support had come from the mainstream left, in all its ideological and sociological diversity: both the first left (the PCF and, within the PS, the CERES) and the second left (the Rocardian wing of the PS) had mobilized their troops. A less conventional left-including people, for example, who had cast first-roundvotes for the ecologist, Brice Lalonde, or for the perennial trotskyist candidate, Arlette Laguiller-also voted for Mitterrand. These predictable elements were joined by people for whom voting for the left was a kind of experiment: Chirac supporters who preferred a socialist who promised new economic policies to a conservativewho did not, people in the Catholic northwest who no longer felt obligated to vote for conservative candidates out of regard for Catholic interests and values, and elements of the salaried middle classes. These crucial experimentalvoters would judge the new government on its acts. Sociologically,ideologically, and culturally, they did not belong to thepeuple de gauche. They were not politically organized; they had no formal voice within the parties that had won power. The government, instead of courting these indispensable but unorganized and unfamiliar voters, immediately pitched its policies and its language to its base-and worse still (from the viewpoint of its future electoral chances), it seemed wedded to the agenda of the first left, the element of its base that was sociologically,politically, and culturally in decline. The first left was comfortable with an interventionist state, but both the second left and the left’s experimental supporters wanted a less tutelary state. Everyone, of course, wanted a quick economic fix. The government’sfirst-left orientation was unmistakable in two high-visibility policy areas: the economy and education. In the economy, the government kept its promise to increase public employment and to nationalize nine industrial groups and three dozen financial institutions. In the educational arena (a political minefield since the mid-l960s,when burgeoning numbers of students had created intractable difficultiesfor a system that had been designed for an elite), the new administration seemed to want to deprive parents of their right to choose private over public schooling for their children. In France, the pri-

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vate school system is largely confessional. The Savary law (named for Main Savary, the minister of education who proposed it) was intended to fulfill the left’spromise to make the educational system “ungrand service public, unifie et laique.”The law was a throwback to the left’s old insistence on lakite?,but the move proved impolitic. “Unifie” suggested monolithic. “Big”and “monolithic” were not words calculated to appeal to either the second left or the government’s experimental supporters. In 1984, the suggestion of an across the-board secularization of the school system, which might have sounded like an appropriate republican measure a century earlier, instead sounded gratuitously sectarian. It did not matter that the Savary law would not in fact have secularized Catholic schools, although the amended version of the bill did require that parochial school teachers be integrated into the civil service. Catholic schoolsare commonly referred to as “ecoleslibres,”and opponents of the government’sbill made the measure out to be an attack on freedom. The government’smismanagement of important symbolic issues like the school question might not have mattered had its economic policies been able to deliver a return to fullemployment.The economic policies adopted did not, however, produce their intended effects, and in 1983-1984, confronted with a choice between reversing course and abandoningthe European Community, the government reversed course, returning to policies reminiscent of those practiced by previous conservative governments. Ideologically, the governmental team was unprepared for the move and hard-pressed to explain to its own base why the switch was necessary and how an economic austerity program could be compatible with the values and purposes of the political left. The combined effect on public opinion of a continuing economic crisis, an inadequately explained shift in key governmental policies, and moves that seemed to indicate the state’scontinuing inclination to limit people’s choices was disastrous. On June 17, 1984, the left in general and the PS in particular were mauled in elections to the European Parliament: while the socialist list won 20.8 percent and the communist list 11.3percent (as against 36 percent and 16.1 percent respectively in the fmt round of the June 1981 legislative elections), the conservativelist won 42.9 percent (in the first round of the legislative elections of 1981, the two main conservative parties, the RPR and the UDF, had won 20.9 percent and 19.2 percent respectively)-and the National Front, for which this was the breakthrough election, won 11percent. On June 24, over one million people tumed out in Paris to demonstrate their support for private schools. Thepeuple de gauche seemed a distant memory; now the d b p s du socialisme (people disappointed by socialism) were legion. The French left was not alone in its disarray. In Germany, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) had just lost power. In Britain, a Labour MP called his party’s 1983 program statement “thelongest suicide note in history.”7In the United States, Ronald Reagan was about to trounce Walter Mondale in the presidential race of 1984.In most of the advanced industrial democracies, the ’

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left was trying to redefine itself. It was in search of a new way of talking about empowerment, a new social base, and a new set of preferred policy instruments. The French left was no exception. And so by the mid-l98Os,a few short years after finally winning power, the left seemed divided and disoriented.The right, however, was in no condition to recover the initiative. As a result, the institutions began to evolve in unexpected ways.

THE FAILED RECOMPOSITIONOF THE RIGHT, 1958-1981 Looking back over the political history of postrevolutionary France during the early years of the Fifth Republic, the historian Rent Remond identified three enduring traditions on the right.*kgitimism, orleanism, and bonapartism, he argued, were each associated with a different moment in nineteenthcentury French history: legitimismwas a legacy of the RestorationMonarchy,orleanism of the July Monarchy, and bonapartism of the Second Empire. Each had its own ideologicalpositions, temperament, and clientele.

Legitimism Of the three traditions,legitimismwas least comfortable with the institutions and modalities of modern politics. Modem politics presupposes a state relatively autonomous from social groups and institutions (for example, the aristocracy or the Church), mass participation in politics (for example, through universal suffrage,even where electionsare not free), and the presence of political parties (either in support of a dictator or in a competitive system). kgitimists distrusted the state and disliked politics: instead of proposing an ideal state, they dreamed of an ideal society, represented in their minds by the Old Regime.9 They feared both urban anonymity and capitalist utilitarianism; a properly organized civil society represented for them a world of face-to-face relations that recognized the importance of nonutilitarian values. Absent anonymity and the utilitarian disregard for notions of honor, duty, and piety, civil society would, they thought, naturally generate its own hierarchies and therefore its own order. Since they saw the resulting order as natural, they could not imagine that it could be legitimately contested. Politics had no place in their ideal world; rather, its presence indicated the breakdown of social order. Where others saw legitimate competition, they saw only signs of decay. These views placed the legitimists at a serious competitive disadvantage: they could attack modern politics, but they could not compete for power within its structureswithout renouncing their most fundamental positions. Sociologically, the legitimist tradition drew its strength from its associa-

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tion with the Catholic Church, which throughout the nineteenth century fired repeated salvoes in the direction of modern society and democratic politics. As we have seen, the Church not only contested the temporal authority of the modem state; it also condemned rationalism, democracy, capitalism, socialism, and urbanization, catalogued in the Syllabus by Pope Pius M as among “the principal errors of our age.” Vichy’s “NationalRevolution” promised to reverse the social “decay” caused by republican rule and to restore the “order”the legitimists thought natural; not surprisingly, Catholics who would never have been attracted to Nazism found real affinities between their beliefs and Vichy’s early goals. But legitimist sensibilities also surfaced in less politically compromising circumstances. In the mid1920s, the Church revamped its youth organizations in an effort to stem the advance of secular values. Each component organization of the Association catholique de la jeunesse francaise, or ACJF, was to direct a missionary effort aimed at a specific sector of French society: the Jeunesse ouvriBre catholique (JOC) aspired to organize and recapture the loyalty of the working class, theJeunesse agricole catholique (JAC) recruited young peasants, the Jeunesse btudiante catholique (JEC) organized Catholic university students, who were especially important because they belonged to the social elite. The ACJF exposed its young members to social realities, taught them leadership skills, and nurtured their idealism. Movement veterans went on to play key roles in the Resistance and then in parties and trade unions after the Liberation. Almost the entire leadership of the MRP had come through the ranks of the ACJF. The enormously effective postwar peasants’ organization, the Fbdbration nationale des syndicats des exploitants agricoles (FNSEA), benefited from the experience of a number of JAC veterans. Former jocistes resurfaced in important positions in the CFDT. The Catholic youth movement provided a conduit between the legitimist tradition and the “second left,” with an emphasis on the civic resources of civil society as the common element.

Orleanism Orleanists accepted modern politics, but hoped to restrict the role of the state to the key purpose of maintaining social order in the context of gradual social change and economic development. They believed in social mobility based on individual effort and merit. They wanted a constitutional order, and in that context, they favored representative institutions and the extension of the suffrage to those whose wealth gave them a visible stake in society and whose education equipped them to be rational participants in the public canvassing of important issues. Orleanistswere not, however, ideologically wedded to any specific type of constitutional order (whether a monarchy or a

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republic) or even to constitutionalism itself. Progress, they feared, could be arrested by either the legitimists’ nostalgia for a lost social world or the demagoguery of the mob. They varied their own political orientation according to their sense of which threat was primary at any given moment. In 1830, when the threat seemed to come from the right in the form of Charles X’s reactionary directives, they leaned to the center-left;during and after the June Days of 1848, when working-class assertiveness seemed to be undermining the social order, they sided decisively with the right. For the orleanists, the 1930s were particularly confusing years: the economic crisis seemed to be threatening the social order, the Zigues were threatening the republic, and the working class seemed mobilized for action. Whenever the orleanists were confronted by simultaneous threats to the social order and to the republic, they tended to give the defense of the social order priority over the defense of the republic. The orleanists did not take exception on principle to the development of commercial society, and sociologically, they were often among the agents and beneficiaries of commercialization, industrialization, and urbanization. Whatever the source of their wealth, they belonged to the educated uppermiddle classes. During left-leaningphases, they sometimes adopted anticlerical positions, but in general, orleanists remained Catholics out of both habit and prudence: whatever their personal beliefs, they valued the Church as an instrument of social discipline.

Bowpartism Of the three traditions, only the bonapartist embraced mass participation

in politics and the state as the agent of an independent project. Bonapartists adopted the Jacobin emphasis on popular sovereignty while rejecting liberal restrictions on state power. Bonapartist leaders trampled on intermediary bodies, disregarded the rule of law, scorned representative institutions, and denied the legitimacy of political competition. Instead, bonapartism idealized the charismatic leader who could mobilize a populist movement in the service of nationalism. Unlike political parties, movements were supposedly truly national: they claimed to advance interests that were above politics and class. As “national”leaders, bonapartist leaders believed themselvesjustified in increasingthe powers of the state. Bonapartism generally found its supporters among the lower-middle classes, but its strength always depended on the complicity of elite groups normally more sympathetic to legitimism or orleanism. Whenever circumstances (usually in the form of economic crisis and corruption scandals) simultaneously alienated the lower-middle classes and the elites from the established order, bonapartism had its chance.

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Comparing Traditions on the Right Legitimism and bonapartism both tended to cast human decisions in heroic terms and to acknowledge the place of tragedy in human affairs. Both emphasized the necessity of courage and self-sacrifice,for the legitimists in the service of personal and caste honor, for the bonapartists in the cause of national greatness. Both traditions were at home with high drama. Orleanism, in contrast, was more prosaic, less sentimental,more “bourgeois”in its focus on individual happiness and social order. No single party on the right ever succeeded in bridging the differences between these three traditions. Alongside their less fundamental differences, only one of the three traditions (orleanism) espoused an account of politics that recognized the legitimacy of political conflict and competition. The other two traditions posited unity as a normal domestic political condition, but legitimism saw unity as emanating from a well-ordered civil society, whereas bonapartism saw it as the product of a mobilized national community pursuing a political project behind a charismatic leader. Perhaps more surprisingthan the absence of a single party uniting the three traditions, one-to-one correlations between a single tradition and a particular party were also rare. The legitimist aversion to politics discouraged partisan organization through the nineteenth century, while in the twentieth century, the tradition’s emphasis on social solidarity and civil society, adopted by elements within the Catholic community that were moving politically from right to left, was picked up by groups and parties that defied simple classification on the left-right continuum or that were clearly aligned with the left rather than the right. Orleanists resisted the kind of discipline modern party politics implied. During normal periods, they formed coteries and relied on their social power to influence political outcomes. During periods of upheaval, they tended to attach themselves to other political groups. Bonapartists were dependent on successive charismatic leaders and crisis situations;in between crises, the troops scattered to other parties (right and left) or simply demobilized. First at the Liberation and then again after 1962,many people hoped (and some people feared) that de Gaulle would spearhead the formation of a single,broadbased conservative party. The hopes were founded on an assessment of the circumstances and an understanding of the unique character of de Gaulle’s leadership and politics. In 1945,the different antirepublican tendencies embedded in each of the three right-wing traditions had all been discredited by their associationwith one or another aspect or phase of the Vichy regime. At the same time, de Gaulle seemed to represent the parts of each tradition compatible with republican politics. Like the legitimists, he denied the inevitability of class conflict,proposing to organize industrial relations by building cooperative structures between capital and labor.10 Like the orleanists,he understood the need for eco nomic modernization and valued a society open to talent, and he had little

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patience for social disorder. Faithful to the bonapartist model except in his crucial rejection of dictatorship and xenophobia,de Gaulle was a charismaticleader who preached national unity around MtiOnaliSt goals. In 194-1945, Christian democraticleaders begged de Gaulle to associatehimselfofficially with their new party, the Mouvement rt;publicainpop&ire (MRP). His acceptancemight have transformed the partisan landscape. But it was not to be: de Gaulle did not wish to lead a party, and the MRP, faithfulto its Catholicroots, quickly became uncomfortable with de Gaulle’s emphasis on state sovereignty. When de Gaulle left power and created the RPF, the divorce was confirmed despite the democratic professions of its leader, the RPF seemed to embody the bornpartist tradition in its entirety, with the usual admixture of panicky orleanists,moved in this case by their fear of communism.Conflictsover European integrationsoon deepened the chasm between Gaullism and Christian democracy. In the l960s, once the Algerian episode ended, de Gaulle did appear to be the leader of the right. As we have seen, the new institutions created a bipolarizing dynamic, and de Gaulle was the undisputed leader of “themajority,”as the right in power preferred to be called. But in a very real sense, de Gaulle was an accidental conservative, and the “bandof brothers”gathered about him, the Gaullist “barons,”were almost all men who had cast their lot with de Gaulle during the epic days of the war and had thereafter remained loyal to the former leader of the Free French. They had hailed from all over the political spectrum, and few were comfortable with what they saw as the petty, materialist focus of everyday conservativepolitics. While de Gaulle’score electorate was motivated by an orleanist concern for social order, his central issues were state institutions and state sovereignty, and while the overwhelming majority of his s u p porters in 1958 expected him to prevent the loss of Algeria, by September 1959, he had made self-determinationfor the Algerian people the cornerstone of his evolving Algerian policy. His institutional preferences were initially rejected by the left not because there is an-g intrinsically conservative about an independent executive, but because in the past, executive power had been abused in France by aspiring conservative dictators. Similarly,nationalism was not identified uniquely with the right, nor was the whole right moved by its rhetoric or sympathetic to its goals. In fact, de Gaulle’shostility to supranational European institutions and his constant challenging of American leadership alienated important elements on the right-just as his acceptance of decolonization angered other elements. While the left was forced to work through its conflicts over strategy, organization, and purpose in order to present a more or less united front at election time, de Gaulle’sprestige and personal legitimacy made a similar effort on the right seem superfluous. Had de Gaulle’s politics been less idiosyncratic, the right might have been led to a new synthesis simply by following his lead-despite the General’s constantly reiterated aversion to party politics. Instead, the right’sdivisions were eclipsed but not overcome during the

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period when the bipolarizing logic of the Fifth Republic’sinstitutions was at its strongest. In retrospect, it seems that the bipolarizing effects of the new institutional arrangements were largely limited to the opposition, which responded to the incentives created by the new electoral laws and the creation of an elected presidency. The camp in power-and the right was in power from 1958 to 1981-was shaped instead by the Fifth Republic’sstrong but divided executive, which, once de Gaulle had departed, cultivated rivalry rather than unity among the right’s leaders. Thus two conditions shaped the continuing divisions on the right: the enabling institutional condition was the institutionally programmed conflict between the president and the prime minister; the enabling ideological condition was the profound diversity on the right.

The Pompidou Era In the five years between de Gaulle’sresignation in 1969 and the presidential elections of 1974,three criticaland interrelated developments,each indicative of long-term trends, affected the chances for consolidation on the right. First, Georges Pompidou significantly reinforced the presidential character of the regime-even though he lacked the charisma and special legitimacy of his predecessor. Second, it became increasingly difficult to disentangle conflicts based on Merent policy preferences among conservative groups from conflicts grounded in personal ambition. And finally, the center-itself unorganized and highly fragmentedalong multiple lines of cleavage-remained electorally critical. Pompidou had leaned to the left during his student days and had joined Mendts’s Ligue d‘action universitaire rbpublicaine et socialiste. Politics, however, had not been the young man’s central concern. After serving in a mountain unit in 1939-1940, he had returned to his professorship at Henri IV,one of Paris’s most prestigious lycbes. There, he sat out the Occupation, teaching French literature and classics. After the Liberation, he accepted a job as liaison officer between de Gaulle’soffice and the ministry of education. He later managed the foundation that the de Gaulles created in honor of their handicapped daughter,Anne. This was the role that brought Pompidou to the General’sattention, and in 1948, Pompidou became de Gaulle’sprivate chief of staff. During the first years of the Fifth Republic, Pompidou continued to serve as a key advisor and aide to the new president, but he held no elective office and was largely invisible to the public. In 1962, de Gaulle stunned the political world by naming Pompidou prime minister. Pompidou remained in office until the General, retrospectively disgruntled by his prime minister’sdisplay of political initiative during the events of May 1968, reasserted the institutionalsuperiorityof the presidency by relieving Pompidou of his duties in July 1968. Pompidou soon made it clear that he intended to run for the presidency whenever de Gaulle left office. De Gaulle,

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feeling betrayed, cut all ties to his former aide. Yet when the General lost the referendum vote in April 1969 and resigned, Pompidou alone stood poised to run as the standard-bearer of the right. This was the presidential contest in which Franqois Mitterrand was not a contender. The centrist candidate (and interim president after de Gaulle’s resignation), Alain Poher, ran a mediocre campaign; more important, his politics seemed at odds with the institutional logic of the Fifth Republic. As a centrist in a system tending toward bipolarity, Poher was unable to spec@ a plausible coalition,and he seemed likely to oversee a return to a parliamentary republic. Pompidou, promising “change and continuity” (“le changement dans la continuite”) and “opennesswithin the framework of continuity” (“l’ouverturedans la continuite”),beat him handily. Ouverture, which suggests a reaching out or an openness to new alliances and new ideas, would become a key word in the political vocabulary of the Fifth Republic. Politician after politician would present a combination of change, continuity, and ouverture and try to sell the package simultaneously to his or her core constituencies and to the broader public.

Jacques Chaban-Delmas Pompidou named Jacques Chaban-Delmas(1915-2000) prime minister. Chaban was a Gaullist “baron”;his appointment symbolized Pompidou’s commitment to continuity. The choice also invited conflict, for the two men were programmed-temperamentally, politically,and institutionally-to understand the need and possibilities for reform differently and so also to pursue different coalition strategies as they sought to reach out to politically pivotal groups in French society. Chaban had entered politics in 1946, winning election to the National Assembly after distinguishinghimself in the Resistance. He had begun the war as a second lieutenant; he had ended it, at age twenty-nine,as a brigadier general. While Pompidou had secured his first government position when (so the story claimed) de Gaulle put out a call for “un agregk sachant ecrire”(“aPh.D. who can write”), Chaban had met de Gaulle during the glory days of the war; the young officer had been in conversation with General Leclerc when his hero strode over.11 As the military delegate of the Provisional Government, Chaban was a key figure in the deliberationsthat shaped the political and military strategy of the Resistance during the liberation of Paris (in the movie Is Paris Burning? he is played by Alain Delon). Delmas was his family name; Chaban was his nom de guerre. In 1947,he was elected mayor of Bordeaux; he also joined the RPF. He served in Mendes’s government in 1954, and in 1956, he was one of a handful of left-leaningGaullists to support the Front rkpublicuin. His politics had always been marked by civility and ouverture, with a temperamentalpreference for dialogue over polemics complementing an openness to new ideas and alliances. In 1969, Chaban’s closest aides

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included people who were urging far-reaching reforms on the basis of an overall analysis of French society. Some, like the sociologist Michel Crozier, were academics; others, like Simon Nora, were high-ranking civil servants. Several had worked for Mendes or participated in the political clubs of the early 1960s. Few were conventionally conservative, and some, like Jacques Delors, would end up on the left. Chaban presented the new government’sprogram to the National Assembly on June 26, 1969. The Assembly he addressed was the conservative body elected one year earlier, in the wake of the events of May 1968. After promising to remain faithful to Gaullist principles of national independence in foreign policy while pursuing new initiatives with regard to European integration, Chaban focused on what he called the “chronicfragihty”of the French economy. It was not, he warned, a passing problem, nor was it simply the result of the previous year’s unrest. Rather, Chaban asserted, there were deeper, structural problems.12 In a later, landmark speech delivered (to the same conservativeAssembly) on September 16,1969, Chaban developed his understanding of the problems and laid out how his government would approach them.13 Chaban cast his program in terms made familiar to informed listeners by Michel Crozier, but Crozier’sanalysis in turn drew heavily on the classic analysis of French politics and society laid out one hundred years earlier by Alexis de Tocqueville and on the work of other, more contemporary social scientists.

Tocqueville’sLessons Writing in the mid-nineteenth century, shortly after the failure of the Second Republic (whose constitution he had helped draft), Tocqueville made a number of substantive arguments about French society, politics, and culture, emphasizing France’s distinctive patterns of authority and protest and on the “peculiar”brand of freedom he feared his egalitarian compatriots would continue to cultivate.14 The French would remain incapable of constructing a ”stablegovernment and a healthy freedom under the sovereignty of law,”15 Tocqueville thought, because they no longer knew how to cooperate with each other to define and promote the common good. No cooperation, no freedom. This is Tocqueville’s basic argument, and it undergirds his brief against political centralization, the dominant feature of French political life and the one bequeathed, via Jacobinism and Napoleon, by the Old Regime to postrevolutionary France. The argument is summarized in a passage that simultaneously offers a descriptive and a causal account of political centralization and liberal incapacity: The segregation of classes, which was the crime of the late monarchy, became at a late stage a justification for it, since when the wealthy and enlightened ele-

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ments of the population were no longer able to act in concert and to take part in the government, the country became, to all intents and purposes, incapable of administering itself and it was needful that a master should step in.16

In Tocqueville’sview, liberty as conceived and practiced under a constitutional regime like England’swas beyond the reach of the French. The French would seek freedom by getting around the law rather than by working through it, by subverting the rationality or co-opting the members of the bureaucracy rather than by holding the bureaucracy accountable, by multiplying and defending their privileges and droits acquis (acquired rights or advantages) rather than by pressing effectively for universal rights. Exploiting the arts of resistance and individual self-defense,they would partially compensate for their lack of cooperative skills, defying their rulers while at the same time avoiding the drab conformity that material progress and political centralization otherwise did so much to promote. They would be hard to govern, but they would not be free. The disempowered German intelligentsia,Tocquevilleobserved,had turned away from politics. The French intelligentsia, equally marginalized but confronted at every turn by a strong state, remained deeply interested in politics. The combination of interest and lack of responsibility produced a habit of ideological posturing. French intellectuals,Tocqueville wrote, were “addictedto general ideas and systems, . . . contemptuous of the wisdom of the ages”;theirs was an “abstract,literary politics.”17Culturally dominant in a land where culture mattered, the intelligentsia made its style of public debate the national style. Intellectual and verbal prowess brought recognition; in contrast, facts were boring and coalition building was, in the absence of democratic institutions within which coalitions might matter, a waste of time. The result was a type of politics that ruled out timely, incremental reform: neither politicians nor the intellectuals pressed for it, no coalition supported it, and the government, deprived of accurate information despite its vast powers, was unlikely to perceive the need for it before it was too late. When the crisis came, the regime simply imploded: “Nothinghad been left that could obstruct the central government, but, by the same token, nothing could shore it up.”lS Tocqueville’sinsights informed the work of social scientists who, in the 1960s and 1970s, set out “in search of France” and produced, together and separately, a powerful set of arguments to explain the underlying logic of collective action in France. These arguments, best represented in the scholarly work of Michel Crozier and Stanley Hoffmann, were the arguments Chaban used to develop and justify his program. Like Tocqueville, Crozier argued that social organizations (from business firms to states) are shaped by “the way in which people are able to play amongst themselves the game of cooperation.”19Cooperation is risky and difficult because it constantly requires people to acknowledge and adjust their

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power relations, usually in face-to-faceencounters. Participants must accept conflict, uncertainty, and the possibility of dependence. If people push their aversion to conflict and dependence to the point of shying away from direct communication and negotiation, otherwise dysfunctional bureaucratic rigidities may be valued for the protection they offer against exposure to threatening social relations.20Identifying a “French cultural model,” Crozier argued: “TheFrench bureaucratic model offers a reasonable solution to the problems created by our instinctive fear of face-to-facerelations, our absolutist concep tion of authority, and our unwillingness to consent to relations that suggest dependence.”21 However well this system answers to the most basic aspirations of its participants as conflict-averse individuals, it does not support the kind of feedback mechanisms that promote organizational efficiency and adaptability. In other words, it precludes incremental adjustments based on a regular exchange of information.Crozier described as “ ‘bureaucraticsystem of organization’ any system in which the circuit error-informationcorrectionfunctions poorly, or where because of this, there can be no correction and quick recharting of a course of action on the basis of mistakes made.”22 Such a system institutionalizesits own dysfunctions,which “becomeone of the essential elements of its equilibri~m,”~3 enmeshing actors in a series of vicious circles and making the fundamental dynamic of the system all but imperviousto change.With incremental reform out of reach, the system would tend to lurch from periods of routine to periods of crisis. When change finally came, it would be cloaked in revolutionary garb and launched from the top down, with all the attendant risks of neglecting both opportunities and dangers that only a more direct acquaintance with the initial problems could have provided. Rules would be suspended, and suddenly everyone would be exposed to the very sorts of power relations they had so assiduously sought to avoid. Their fears and insecuritieswould be renewed, and the end result would be, in addition to flawed reforms, a reinforcement of the precrisis rules of the game.24 Crozier explicitly extended his analysis to the French political system, which he described as including three subsystems: the administrative system (responsible for all decisions that can be governed by previouslyestablished routines and programs), the political or deliberative system (that takes care of problems that cannot be decided by accepted, preexisting routines) and finally, the extra-legal or revolutionary system (that accommodates demands or major jolts that are too big for the deliberative system, or that challenge it).*5

Crozier’s conclusions, consistent with his prior analysis of the “bureaucratic phenomenon,” were anything but optimistic:

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The French political game seems . . . to oscillate between an increasingly esoteric deliberative system that has little connection to real problems and a revolutionary system that is too crude to permit serious debate and the elaboration of constructive compromises. But however different, these two aspects are part of a single system . . . and share a major trait. Both allow actors to avoid face-toface relations and direct conflicts. Both are flight mechanisms.26

Stanley Hoffmann called Crozier’s framework “so powerful it sometimes seems to explain everythmg.”27He nonetheless offered a much more nuanced analysis of the main contours of French political life under the Third, Fourth, and early Fifth Republics.28 From 1878to 1934,Hoffmann argued, French values, the socioeconomic system, and the political system had been in harmony with each other. These were the years of what Hoffmann calls the “Republican synthesis.”He describes the French “styleof authority”in terms very similar to Crozier’s,placing it within the context of a “stalematesociety”that had abandoned the hierarchical corporatism typical of feudal-agrarian communities without embracing the “socialmobility and economic dynamism”we associate with industrialism.29The in-groupsin this hybrid social system were the bourgeoisie and the peasantry; the out-groupwas the industrial working class. The Republic’spoliticalbase of support, in contrast, included the workers but excluded elements of the privileged classes that still pined for a monarchical regime. The political institutions of the Third Republic accommodated the peculiarities of the society they governed: state power was used to preserve the social status quo. A fragmented party system guaranteed the impotence of a polarized parliament, whose theoretically unlimited powers might otherwise have become dangerous. Absent a stable coalition for change, the ideological posturing of the politicians never translated into radical policies and was of relatively little consequence for French society. World War I1 and its aftereffects, Hoffmann thought, had wrought irreversible changes in France’s social system: “the stalemate society,”he wrote in the early 1960s, “is dead.”30Cultural change was also occurring: the old style of authority was no longer so ubiquitously valued and practiced. And yet, Hoffmann noted, when we turn to the crucial problem of the organization of the state . . . we find the most baffling story of failure-baffling because a series of events corresponding to almost overwhelming,if contradictory, desires for a change led to a new political system so disturbingly close to the Third Republic.31

Hoffmann directed this critique at the Fourth Republic but followed with an equally sharp assessment of the early Fifth Republic. For different and sometimes similar reasons, both regimes had failed to develop the kinds of transmission belts on which democratic politics depends. “What France

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needs most,”Hoffmann concluded, “iswhat she has always been least able to breed, . . . a new democratic style of authority, allowing for extended and powerful leadership and at the same time for participation.”3*Despite the acknowledgment of apparently significant change, Hoffmann had come back to Crozier’s assertion of fundamental continuities. And Crozier had repeated Tocqueville’swarning: no cooperation, no “healthyfreedom.” Chaban embraced major elements, and even the language, of the analysis proposed by Crozier and Hoffmann. He spoke of an “oldpeople” and an “old society,”warning that everyone had a stake in the familiar patterns that sustained the “societe bloquee” (“the stalled society”:this was the term used to popularize Crozier’s analysis). The prime minister nonetheless argued that the necessary changes were within reach: “we are entering a new period, when great changes are possible,”he told his listeners, and he invited everyone to join the government in “a vast effort of imagination and organization” whose goal would be to construct “une nouvelle societe”(“a new society”). The phrase stuck, and it became the label used to denote Chaban’sgovernment and program. The government would promote “a better civic training and more information for citizens; a redefinition of the role of the State; the development of our competitive capacities; and finally, a rejuvenation of our social structures.”The reforms would address the “three essential elements” of the soci6te‘ bZoqu6e: “the fragility of our economy, the often faulty operation of the State, and finally the archaic nature and the conservatism of our social structures.” To many GauIlist ears, and especially to more conservative ones, Chaban’s speech sounded like an indictment of the Fifth Republic’s record. But the announced program offered partisan advantages to the government: the political thrust of the program was to extend the government’s base of support all the way to the borders of the Communist Party, conquering the center-left without losing the support of the right. The resulting coalition could have counted on majority support at the polls for years to come. It nonetheless failed. Politically, the program ran up against three quite different kinds of opposition. First, the president’s support for his prime minister was hedged with reservations. Pompidou had little use for systematic analyses of French society; he preferred case-by-case responses to specific problems. This was not simply a matter of intellectual taste. Pompidou preferred small steps to a programmed journey in part because he was much more concerned than Chaban about the impact of social change on France’s social and moral order. Sys tematic change would, he feared, simultaneously raise expectations among those least attached to the existing order (young people in general and students in particular: May 1968was still a recent and vivid memory) and generate anger among reliably conservative social groups. Pompidou promoted modernizing measures, especially in the economy, because France’s interna-

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tional rank and independence depended on their success. But he wanted the necessary changes to attract as little notice as possible, lest they create a socially and politically unmanageable situation. Beyond the concern for order, Pompidou had another problem with Chaban’s policies. During the May 1968 crisis, Pompidou had often acted as though he, and not de Gaulle, were in charge. Now, as president, Pompidou faced the same dilemma, created by the peculiarly divided executive of the Fifth Republic. De Gaulle had normally been willing to focus on foreign policy, but Pompidou, in part because he had exercised broad responsibility for domestic affairs during his tenure as prime minister, refused to confine himself to the president’s traditional domaine r6serve‘.L a nouvelle soci6t6 was identified with Chaban: stylistically, substantively, and politically, it bore the imprint of the prime minister’s personality. Pompidou felt upstaged. Two ambitions collided, and Pompidou’s eventually prevailed. Pompidou might not have prevailed in this context had the Gaullist party of the moment, the UDR (Union des dkmocrates pour la R6publique), stood behind the prime minister. The UDR, however, was living in the shadow of the fear created by the events of May 1968,and it was well to the right of the prime minister. Chaban was a Gaullist because he had immediately and instinctively rejected the defeat of 1940 as utterly unacceptable. Most UDR voters and parliamentarians were “Gaullists”because Gaullist rule seemed to offer the best insurance against the left and the most reliable defense of the social order. They were unlikely to fly to the rescue of a man whose policies seemed to be coddling the disruptive elements of French society and whose politics would in fact have marginalized the more conservative parts of the right. Finally, the center, such as it was, was not simply there for the taking. Rather, it included (organizationallyspeaking) some of the fragmented remains of the Radical Party, some shards of the MRP, and the F6d6ration nationale des re‘publicains ind6pendunts (RI). Politically speaking, the RI,founded in 1966 and led by Valery Giscard d’Estaing,was the most important of these groups. Although he had served as minister of finance from 1962 to 1966, Giscard had never been a Gaullist,and he had urged his supporters to vote non in the April 1969 referendum that precipitated de Gaulle’s departure. Giscard was a conservative in the orleanist tradition: privileged, talented,unheroic, utilitarian. He was also a man of undisguised ambition, and his “party”was in fact a coterie of conservatives who had linked their ambitions to his. In April 1969, he had not been prepared to run for the office he clearly coveted and had supported Pompidou. Pompidou, recognizing in him a potential rival, had returned him to the ministry of finance, hoping to co-opt his support, or at least to tie his hands. As a cabinet minister, Giscard could not openly criticize the government, but other RI leaders could-and did-seek to stake out positions at the expense of the UDR, accusing, for example, the dominant party of taking over the state administration and using it for partisan or corrupt purposes. The ministry of

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finance could also facilitate embarrassingleaks, and these too happened; in January 1972, the Canard enchain6 published Chaban’s income tax returns, which showed that the prime minister had paid no taxes from 1966 to 1969. Chaban had used legal loopholes, but the revelations increased his political vulnerability.

Pompidou’s Final Years For all these reasons, and with a view to upcoming legislative elections, Pompidou abruptly fired his still-popular prime minister in early July 1972. Chaban’ssuccessor, Pierre Messmer, was a Gaullist with no political agenda of his own. He was far more conservative than Chaban. Under his management, the government reversed some of the liberalizing policies initiated by Chaban, while courting the political support of the RI.The right won the elections of March 4 and 11, 1973, but storm clouds were gathering. The government’snew conservative orientation created an opening for Giscard, who in October 1972 had famously declared that “France wants a centrist government.”33At the same time, the UDR took offense at Pompidou’s increasing determination to exercise personal control over the political orientation and policy decisions of the government. More significantly, the international economic order was unraveling. Postwar prosperity had shaped the structure of political opportunity for three decades; the onset of economic crisis would require and invite new political strategies. Georges Pompidou, however, was a dying man, and his various attempts to regain the political initiative-a referendum on the admission of Britain to the Common Market in April 1972, a proposal to shorten the presidential term from seven to five years that failed in the fall of 1973-fell flat.

Conservative Rivals: Giscard and Chirac Pompidou’s death was announced on April 2,1974. The event prompted a reshufflingof the deck on the right, but neither principle nor party adequately explained where the cards subsequently landed. Personal rivalries became increasingly intrusive. Chaban announced his candidacy on April 4; Giscard followed suit on April 8. On April 5 , the parties that had signed the Programme commun agreed to back a single candidate, Franqois Mitterrand. On April 7, the UDR, reiterating its anticommunism to emphasize the importance of defeating the left, endorsed Chaban’s candidacy, “becausehe is a Gaullist capable of maintaining the [Gaullist]heritage and because he is the one who can best win a majority of votes.”3*Given the complexity of the UDR’s relationship with Chaban between 1969 and 1972, the movement’sexpression of unanimity behind his candidacy was never very plausible, and on April 13, the surface unity was broken by the publication of the “appeldes 43.”In this state-

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ment, Pompidou’sprotege and minister of the interior (in charge of domestic order, not national parks), Jacques Chirac, along with three other ministers and thirty-nine deputies (thlrty-three UDR, three centrists, and three RI), warned against the dangers of disunity on the right, but instead of urging the withdrawal of the non-Gaullist Giscard in favor of Chaban, they proposed to unite behind the more conservativePierre Messmer. Two of the people who had acted behind the scenes to encourage the uppel, Pierre Juillet and MarieFrance Garaud, both Gaullists, were former advisors to Pompidou who were known to be bitterly opposed to Chaban’s policies and politics. Objectively, the obvious beneficiary of the uppel des 43 was Giscard, since the uppel sharpened tensions among Gaullists. Giscard, however, had been arguing for years that he embodied the ouverture that had so angered the more conservative wing of the UDR when Chaban had proposed it in 1969. In announcing his candidacy, Giscard again evoked ouverture, asserting that “France needs a more inclusive majority” and appealing to “all of you, UDR voters, independent republicans, centrists, reformists. He advocated “anew political approach”that would make of France “abeacon of justice and social progress, of respect for democratic rules, of protection of the liberties of every individuaL”35He was in many ways an odd choice for conservatives eager to be rid of Chaban, but he was their only viable option. On April 17, Chaban and Mitterrand faced offin a radio debate.The exchange was deliberately nonconfrontational, partly because there was no personal animosity between the two men, who had important pasts (the Resistance, Mendes) in common,and partly because each candidatewas consciouslycourting elements of the other’s electorate. The civil tone of the debate, however, made Chaban the loser-not vis-a-vis Mitterrand, but vis-a-vis Giscard, who in its aftermath appeared to be the more aggressive and genuine representativeof the right. That image was confirmed when Mitterrand and Giscard debated each other in less Eriendly tones on April 25, and again on May 2. On May 5, the French went to the polls for the first round of voting. Franqois Mitterrand won 43.2 percent. On the right, Giscard overwhelmed Chaban, 32.6 percent to 15.1 percent. Two weeks later, as we have already seen, Giscard narrowly defeated Mitterrand. On May 28, the new president named Jacques Chirac prime minister. Giscard now faced the same political problems Pompidou had faced in 1969: on what basis could he hold together a clearly fragmented and fragile majority?How much political initiative would he allow his prime minister? But circumstances had changed significantly since 1969, and the new situation suggested greater political difficulties for the government. The left was united. The unemployment rate was rising. Furthermore, for the first time under the Fifth Republic, the president and the prime minister belonged to different political parties-and the prime minister’sparty, not the president’s party, controlled the larger number of seats in the National Assembly (the UDR had 183 seats, while the RI had 54).

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Rather like Pompidou, Giscard began his presidency by promising liberal reforms and his own version of ouverture, which he called d6crispation (a relaxation of tensions). But the reform phase of Pompidou’s term had been identified with his prime minister, and Chaban’s primary advisors had been people whose commitment to the nouvelle soci6t6 program was ultimately nonpartisan: the changes they urged would have transformed the cultural and institutional environment of French politics so dramatically(for example, by making negotiation rather than confrontation the norm in social conflicts and by decentralizingand “desacralizing”the all-embracingJacobin &tattentucuZaire) that an entirely new partisan landscape might have been its result. In contrast, Giscard’sreforms reflected his own priorities, not those of his prime minister, and they were intended to further his political interests. They were not part of an overall effort to change French society; instead, they tended to take into account social and cultural change that had already happened-and the partisan benefits they were expected to provide within the existing system were officially acknowledged. Giscard believed that postwar socioeconomic change had created a new and numerically majoritarian middle class that was socially and culturally liberal but economicallyconservative. His goal was to organize under his own leadership this “immense groupe central,” which, once organized, would be politically hegemonic.36 Both Giscard’sreform program and his political ambitions put him on a collision course with Chirac and the UDR. In rapid order, the new government liberalized the laws governing divorce and abortion and lowered the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen. It also loosened the grip of the state on radio and television and looked for ways to address growing problems in the educational system. In foreign policy, the government seemed inclined to accept closer ties to the Atlantic Alliance and a greater degree of European integration. In every area, Giscard sought to define policies and set the tone, turning his prime minister into something between a deputy and an errand boy. This was certainly not the substantive or political result that UDR conservatives like PierreJuillet and Marie-FranceGaraud had sought as they maneuvered to subvert Chaban’spresidential chances, nor did it suit Chirac’sgrowing ambitions. While the various groups on the right plotted hostile takeovers of each other, but without clawing their substantive differences, the economic crisis continued to deepen. The left-wing parties maintained their alliance. On March 7 and 14, 1976, the right took a beating in local elections, while on the left, the PS clearly outpolled the PCF (and all other parties, left or right). The unfavorable electoral results were all the more alarming to the government because they suggested the possibility of an opposition victory in the next legislative elections. The sense of urgency sharpened the perception of conflicting political interests between the president and the prime minister. On July 26, 1976, Chirac presented a letter of resignation to Giscard. On August 25, the prime minister’sresignation became official.

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Chirac’s resignation was unprecedented. Pierre Viansson-Ponte, a student of the Fifth Republic and a prominent columnist for Le Monde, even suggested that it signaled the end of the Fifth Republic.37 Until the summer of 1976, the accepted procedure for resolving mounting conflicts between a president and a prime minister under the Fifth Republic had been for the president to relieve the prime minister of his duties, thus affirming the political primacy of the president over the prime minister. In 1962 and 1968,de Gaulle had fired Michel Debre and Georges Pompidou, respectively; in 1972, Pompidou had sacked Chaban, despite the fact that the latter had won a massive vote of confidence from the National Assembly two months earlier.38In 1976, Chirac made it abundantly clear that he was resigning and that he was doing so because he was not being given the power to address as he saw fit either the country’s problems or the majority’s political vulnerability-clearly implying that he was entitled to such authority. His July resignation letter stated his conflict with the president in unmistakable terms: During the last months, I have allowed myself on several occasions to lay out the political and economic reasons that I believe call for an energetic government response, in order to give our action in these two areas a vigorous and coordinated push. This clearly presupposes an unequivocal reinforcement of the authority of the prime minister. It is my understanding that this fits neither with your beliefs nor with your intentions.39 Giscard chose Raymond Barre, an academic economist with conservative leanings but without strong partisan commitments, to replace Chirac; by appointing a man without apparent political ambitions, he hoped to avoid the kind of political rivalry that had defined his relationship with Chirac. Meantime, Chirac moved to create a partisan organization at his command. At Egletons on October 3, using Gaullist imagery, he suggested the need for a new political movement: “I appeal to all French people without exception to join in creating the vast popular movement that France has always been able to summon up from her depths whenever her fate hung in the balance.”*O Chirac hoped the “grand rassemblement” he proposed would “wed the defense of Gaullism’s essential values to the aspirations of a real French labor party.” A rassemblement is an inclusive gathering of people. Gaullist leaders seek to rassembler (LUIQ, rally); by calling their parties rassemblements,they suggest that their politics involves a kind of permanent ouverture. On December 5 , Chirac launched the Rassemblementpourla Rbpublique (RPR), and on January 19, 1977, he announced that he would run for mayor of Paris in the municipal elections scheduled for March. If anyone thought or hoped that the relations between the RI and the RPR would be cooperative or even polite, the “battle of Paris” showed them their error. After a heated contest, Chirac inflicted a humiliating defeat on Giscard’scandidate, Michel d’Ornan0. Fighting for his political life, Giscard responded to the political and orga-

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nizational challenge posed by Chirac and the RPR (and to continuing gains by the left) by trying to forge a political instrument of his own. In April 1977, his allies created the Parti rdpublicain (PR), and on February 1, 1978-just in advance of the March legislativeelections-the PR and a scattering of centrist groups and clubs sympathetic to Giscard came together under an umbrella organization called the Union pour la ddmocratie franqaise (UDF). Chirac denounced the creation of the rival party as a “base partisan maneuver.“41

Mitterrand‘s Turn As we already know, the conclusion to this story came in the spring of 1981,when for the first time, presidential elections were held according to a normal schedule (in 1969, elections had been occasioned by de Gaulle’sres ignation; in 1974, by Pompidou’s death). On February 4, 1981, Chirac announced his candidacy; Giscard followed suit on March 2. In first-round voting on April 26, the low score of the communist leader, Georges Marchais, suggested that communists were switching their allegiance to the socialist candidate even before the decisive second round. The latter would be a duel between Mitterrand and Giscard, but its outcome would depend on the behavior of Chirac’svoters. Chirac issued a less than ringing endorsement of Giscard, and Mitterrand won. Divided when it was in power, the right would be even more divided in opposition.

INSTITUTIONAL AND PARTISAN CON”SION, 1984 TO THE PRESENT From the mid-1970s on, the economic crisis created intractable political problems everywhere in the industrialized world, undermining communist party dictatorships in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union and contributing to a deepening crisis of representation in western democracies. Where they could, voters penalized leaders and parties for their perceived failure to address economic problems; at a more general level, voters expressed increasing alienation from established political elites and mechanisms of political representation.

Cohabitation In France, institutions shaped the political ramifications of the economic crisis, as voters increasingly took advantage of staggered elections and new

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electoral opportunities (in 1979, the European Parliament was directly elected for the first time, and the decentralization reforms of the 1980s increased the stakes of subnational elections) to express their discontent. The most significant consequence was to make “cohabitation”-a situation where presidential and legislative elections produce conflicting majorities, thereby forcing a president from one camp to share power with a prime minister from the opposing camp-as much the rule as the exception. This in turn signaled that France’s “bipolarmoment” was ending. The cohabitation experiment began in 1986. In 1976, when the political competition between Giscard and Chirac had caused some informed observers to speak of the end of the Fifth Republic,the rivals were both conservatives and so could be expected to observe limits even as they competed with each other. A decade later, Chirac returned to Matignon (the official residence of prime ministers), but this time the occupant of the Elysee (the president’s residence) was the socialist, Franqois Mitterrand. Chirac remained prime minister until 1988,when he ran for the presidency and was beaten by Mitterrand. Thus reelected, Mitterrand dissolved the National Assembly and secured a majority in new elections. In 1993, however, the electorate again rebelled and gave the right a sweeping victory in legislative elections. Mitterrand, by this time a dying man discredited by a cascade of scandals, appointed Edouard Balladur prime minister. In 1995, Chirac frnally won the presidency, but when he imprudently dissolved the National Assembly two years later, the voters handed the majority to the left, forcing a greatly weakened Chirac to appoint the socialist leader, Lionel Jospin, as prime minister. In the presidential elections of April 21 and May 5, 2002, disaffection on the left led to fragmentation and Jospin’s elimination in the fvst round. Chirac’s resounding victory over Le Pen in the runoff should not obscure the lack of enthusiasm his campaign had inspired. He had won only 19.9 percent of the votes cast in the first round, the lowest score ever won by an incumbent president and a figure equivalent to 13.8 of registered voters (in 1995, the corresponding numbers were 20.8 and 15.9 percent, despite competition from the sitting conservative prime minister). During the first stages of the campaign, both Jospin and Chirac had expressed impatience with the constraints of cohabitation. In the legislative elections ofJune 9 and 16, 2002, the electorate also seemed to reject cohabitation; it handed Chirac’s new party, significantly called the Union pour Zu mujorit6pr6sidentieZZe (UMP), an absolute majority in the National Assembly. The exceptional circumstances created by the surprise elimination of Jospin, however, distorted the competitive game in the subsequent legislative elections, inhibiting the ability of the electorate to send a clear message. Perhaps the unprecendented abstention rates (35.6 percent in the first round of legislative balloting) were message enough.

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Owelhue; Institutional Change, or the Personalization of Politics? Given the behavior of the electorate and in the absence of a magic solution to the economic crisis, France’s political class faced a choice among three possible responses, each available in some variant to both the right and the left. The preferred course, on both the right and the left, was the old strategy of ouverture, an effort to redefine partisan cleavages so as to create a hegemonk center-leftor center-right electoral bloc. A second option, the path of least resistance, requiring the least political creativity or effort, was to accept and exploit the personalization of politics. The most radical strategy called for significant institutional change. Conflicts between presidential and parliamentary majorities were an artifact of the constitution of the Fifth Republic, which provided for staggered elections and a divided executive.The issue of whether the regime was presidential or parliamentary could be definitively settled by amending the constitution. On both the right and the left, initial attempts at ouverture featured an embattled president promoting a popular figure from within his own party in order to expand his own electoral base. Giscard did this in 1979 when he made Simone Veil the UDF’s tkte de list42 in the European Parliament elections of 1979. Veil (born 1927) had survived Bergen-Belsen;her parents and a brother had perished in the Nazi death camps. Trained in the law and at the Institut d&udespolitiques, she had made her career in the administration of justice. Politically, she was a centrist-sympathetic to Chaban, tempted by Mitterrand, allergic to the PCF. In 1974,she had become the first female minister of the Fifth Republic when Giscard made her minister of health. It was on her watch that France’s abortion regime was liberalized. As a Jew, a professional woman, and an advocate of a woman’s right to choose, she became the b&tenoire of more conservative elements on the right, but by the same token, many center-left voters found her appealing. The 1979 European Parliament elections were sandwiched between the parliamentary elections of 1978 and the presidential elections of 1981. Looking toward the presidential race, Giscard anticipated the need both to hold his own constituency and to attract more centrist voters in order to defeat first Chirac and then Mitterrand. Veil did not have the kind of independent political base that might have turned her into another threat to Giscard’sleadership.She did, however, have a fresh, liberal image, and her support for European integration was well established. She could deliver centrist voters. To Giscard, she seemed an ideal instrument: she could breathe life and substance into the UDF, and he would then secure reelection in 1981. When the 1979 returns came in, Veil’s list had won more votes than that of any other party: she had captured 27.5 percent, while the RPR list, led by Chirac and Michel Debre and openly hostile to further moves in the direction of Euro-

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pean integration, won 16.2 percent. On the left, the PS got 23.5 percent and the PCF 20.5 percent. Giscard’soverall political strategy nonetheless failed. At the decisive moment in 1981, enough centrist voters were more worried about the role the RPR might play in a conservative government than about the influence of the PCF in a socialist-ledgovernment, and they were fed up with the ongoing economic crisis: they voted for change. The strategy Giscard had followed had certainly done nothing to conciliate Chirac’s supporters, and as we have seen, many responded by deserting him. Mitterrand won.

Mittewands Searchfor a Strategy Before and after the presidential elections of 1988, Mitterrand adopted a strategy analagous to the one that had failed to produce a victory for Giscard in 1981. From the summer of 1984 on, it was clear that only a miracle could save the left’s parliamentary majority when the 1981 Assembly’s term expired in 1986. Miracles beiig beyond their reach, the socialists changed the electoral laws, reintroducingproportional representation.While safeguards reduced the likelihood that the new laws would produce an unmanageably fragmented assembly,*3the laws all but guaranteed National Front (FN) representation in the new Assembly. At best (from the socialists’ point of view), the new rules would deny the parliamentary right a clear majority in the new Assembly; at worst, they would reduce the left’s losses and complicate coalitional disagreements on the right (where, as previously noted, some people favored, and others vehemently opposed, an accommodation between the parliamentary right and the FN). In the event, the overall results in 1986 represented an almost perfect inversion of the left-right split of 1981: in the legislative elections of 1981, 55.6 percent of the voters in metropolitan France had voted for the left; 43.2 percent had voted for the right. In 1986,54.7percent voted for the right; 44 percent voted for the left. The socialists, with 212 out of 577 seats, still had the largest parliamentary group, but the RPR and the UDF, with 155 and 131 deputies respectively, supported by five independent conservative deputies, could claim a two-vote majority. During the 1986 campaign, Raymond Barre had been particularly insistent in arguing that it would be contrary to both democratic expectationsand the spirit of de Gaulle’sconstitution for a president to remain in power after losing legislative elections.Mitterrand,however, had made it clear that he had no intention of resigning, regardless of the outcome-and both Jacques Chirac and Valkry Gis card dEstaing, unlike Barre, had indicated that they would be willing to serve as prime minister under the unprecedented circumstancesthat a conservative victory would produce. When the nght won the elections,Mitterrand named Chirac prime minister. Mitterrand cast himselfas the guardian of national unity and the rule of law-

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and Chirac lost no time in falling into the political trap laid for him.In the early 1980s, the triumphant left had alienated crucial elements of its electorate by appearing sectarian and ideological. Between 1986 and 1988, the right made the same mistake. Chirac’sgovernment privatized companies with little regard for the situation of the market, lifted bureaucratic safeguards intended to prevent abusive layoffs, increased the authorityof the police to question and detain suspects,signaled its attitude toward immigrants by rounding up and expelling by chartered airplane 101 illegal Malian immigrants in midOctober 1986, privatized the television channel TF1, and provoked massive student protests when it tried to restrict access to higher education and raise matriculation fees. In almost every area, the government’sactions seemed precipitous-initially, Chirac sought to push measures through by executive decree rather than use normal legislative processes-and ideologically driven. By December 1986, Giscard was urging greater pragmatism on his conservative colleagues. Chirac had hoped to use Matignon as a springboard for reaching the presidency, but the confrontationalconduct of his government put him at a competitive disadvantage. In the presidential elections of April 24 and May 8, 1988, he was soundly defeated by Mitterrand, 46 percent to 54 percent. By this time, support for the PCF had dipped into the single digits; the party was so obviously diminished that its presence no longer pushed fearful centrist voters into the arms of the conservatives. Mitterrand ran a personalized campaign, using the first person singular (rather than, say, partisan references to the PS) and publicizing his program in a “Lettrea tous les Franqais.”4*He portrayed Chirac as the leader of a faction and Chirac’sfaction as bent on monopolizing the power and resources of the state. He promised to act as a unifier, to protect individual rights, and to promote social justice. Once reelected, Mitterrand dissolved the conservative Assembly of 1986. Legislative elections were held on June 5 and 12, 1988. Proportional representation was out; Chirac’s majority had restored plurality electoral laws in July 1986.The PS and its allies won 276 out of 575 seats-just short of a majority. To make up the difference, they could normally expect to count on support from the PCF, which controlled 27 seats.The word ouverture, however, was on everyone’s lips, and survey data suggested that voters favored whatever they understood the word to mean.45 Seemingly in response to the parliamentary and electoral situation,Mitterrand appointed Michel Rocard prime minister. Rocard, the poster boy of the second left, was a fervent advocate of ouverture, by which he meant something like an opendoor, shoulder-toshoulder effort to create Chaban’snouvelle soci6t6. Mitterrand’s motives in appointing Rocard were probably mixed, and like so much of what Mitterrand did in the last years of his life, remain hard to read. The two men came from different cultures, and neither found much to respect in the politics or personality of the other; “quiet hatred” was how Robert Schneider, an editor of the left-leaning weekly Le Nouvel Observa-

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teur, described their relationship.&As death crept up on Mitterrand,he often seemed as intent on destroying the PS as he had been determined to rebuild it a quartercentury earlier. Rocard, despite a broad streak of political ineptitude, seemed well positioned to inherit the leadership of the party. Nailing down the lid on his rival’s political coffin may have been a temptation Mitterrand could not resist, and the prospect of such an opportunity may have contributed to Rocard’s appointment. For the better part of three years, Mitterrand hammered. Then on May 15, 1991, he abruptly demanded Rocard’s resignation, nominating Edith Cresson, a longtime associate and a former minister of agriculture, in his place. The sharp-tongued Cresson was temperamentally inclined to confrontation, and her tenure was a political disaster. Scandals multiplied, and so did electoral reverses. In March 1993, the right regained control of the National Assembly; in the first round of voting on the 21Sf,the PS won a meager 17.6 percent (as compared to 34.8 percent of the first-roundvote in 1988). Mitterrand named Edouard Balladur prime minister. Anticipating the left’s defeat, Rocard had called for a “politicalbig bang to build. . . a socialist movement open to ecologists, centrists, and reformist communists.”47The European elections of 1994 would give Rocard an opportunity to survey the political universe. Rocard, now leader of the PS and already anointed as the party’scandidate for the presidency in 1995,was the party’st6te de Ziste. But Mitterrand issued a thinly veiled endorsement of a competing list led by Bernard Tapie, an entrepreneur and soccer club owner who should have been in jail and later would be. On June 12, 1994,voters across Europe went to the polls to elect members of the European Parliament. Tapie succeededin winning 12.0 percent of the vote; Rocard’s list won a humiliating 14.5 percent. Rocard was finished. So, it seemed, was the party. However defined and motivated, its attempts at ouverture had gone nowhere.

Chirac Tries Ouverture In 1995, Chirac made another effort at ouverture, substantively different from and superficially more successful than previous efforts. Its purpose was to make Chirac president of the Republic, and it achieved that goal. Mitterrand had been a permanent fixture in presidential politics for thmy years, sitting out only the election of 1969. Now, nearly eighty years old and crippled by scandal and illness, he was not a candidate. After Rocard’sdebacle in the June 1994 European elections, many socialists had staked their hopes on Jacques Delors, the former CFDT activist and Chaban advisor whose term as president of the European Commission was drawing to a close. Delors had broad appeal among “experimental”voters. But on December 11, 1994, Delors announced that he was not interested in running; even if electoral success could be achieved (and the prospects were not promising), policy success seemed unlikely to follow. Rocard described the PS as “a field of ruins.”*8 In the

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absence of an obvious presidential candidate, the party organized a primary. LionelJospin ran against Henri Emmanuelli, an ally turned adversarywho was more openly tied to the first left. Jospin had served as party leader from 1981 to 1988; a former Mitterrand minister and ally, he had resigned in 1992 and distanced himself from the president.Jospin won the primary, and on February 3, 1995, he became the party’s standard-bearer. In the meantime, the real contest was among contenders on the right, since the left was expected to lose. The favored conservative candidate was the sitting prime minister, Balladur, who announced his intentions on January 18, 1995. Chirac had declared his candidacy two and a half months earlier, on November 4, 1994. In early March, Giscard and Barre confirmed that they would not run.To the right of both Balladur and Chirac, two other candidates were in the race: Le Pen had announced his candidacy on September 18, and Philippe de Villiers (born 1949), a former UDF deputy who had made a name for himself by opposing the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 and then by leading a list that won 12.3 percent of the vote in the 1994 European elections, followed with an announcement on January 8. From December 1994, when Delors took himself out of the race, through mid-February 1995, most observers thought Balladur was likely to emerge triumphant. When voters went to the polls on April 23, however, Balladur came in third (18.6 percent), behind Jospin (23.3 percent) and Chirac (20.8 percent). On May 7, Chirac beat Jospin, 52.6 percent to 47.4 percent. What had happened? Campaigns may not always matter, but this one did. Balladur mismanaged his and was damaged by a number of scandals. But the more important and interesting explanation of Chirac’svictory lay in how he framed his appeal. Balladur relied on his image as a moderate, competent public servant to appeal to the center. In ordinary times, it might have worked, but this election was a “crisisvote.”49Survey data indicated that the public was preoccupied by social questions: unemployment, the viability of the social security system, the emergence of a permanently marginalized underclass (a phenomenon known in France as Z’excZmion).Chirac waged an unapologetically populist campaign,mobilizing the economic fears and frustrations of the electorate against the government. France, he claimed, was being destroyed by “la fracture sociale,”or the sorting of society into winners and losers. Meanwhile, the government, instead of nurturing national cohesion, was (Chirac argued) obsessed with meeting the requirementsfor the single European currency, regardlessof social costs. Chirac also took aim at the irresponsible rich: people were sleeping in the streets and metro stations of Paris, he said, while empty apartments abounded. Viewed strictly in the short term and simply from an electoral perspective, Chirac’schoice of strategywas brilLiant. First, it allowed him to do what he did best. Unlike Balladur, Giscard, and Rocard, Chirac had the body, the voice, and

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the manners of a bonapartist, but without the sinister, strongman traits that might have frightened people. In his prime, Chirac was a strapping,backslap ping politician who tutoied others easily (that is, who did not reserve the informal form of address for intimates and children) and was at home in a crowd. Populism came naturally to him. Second, the strategy allowed Chirac to capitalize on the relative absence of the left. Chirac in effect stole the left’s usual language of social justice and inclusion and appealed to the left’s underprivileged constituency without risking the loss of his own lower-middle-classbase. Finally, the strategy suggested a critique of European integration without requiring an explicit rejection of treaty commitments already made. The populist version of ouverture was electorally successful-but it was also demagogic and irresponsible, as events quickly proved. Once in power, Chirac found himself held to the standards he had set for Balladur. He was expected to move effectively to rebuild a society of equal chances and to break with the neoliberal, supply-side economic ideology (which in France had been dubbed “la pensbe unique” by its critics) to which the previous government, along with most of France’s trading partners, subscribed. Chirac appointed Alain Juppe prime minister, and for several months, the government’seconomic policies defied easy classification. Soon, however, it was clear that lupembe unique was back. By the end of September,only 34 percent of a representative sample believed that government policy was in harmony with Chirac’scampaign pledges (58 percent believed the opposite). Between May and October 1995, the number of people “satisfied” with Chirac and Juppk plummeted from 59 percent to 28 percent and from 63 percent to 28 percent respectively. By the end of 1995, 75 percent of the people thought that things were going from bad to worse.50 In this unpromising context, and with minimal consultation, the government chose to introduce a series of reforms. The purpose of the measures was to reduce budget deficits, largely by changing the rules governing social entitlements like pensions. Budgetary discipline was imperative because in its absence, France would be excluded from the European Union’s envisaged single-currency zone. The government proposed to increase the number of years public-sector employees would have to spend on the job in order to qualify for their pensions; it tried to centralize control over the social security budget (making it easier to cut trade unions out of the process); it looked for ways to cut healthcare costs; it raised the value-added tax (which, like all sales taxes, is a regressive tax). Within weeks, it faced a major social crisis. In December 1995, Paris (and much of the country) was paralyzed by publicsector strikes that enjoyed broad popular support. The strikes were aimed at a government perceived to be incapable of listening and unwilling to explain; all transmission belts were stuck. The strikes were also aimed, many commentators thought, at globalization: the public had met globalization, and it

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did not like what it saw. The electorate had sent the political class a message about la fracture sociale, but globalization had sent the political class a message about budgetary discipline. In the streets, the public vented its anger against both the political class and globalization. To this political debacle, Chirac added another. In April 1997, he decided to dissolve the National Assembly, even though the government commanded an overwhelming parliamentary majority. In 1976, Chirac had broken with the institutional norms of the Fifth Republic by resigning as prime minister; in 1997, he again violated the norms by calling the first “tactical”parliamentary dissolution of the Fifth Republic, prompted simply by the anticipation of political advantage and not by an institutional conflict or crisis. Neither the political class nor the public greeted the move with much sympathy, and when the voters went to the polls on May 25 and June 1, 1997,the left won.

m e Personalization of Politics In the meantime, the personalization of politics took two forms. On the right, with the electorate and the political class still fragmented along multiple lines of cleavage, individual leaders often used single issues to propel themselves to prominence for more or less brief periods of time, generally attacking each other rather than the left. European integration and conflicting views of how the so-called parliamentary right (the UDF and the RPR) should deal with the FN frequently occasioned such political initiatives. Beginning with the Maastricht Treaty referendum in September 1992, Charles Pasqua and Philippe Seguin each tried to used the European issue to galvanize Gaullist energies. In the fall of 1998,Charles Millon, a UDF deputy and former defense minister who had earlier appeared inclined to the center, made a brief splash by advocating cooperative arrangementswith the National Front; his proposed party, L a droite, was ephemeral even by contemporary French standards.51 For years, Le Pen himself parlayed fear of social disintegration and racial hatred into electoral support. Mudslingingwas the other manifestation of the personalization of politics, and it became a ubiquitous activity, taking down potential leaders right and left and discrediting the political class in its entirety. No political party was exempt from scandal, and the number of major political figures compromised by accusations of illegal fund-raising, influence peddling, personal enrichment, and/or dereliction of duty was breathtaking. “Don’tplay the knight in shining armor,” Charles Millon warned Philippe de Villiers as the latter prepared to launch an attack on the socialists, “we’veall been at the same game and the whole political class will come out sullied.”52In the Fifth Republic, political conditions often invited corruption: whenever and wherever the opposition had no chance of gaining power and wherever the institutional checks on those in power were weak, people and parties in power often

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behaved like clans in neopatrimonial systems. Accusations regarding such conduct (“l’Etat-UDR,”“Etat-RPR,”and so on) often focused on the national level, but the behavior itself was probably more prevalent at the municipal level and nowhere more conspicuously than in Paris, for decades a Gaullist fiefdom. Accusationsof falsifiedpay sheets and real estate scandalsimplicated Jean Tiberi, mayor from 1995to 2001, and more important, the former mayor Jacques Chirac, as well as other key figures in the RPR. Mudslinging required far less effort than coalition building, and its rewards corresponded to the increasingly short time horizons that became typical of democratic politicians in all the established democracies during this period. The manipulation of rumors and scandals for political gain was, of course, nothing new: the leaking of Chaban’s tax returns had not been an accident, and a series of scandals,involvingboth diamonds and dead bodies, had helped seal Giscard’s fate in 1981.53 There were also uglier and more consequential precedents: in 1933-1934, the Stavislcy Affair had brought down a government and helped trigger the insurrectionary riots of February 6, 1934.5* What was different from the mid-1980s on was that scandals were, for weeks on end and in every news source, the main story. This development reflected changes in the information industry, in public perceptions of the stakes of politics, in the character of competitive politics, and in the relationship between prosecutors and elected officials. Unlike the United States, where muckraking was a favorite pastime of the Progressivesin the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, France had no established tradition of investigativereporting. For most of the twentieth century, it did have a lively partisan press. The extreme right ligues had their press, the communists had L’Humanite‘,the socialists had Le Populaire, left-leaning and right-leaning Catholics had their newspapers and journals, and so on. Precisely because this press was ideologically motivated, it was not interested in investigative reporting. Its purpose was rather to make or express the case for its preferred worldview and program. Most of the time and for most of the press, this did not involve mudslinging, but even when it did, scandalmongering did not require investigative reporting. On the strength of its ideology, a Eigue newspaper could accuse Leon Blum of treason simply because he was a Jew and a socialist,without bothering to look for (obviously unavailable) evidence. Similarly, L’Humanite‘ could level accusations against “bourgeois”parties and politicians, simply because they were “bourgeois”and therefore hypothetically bound to act in certain ways. For years, the Canard enchafne‘,well connected and well financed, was a partial exception, but even the Canard did not engage in sustained investigative reporting. Its specialty was embarrassing scoops. The politics of its founders had been socialist with an anarchist tinge, and the paper regularly published small bits of critical information (often leaked) that suggested that things were not what they seemed to beor not what those in power wanted people to believe they were.

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As ideological conflict declined and partisan subcultural identifications loosened (making, for example, Catholics or workers less likely to define themselves as part of a separate Catholic or working-class community), the partisan press was displaced by for-profit news organizations eager for stories that would win new readers, listeners, or viewers. Unemployment topped the list of public concerns, but no government seemed able to make it go away, and few readers dashed for the morning newspaper in the hope of finding a crash course in macroeconomics splashed across the front page. In international affairs, the Cold War had once given people a fairly accessible grid for understanding events; once it ended, the world appeared to be a very complicated place. As public debate about substantive issues became increasingly difficult and as public frustration with the political class’sapparent inability to restore prosperity grew, scandals were given more and more play. This was true not just in France, but across the advanced industrial democracies. In France as elsewhere, the competition between parties sharpened even as the policy options available to parties in power seemed to narrow. As both the PS and Chirac learned, no government could legislate the economic crisis out of existence, and la pensbe unique always seemed to rebound after attempts to break out of its mold. Locked in close competition for voters whose allegiance was more and more transient, less and less able to distinguish themselves programmatically, political leaders and parties tended increasingly to run on personality and style-and to spend fabulous amounts of money on public relations and campaigns. The money had to come from somewhere, and precisely because candidates were running on personality as much as on issues, its origins were likely to be investigated, and resources improperly marshalled or used were likely to be frontpage news. In France, the increasing attention paid to scandalswas probably reinforced by the growing independence of the courts. Prosecutorial decisions had previously been closely supervised by the executive branch: nosy judges were even more rare than investigative reporters. In the 1980s and 1990s, judicial reform, the frequent turnover of parties in power, and perhaps the example set by Italian judges in finally pursuing the systemic corruption that had been a defining characteristic of postwar Italian politics55 prompted French judges to become more actively engaged in the fight against corruption. The most spectacular case may have been the one that landed the president of the Constitutional Court, Roland Dumas, in the dock. Dumas, himselfa prominent barrister, had also served as Mitterrand’s foreign minister. As an alternativeto coalition building and policy development, the politics of scandal seemed to suggest the demise rather than the renewal of democratic politics. Signs of renewal-new coalitional possibilities, new institutional practices-also appeared, but their future was hard to read.

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Institutional Change Beginning in 2000, institutional change made its way to the top of the political agenda-but only after the left partially succeeded in devising a new kind of ouverture. The new approach did not focus on the electoral conquest of individual voters, nor did it require the prior construction of a nouvelle soci6t6. It did not aim to mobilize a hegemonic centrist block. Rather, it brought constituted groups together in constantly negotiated cooperative arrangements. The guucbeplurielle (plural left), as this coalition was called, constituted Jospin’s governing majority after the elections of 1997. Its constituent elements included the PS, the Greens, Jean-Pierre Chevenement’s Mouvement des citoyens, the remains of the PCF, and prominent figures from civil society, like Bernard Kouchner, the founder of Doctors without Borders. It juggled the diverse cultures and priorities of the first and second lefts and also sought to take into account the demands of new social groups and movements. The first significant institutional adjustments occurred informally. Chirac’s miscalculations between 1995 and 1997 seriously circumscribed the options available to him in his cohabitation with Jospin. In the new situation, the important game was not between Chirac and Jospin, but between Jospin, his diverse cabinet, and the National Assembly. Viewed in this light, the regime seemed to be evolving toward a disciplined parliamentary system. Of necessity, the government honed its negotiating skills. Jospin treated parliament with respect, for example by declining to use Article 49 paragraph 3 of the Constitutionto force the adoption of legislation. Parliament began to recover some of the power it had lost in 1958. The informal changes taking place suggested the need for more formal adjustments, and some steps were finally taken-though not to resounding public applause. In September 2000, the presidential term was shortened from seven years to five. The required constitutionalamendment was put to a referendum vote, and while it was approved (72.9percent in favor, 27.1percent opposed), only a stunningly sparse 30.7 percent of the electorate bothered to vote. The political class recognized the importance of institutional issues; the public did not find this kind of remedy compelling. The length of the president’sterm had nothing to do with the economic issues that remained of paramount concern, and the referendum debate did not frame institutional choices in a way that addressed the questionsof identity and sovereigntythat were becoming increasingly preoccupying (see chapters 7 and 8). The reform did not even resolve the most obvious and immediate institutional issue confronting the Fifth Republic: fifty years after its creation, would the Republic move in the direction of a pres idential or a parliamentary model? By 2002, the guucbeplurielle was in tatters, and several of its most emblematic leaders-Martine Aubry (Jacques Delors’s daughter and Jospin’s former

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minister of employment), Jean-Pierre Chevenement, Dominique Voynet (a Green leader and former minister), Robert Hue (head of the PCF), and of course Lionel Jospin-lost their electoral bids. The left’s organizational structure was thus again in flux,and its strategic options uncertain. As for the right, Chirac’s determination to unite conservatives under the Union pour la mujorit6 pbsidentielle was unaccompanied by any overarching political or programmaticvision and seemed unlikely to end the right’s internecine struggles. The future of institutional reform was also uncertain: many observers emphasizedits apparent necessity, but the fragmentationon display in the first round of presidential voting suggested to others that institutional reforms might inadvertently revive the political patterns of the Fourth Republics

CONCLUSION During the more radical phase of the French Revolution, the Jacobin minority most committed to the Terror tended to gather on the upper benches at the back of the Convention. The radical elements of the Convention therefore came to be called the Mountain. The main opposition to the Mountain came from another minority faction, the Girondins, who were proscribed in June 1793and then eliminated (politicallyand physically). The majority of the Convention-the political center-was known as the Plain, or more pejoratively, as the Muruis-the swamp. It owed its less complimentary appelation to its inability to organize. Unlike the Mountain, the Marais was not bound together by a common ideology. It did not even have the elementary coherence the Girondins derived from belonging to common social circles. Without a clearly articulated,autonomousproject, the Murais successively lent its support first to one, then to another of the less passive groups that competed actively for control of the Revolution. Without its support, no faction could govern for long, and its political fickleness meant that no faction did govern for long. The Murais knew what it did not want (a social and political return to the Old Regime, a Terrorist dictatorship), but its positive aspirations were harder to define. It lived in a perpetual state of disappointment-and the revolutionary decade was a showcase of political instability. Organizing “the center” has been the great impossible task of postrevolutionary French history. It underlies the French variant of the more general crisis of representation affecting all established democracies. Under the Fifth Republic, Chaban’s team recognized that only fundamental social and institutional reforms could create the conditions for a new politics, dominated by the center in ways that could not be predicted. Later leaders, left and right, retreated from the more ambitious aspects of Chaban’s project and instead sought to appropriate voters who increasingly failed to identlfy durably with any political party. But the “experimental” voters of “the center” always

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seemed disappointed-and they remained so into the new millennium,despite significant changes and even when the economy showed signs of picking up. For all the planned and unplanned changes that had transformed French society, culture, and politics since 1969, Chaban’s nouueZe soci6t6 remained the unfinished agenda of a nation increasingly in search of itself. We now need to turn to that search. Does it suggest an exit-a new kind of politics, organized around new expectations, actors, and institutions?Is the swamp becoming useful land?

RECOMMENDED READING Brechon, Pierre, Annie Laurent, and Pascal Perrineau, eds. Les culturespolitiquesdes FranGais. Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 2000. Brechon, Pierre,Jacques Derville, and Patrick Lecomte. Les cadres du RPR. Paris: Eccnomica, 1987. Charlot, Jean. The GaullistPhenomenon: The GauUist Movement in the Fifth Republic. Trans. Monica Charlot and Marianne Neighbour. London: Allen and Unwin, 1971. Chastenet, Patrick, and Philippe. Chaban. Paris: Le Seuil, 1991. Daley, Anthony, ed. The Mittewand Era: Policy Alternatives and Political Mobilization in France. New York: New York University Press, 1996. Domenach, Nicolas, and Maurice Szafran. Le roman dunpr6sident: l’humiliation, la r6suwection, le reniement, 1988-1995.Paris: Plon, 1997. Favier, Pierre, and Michel Martin-Roland. La dcennie Mitterrand. 4 vols. Paris: Le Seuil, 1990-1999. Hamon, Heme, and Patrick Rotman. G6n6ration. 2 vols. Paris: Le Seuil, 1987-1988. -. La deuxigme gauche: Histoire intellectuelle etpolitique de la CFDT. Paris: Le Seuil, 1984. Joffrin, Laurent. Mai 68:Histoire des 6v6nements. Paris: Le Seuil, 1988. Keeler,John T. S., and Martin A. Schain, eds. Chirac’s Challenge:Liberalization,Europeanization, and Malaise in France. New York: St. Martin’s, 1996. Knapp, Andrew. Gaullism since de Gaulle. Brookfield, VT: Dartmouth Publishing, 1994. Kriegel, Annie. The French Communists:ProJTkof a People. Trans. Elaine P. Halperin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972. Lavau, Georges. “Le Parti communiste dans le systkme politique franpis.”In Frkdkric Bon et al., Le communisme en France paris: Armand Colin, 1969),pp. 7-81. -. A quoi sert leparti communistefranGais? Paris: Fayard, 1981. Remond, Rene. The Right Wing in France from I815 to de Gaulle. Trans. James L. Law. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1969. Ross, George et al.,eds. The MitterrandEaperiment:Continuity and Change in Modern France. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press, 1987. Roussel, Eric. Pompidou, 1911-1974.Paris: JeanClaude Lattks, 1994. Simmons, Harvey G. D e French National Front: The Exhemist Challenge to Democracy. Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1996. Touchard,Jean. La gauche en France depuis 1900.Paris: Le Seuil, 1977.

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Election Studies and Public Opinion Capdevielle, Jacques et al. France de gauche, vote a droite. Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1981. Dupoirier, Elisabeth and Gerard Grunberg, eds. Mars 1986:la dr6le de dgaite de la gauche. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1986. Habert, Philippe, Pascal Perrineau, and Colette Ysmal, eds. Le vote kckztk: Les klections rkgionales et cantonales des 22 et 29 mars 1992.Paris: Departement d’etudes politiques du Figaro & Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1992. -. Le vote sanction: Les klections lkgislatives des 21 et 28 mars 1993.Paris: Departement d’etudes politiques du Figaro &Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1993. Perrineau, Pascal, and Colette Ysmal, eds. Le vote des douze: Les klections europkennes dejuin 1994.Paris: Departement detudes politiques du Figaro & Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1995. -. Le vote de crise: L’klection prksidentielle de 1995.Paris: Departement d’etudes politiques du Figaro & Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1995. -. Le vote suqrise: Les klections lkgislativesdes 25 mai et P juin 1997. Paris: Departement d’etudes politiques du Figaro & Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1998. Perrineau, Pascal, and Dominique ReyniC, eds. Le vote incertain: Les klections rkgionales de 1998.Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 1998. Boy, Daniel, and Nonna Mayer, eds. L’klecteur frangais en questions. Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1990. -. L’klecteur a ses raisons. Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1997.

Memoirs and documents Chaban-Delmas,Jacques. Mkmoirespour demain. Paris: Flammarion, 1997. Delors, Jacques, and Dominique Wolton. L’Unitk d’un homme. Paris: Odile Jacob, 1994. Giscard d’Estaing,Valery. Deux Frangais sur trois. Paris: Flammarion, 1984. -. La dkmocratiefrangaise. Paris: Fayard, 1976. -. Le Pouvoir et la vie. 2 vols. Paris: Cie 12, 1988-1991. Grimaud, Maurice. En mai,fais ce qu’il teplait. Paris: Stock, 1977. Mitterrand, Franqois. Ici et maintenant: conversations avec Guy Claisse. Paris: Fayard, 1980. -. L’abeille et l’architecte. Paris: Flammarion, 1978. -. Lapaille et le grain: cbronique. Paris: Flammarion, 1975. -. Le coup d’ktatpermanent. Paris: Plon, 1964. -. Mapart de vkritk: de la rupture h I’unitk. Paris: Fayard, 1969. -. Politique: textes et discours, 1938-1981.Paris: Marabout, 1984. Pompidou, Georges. Le noeud gordien. Paris: Plon, 1974.

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1. In a centripetal system, competition leads parties to move toward the center. In a centrifugal system, parties tend to move away from the center. 2. Complete text of Charter in Rene Mouriaux, La CGT (Paris: Le Seuil, 1982), pp. 40-41. 3. On the SFIO during the interwar period, see Nathanael Greene, Crisis and Decline: The French Socialist Party in the Popular Front Era (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1969). 4. For an explanation of how different kinds of electoral laws work, see appendix C. 5 . The referendum proposed two independent measures: one would have abolished the Senate, the other would have set up regional governments with some decision-making authority. De Gaulle resigned by choice; he was not constitutionally required to do so. 6. Jacques Capdevielle et al., France de gauche, vote h droite (Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1981). 7. The remark was made by Gerald Kaufman (born 1930), Labour MP for ManChester and Shadow Foreign Secretary from 1987 to 1992. Cited in Denis Healey, The Time of M y Life (London: Michael Joseph, l989), p. 5 0 0 . 8. See Rene Remond, The Right Wing in France from 1815 to de Gaulle, trans. James L. Lam (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1969). 9. Nostalgia is rarely a good history teacher; the legitimists conveniently omitted Louis X I V ’ s centralizingpolicies and hostility to intermediary bodies from their image of the Old Regime. 10. During his RPF period in particular, de Gaulle spoke of finding a “third way” between capitalism and socialism, a path he called “l’associationcapital-mvail,”the ass0 ciation of capital and labor. In a speech deliveredon January 4,1948 in the working-class city of Saint-Etienne, where the RPF had just won the municipal elections, de Gaulle delivered a typical and stinging criticism of French capitalism (“Let’s be done with this absurd system, in which for a minimal salary, a minimal effort is supplied, which produces at the collectivelevel a minimalresult”)and then defined his alternativeas follows: What do we mean byhsociation?It means that within a given category of firms, partipants, bosses [les chefs], managers, and workers would together determine working conditions amongst themselves, as equals, with organized mediation, so that all . . . would receive, in a way regulated by law and according to hierarchical position, a salary pegged to the overall productivity of the firm. Under these conditions, the elements of moral order that are the honor of a profession-authority for those who lead, a taste for work well done among workers, professional capability for everyone-would assume their rightful importance, since they would determine productivity, that is, the common profit. This would engender, within the professions, a psychology other than one of exploitation or of class struggle. [Charles de Gaulle, text in Discours et messages, vol. 2 , D a m l’attente, 1946-1958 (Paris: Plon, 19701, p. 176.1

De Gaulle returned to these ideas, which came to him, as they did to the legitimists, through the social theory of the Catholic Church, whenever he thought about social

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questions. Rejected by both business and the organized working class, l’association had no political constituency,and de Gaulle never gave the program it suggested political priority. 11. SeeJacques Chaban-Delmas,Mdmoirespour &main (Paris: Flammarion, 1997), pp. 9-10, for Chaban’s account of the encounter. 12. The important passages of this speech are reproduced in Le Monde,June 27, 1969,pp. 1 and 8. 13. Text of speech in Le Monde, September 18, 1969,pp. 2-4. 14. See esp. Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the French Revolution, trans. Stuart Gilbert (Garden City, Ny: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1955). 15. Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the French Revolution, p. 120. 16. Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the French Revolution, p. 107. 17. Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the French Revolution, pp. 141, 139. 18. Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the French Revolution, p. 137. 19. Michel Crozier, Le PhdnomBne bureaucratique (Paris: Le Seuil, 1963), p. 10. Crozier later extended and popularized his arguments about France in La socidtd b l e qude (Paris: Le Seuil, 1970)and in On ne changepas la socidtdpar ddcret (Paris: Grasset, 1979). He continued his reflections on social organizations and organizational theory in Crozier and Erhard Friedberg,L’Acteur et le systBme: Les contraintes de l’action collective (Paris: Le Seuil, 1977). 20. See Crozier, Le PhdnomPne bureaucratique, especially pp. 253-255. 21. Crozier, Le PhdnomBne bureaucratique, p. 11. 22. Crozier, Le PhdnomBne bureaucratique, p. 229. 23. Crozier, Le PhdnomBne bureaucratique, p. 239. 24. See Crozier, Le PhdnomBne bureaucratique, p. 24 1. 25. Crozier, Le PhdnomBne bureaucratique, p. 304. 26. Crozier, Le PhdnomBne bureaucratique, p. 316. Some thirty years later, Crozier focused his critique on the state and its elites; see La crise de l’intelligence: Essai sur l’impuissance des dlites a se rdformer (Paris: InterEditions, 1935). 27. Stanley Hoffmann, Decline or Renewal? Essays on France since the 1930s (New York: V i g , 1974), p. viii. 28. See Stanley Hoffmann, “Paradoxesof the French Political Community,”in Stanley Hoffmann et al., In Search of France: The Economy, Society, and Political System in the Twentieth Centuty (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), pp. 1-117. For Hoffmann’sretrospective review of his own work, see “ToBe or Not to Be French,”in Linda Miller and Michael Smith, eds., Ideas and Ideals: Essays on Politics in Honor of Stanlq Hoffmann (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993), pp. 19-46. 29. Hoffmann, “Paradoxesof the French Political Community,”in Hoffmann et al., In Search of France, p. 4. 30. Hoffmann, “Paradoxesof the French Political Community,”in Hoffmann et al., In Search of France, p. 60. 31. Hoffmann, “Paradoxesof the French Political Community,”in Hoffmann et al., In Search of France, pp. 45-46. 32. Hoffmann, “Paradoxesof the French Political Community,”in Hoffmann et al., In Search of France, p . 108. 33. Giscard made the remark to a gathering of RI leaders in Charenton on October 8,1972. Giscard was servingas minister of finance and the economy and had abstained

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from direct participationin partisan debates for the previous year. In his lengthy,carefully prepared, and much-commented speech, he sought to stake out a position for the RI, simultaneously affirminghis loyalty to the UDR-led conservative majority in power and suggestinghis own group’sgreater tolerance and openness to centrist concerns. Le Monde reprinted large portions of the speech on October 10, 1972, pp. 1, 8, and 9; the passage cited here is used to introduce the story on p. 1 and is reproduced in context on p. 9. The phrase-“La France souhaite &re gouvernee au centre”-is more accurately but awkwardly translated as “Francewants to be ruled in a centrist manner.” 34. Alexandre Sanguinetti,speaking for the leadership of the UDR, April 7, 1974, “Les declarations de M. Sanguinetti,”Le Monde, April 9,1974, p. 4. 35. Valery Giscard dEstaing declaring his candidacy,April 8,1974; see “M.Giscard dEstaing decide de conserver ses fonctions gouvernementales,”Le Monde, April 10, 1974, p. 2. 36. See Valery Giscard d’Estaing,La dbmocrutiefrunGaise (Paris: Fayard, 1976), p. 68. 37. Pierre Viansson-Ponte, “La cassure,”Le Monde, August 26, 1976, p. 1. 38. On May 17, 1972, Chaban, over Pompidou’s objections, had engaged the responsibilityof the government and had won the vote, 368 to 94, with 6 abstentions. 39. Text of Chirac’s two letters (July 26 and August 25) in L’unnbe politique, bconomique, sociale et diplomatique en France 1976 (Paris: fiditions du Grand siecle, [1977]),pp. 110-112, citation here at p. 110. 40. Large portions of the text reprinted in Le Monde, October 5, 1976, p. 8. 41. Jacques Chirac, February 3, 1978, “M. Chirac: la creation de 1’UDF est une ‘magouille partisane,’”Le Monde, February 5-6, 1978,p. 5. 42. In an election governed by proportional representation, the t2te de liste is the person whose name appears in the lead position on a list, making that person the list’s standard-bearer. 43. Holding public opinion constant, PR is most likely to create a fragmented party system if the entire country is treated as a single district and the threshold for representation is low. In 1986, each dbpartement-a relatively small unit-defined a district. See discussion by Olivier Duhamel, “Lespremi2res elections legislatives de la Ve Republique,”in hsabeth Dupoirier and Grard Grunberg, eds., Mars 1986:la dr6le de dqaite de la gauche (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1986), pp. 231-243. 44. See text in Le Monde, April 8 and 9,1988. 45. See for example the IPSOSLe Monde poll of May 25-26, 1988; see Andre Laurens, “Unsondage IPSOS‘leMonde’:Les Francais et le goiit de l’ouverture,”Le Monde, May 29-30,1988, pp. 1 and 6. Reflections on the meanings, possibilities,and promises of l’ouverture dominated the news in late May. 46. Robert Schneider, La huine tranquille (Paris: Le Seuil, 1992). 47. Michel Rocard, February 17,1993, see text and commentary in Le Monde, Feb ruary 19, 1993,pp. 1 and 8. 48. Delors announced his decision in a television interview and in a statement released to the press; see excerpts in Le Monde, December 13,1994,p. 7. Rocard elaborated his critique of the PS at a meeting of like-minded activists on December 17, 1994; see excerpts in Le Monde, December 20, 1994, p. 9. 49. Cf. the title of the electoral study edited by Pascal Perrineau and Colette Ysmal:

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Le vote de crise:L’6lection pr6sidentielle de 1995 (Paris: Departement d’etudes politiques du Figaro & Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1995). 50. See Jer6me Jaffre, “De 1995 a 1997: l’opinion publique, l’impopularite et le vote,” in Pascal Perrineau and Colette Ysmal, eds., Le vote surprise: Les 6lections 16gislatives des 25 mai et l m juin 1997 (Paris: Departement d’etudes politiques du Figaro & Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1998), pp. 28-32. 5 1. For Millon’s side of the story, see Charles Millon, La pa& civile (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1998). Millon was penalized electorally in the regional elections of 1999 and the municipal elections of 2001, before being decisively defeated, to bipartisan applause, by the socialistJeanqack Queyranne in the legislative elections of 2002. See Sophie Landrin, “A Lyon, 1’Cchec de M. Millon eclipse le succks de la droite,” Le Monde, June 18, 2002, p.4. 52. Millon, October 17, 1990, as recounted by de Villiers, cited in Pierre Favier and Michel Martin-Roland, La d6cennie Mitterrand, vol. 3 , Les d6@s(1988-1991) (Paris: Le Seuil, 1996), p. 603. At the time, Millon was parliamentary leader of the UDF. The exchange was occasioned by the Urba Affair, which concerned the financing of the 1988 presidential campaign. 53. In October 1979, the Canard enchain6 revealed that Giscard had accepted a gift of diamonds from the Central African Republic’sdictator,Jean-BedelBokassa; later in the same month, Giscard’sminister of labor, Robert Bouiin, committed suicide after being implicated in a real estate scandal. In April 1980, the Canard enchain6 implicated Giscard’s close aide and former minister of the interior, Michel Poniatowski, in the December 1976 murder of Jean de Broglie, a businessman of murky reputation who had served in Pompidou’sgovernment. 54. Serge Stavisky, a Russian immigrant, a Jew, and a corrupt banker with governmental connections, made a dream target for the antirepublican right-wing ligues. He was found dead of a single bullet to the head on January 8,1934.The evidence pointed to suicide, but the extreme right claimed that a corrupt government had had Stavisky murdered in order to protect itself. 55. See especially Patrick McCarthy, The Crisis of the Italian State: From the Origins of the Cold War to the Fall of Berlmconi and Beyond (New York: St. Martin’s, 1997). 56. See Yves Meny, “La double mort de la Ve Republique,” Le Monde, April 24, 2002, p. 17, and Robert Badinter, “La Ve contre Le Pen,” Le Nouvel Observateur, no. 1960 (May 30, 2002), p. 27.

CHAPTER 6

State-Society Relations in France: An Introduction States both shape and are shaped by the societies they aspire to govern. Modern state-society relations were profoundly affected by varying patterns of industrialization. France, like England, was an early industrializer.When we speak of the industrial revolution, however, we usually have Britain in mind: British sweatshops, British cities, British railways, British pride and power. For decades, British patterns of economic development and state-society relations were believed to be paradigmatic of industrial development in general. This assumption was shared by Marxist and non-Marxist observers alike, but it proved wrong: viewed in comparative terms, Britain turned out to be an exception, rather than a trailblazer. The “greattransformation”that capitalism brought about in Britain-recasting the country’s institutional, social, and cultural landscape-was not reproduced elsewhere.1 In Britain, where already in the seventeenth century the language of liberty had become inextricably tied to the language of property rights, the role of government in the domestic arena tended increasingly to be limited to the purpose of securing those rights. By the mid-nineteenth century, Britain had developed a stable (and therefore flexible) parliamentary regime and a minimally interventionist “night-watchman”state. It was also an urbanized society, increasingly divided into two social classes: a propertied class (which in fact embraced the middle and upper classes) and an unpropertied working class. Capitalism seemed, despite the misery that accompanied it, an integral, indispensable part of an otherwise attractive package that included political freedom at home and a great empire abroad. Tories (as British Conservatives are colloquially called) and socialists alike would seek to improve on the market economy, but not to do away with it: radical critiques of capitalism had relatively little resonance on either the right or the left. Laissez-faireliberalism offended the social conscience of Tory paternalists, but it did not threaten their social or political power, and they made their peace with it. On the 161

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other side, the working class movement owed more-culturally and organizationally-to Methodism than to Marxism and was wedded to democratic legality and incremental reformism.2 French trends often prefigured patterns subsequently reproduced-usually with less felicitous results-in late developing countries. Three traits seem especially relevant. First, in France, economic modernization occurred within international and institutional contexts that favored systematic government intervention in the economy. Second, modernization accommodated a social structure far more complicated than the twoclass system putatively associated with developed industrial economies. Finally, modernization failed to make the market project ideologically and culturally hegemonic. These institutional, social, and cultural features shaped, and were in turn only partially modified by, the spectacular economic growth and social change that took place during the first three decades of the postwar-1945 period. As we shall see in the next chapter, all of these features came into play as France responded to the economic crisis that began in the early 1970s. In France, as elsewhere in the democratic world, economic difficulties contributed to the crisis of representation we began exploring in chapter 5. But in France, because of the particular pattern of state-society relations that emerged during the long process of industrialization,the economic crisis also provoked a crisis of the state. How that crisis will be resolved is far from clear. What is clear is how stubbornly the past catches up with efforts to escape it.

mmcs AND MARKETS: THE DIRIGISTE STATE AU states intervene in the economy, most basically to define and enforce property rights. But different states-and different governments of the same state-intervene differently, and the differences are not always usefully c a p tured by the common tendency of political actors to assess intervention quantitatively (as when, in the United States, Republicans accuse Democrats of belonging to the party of “biggovernment”). This is not just because many forms of intervention do not lend themselves easily to quantitative measurement along a single yardstick. Different states pursue different goals (valuing social stability over economic growth, for example, or low inflation over full employment, or rapid growth over greater equality) and use different means (tariffs or free trade, fiscal policy, nationalization, monetary policy, targeted government spending, and so on). Over time, a complicated, symbiotic relationship tends to develop between means and ends. Under some circumstances, new goals-or great crises-will give rise to new policy instruments, or the availability of new instruments will suggest new goals. More often, however, leaders will gravitate toward goals consistent with the familiar means their state places at their disposal. As a result, faced with a common

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economic challenge (for example, a recession), the response a new conservative government in one country adopts may resemble the response of its leftleaning predecessor more than the response of a conservativegovernment in another country. Crises (wars are a classic example) often facilitate institutional innovation, but even in crises, institutions are more likely to bend, or change incrementally, than they are to break.3 In the 1930s and 1940s, depression, war, and the imperatives of postwar reconstruction encouraged the development of new relationships between states and economies. Governments showed an increasing inclination to take responsibility for economic outcomes. As they took on new tasks, they looked for new policy tools appropriateto their new goals. Economic planning, nationalization programs, and Keynesian policies of demand management were among the most important tools to emerge. Economic planning allows governments to override market decisions in order to pursue objectives they have defined as politically or socially desirable: the conversion of a peacetime economy to production for total war, for example, or rapid economic growth. When the whole economy is subjected to planning, government officials may decide on the allocation of resources (labor, raw materials, capital), fix production goals, set prices and wages, and sponsor research and development. They may also assume direct control over key industries, like energy and transportation. Planners may make decisions in collaboration with representatives of producer groups (employers and trade unions) and consumers, or they may see the neutralization of one or more of those groups as an essential part of their role: thus right-wing planning regimes suppress trade unions, communist planning regimes eliminate capitalist owners, and growth-oriented planners often sacrifice the short-and medium-term interests of ordinary consumers.To the extent that government decisions result from a process of consultation between state officials and producers, we tend to speak of “corporatism.”This is especially true when planning arrangements are limited to specific sectors of the economy, like agriculture, while the rest of the economy is left subject to market forces. Planning had been used by the major industrialized belligerents during World War I but had been quickly abandoned by the democratic states once the war ended. In the interwar period, it was adopted by the Soviet Union, where it was intended to accelerate the pace of economic modernization. In the 1930s, it regained an audience in the western democracies, as politically diverse groups responded to the lessons of the Depression. In France, socialist trade unionists and young technocrats fresh out of the gcole polytechnique argued that planning might offer a remedy for the country’s economic troubles.*After the defeat of 1940, these economic pioneers parted political company but retained their commitment to planning. Some, like the CGT’s Robert Lacoste, joined the Resistance; others helped run Vichy’sextensive system of corporatist arrangements, the Cornit& d’orgunisution. These people would

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recongregate in the economic policy-makingcircles of the Fourth Republic: Lacoste, before he squandered his reputation in the Algerian quagmire, served as minister of production in the governments of the Liberation. As a policy tool, nationalization can take many forms and serve quite different purposes. A government can simply expropriate the owners of the firm being nationalized, but the government may also buy the firm, sometimes offering the owners handsome compensation for their lost property. A government may assume complete ownership of a company, or it may simply acquire a controlling interest. The nationalized company can be run under politically independent management and as if it were still a private, for-profit company, or it can be used to showcase governmental goals: the promotion of workplace democracy, for example, or the modernization of production processes. Many socialists-especially Marxist socialists-saw public ownership of the means of production as the defining element of any socialist order. Soviet social and economic policies were informed by this understanding of socialism. Keynesianism, named for the British economist and statesman John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), developed as a response to the economic dislocations of the interwar period and especially to the Great Depression. Keynes, whose most famous work, m e General Tbeoly of Employment, Interest and Money, appeared in 1936,5 argued that governments could use fiscal policy to manipulate aggregate demand, thereby limiting the adverse effects of the business cycles that seemed an inherent feature of market economies. The adverse effects Keynes hoped to mitigate were unemployment, associated with periods of economic slowdown (recessions and depressions, of which the Great Depression was only the most dramatic in a series), and inflation, which seemed to occur when too much money chased too few goods. Keynes linked economic slowdowns to weak demand; the appropriate policy response, he suggested, would be to boost demand by pumping money into the economy through tax cuts and increased government spending (including “deficit spending,” in other words, spending in excess of revenues). When, in contrast, the economy overheats and inflation threatens, Keynes advocated lowering demand by raising taxes and cutting government spending. In the postwar industrial democracies, Keynesian policies were ubiquitous. They reflected a new understanding of the economy as a set of activities and processes that could be regulated to encourage socially optimal results. Often, Keynesianism formed the essential core of a political compre mise between the laissez-faireright (which dropped its insistence on contining state intervention to night-watchman functions) and the socialist left (which dropped its grander schemes for revolutionary change).6 If Keynesianism was widely practiced in the advanced industrial democracies, public ownership and planning were less common and less consensual

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options-except in France. In France, the CNRs program called for “the return to the nation of all the great monopolies built on the fruits of common labor: energy sources, underground resources, insurance companies, and the great banks.”’ The first nationalizationsof the postwar period were initiated under de Gaulle’s authority, and planning, supported by governments of every political complexion, became a central element of the postwar political economy. De Gaulle expressed a broadly shared view when he stated the government’s position in March 1945: While we cannot imagine the French economy of the future without a “freesector” as extensive as possible, we also affirm that the State should be at the controls. The role of the State is now to insure the development of major energy resources-coal, electricity, oil-as well as of the main means of transportationrail, sea, air-and of the means of transmission, on which everything else depends. It is the role of the State to bring steel production up to the necessary level. It is the State’srole to distribute credit, in order to guide national savings toward the vast investments that economic development demands and to prevent groups of particular interests from getting in the way of the general interest.8

Decades later, as postwar prosperity gave way to a deepening economic crisis, the French electorate voted for the left, whose highly interventionist economic program included a series of new nationalizations and other measures. Although the left was soon forced to abandon its preferred policies, militant neoliberalism remained a political nonstarter. In contrast, in Britain, the Labour Party’s postwar nationalizationswere partially reversed by subsequent Conservative governments, and planning never got off the ground. As the economic crisis deepened, Britain voted a fierce neoliberal into power in the person of Margaret Thatcher. Tocqueville would not have been surprised by the divergent developments in Britain and France. France’s powerful, centralized state had a long history of intruding on the decision-making space of other social actors. Given that history, the absence of ambitious forms of state intervention in the postwar economy would have been surprising. But intervention did not mean control. Tocqueville’s occasional exaggerations notwithstanding, intervention had never meant control. The relationship between state and society in France was always far more complicated than that-partly by design and partly because the French state lacked the kind of overwhelming power that control would have required. The complexity of the relationship contributed to its stability, for almost everyone found advantages in the compromises and complicities on which the relationship was based. The complexities of state-society relations help account for the specific character of economic planning in postwar France. The Plan was created by decree on January 3,1946, just before de Gaulle resigned in frustration over pending constitutional issues. The man appointed to head the new Com-

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missuriut uu Plan (as the Plan was formally called) was Jean Monnet (1888- 1979).9Monnet was neither a socialist nor a Gaullist;he had no u priori sympathies for either public ownership or an activist national state. Rather, he was a businessman deeply committed to international institutions. During both world wars, he had been instrumental in organizing AUied economic cooperation; from the Armistice of 1918 until he returned to private business in the fall of 1923, he had worked for the League of Nations. He was, as he said, a man “accustomed to thinking in terms of economic organization and international cooperation.”lo When Monnet assumed his new post in 1946, his charge was to generate “afirst overall plan for the modernization and economic refurbishing of metropolitan France and the overseas territories.”l’ In addition to overseeing reconstruction and the allocation of Marshall Plan aid, the Plan was intended to promote growth in general and exports in particular;it was to increase productivity,encourage full employment,and raise the standard of living. Yet the agency’s staff was miniscule and its coercive powers were nonexistent. This was no accident. The agency’smission was to energize and legitimizeFrench capitalism, not to substitute government bureaucrats, however well trained and public spirited, for private decision makers. Capitalism had never been particularly popular in France; now the government sought to alter attitudes and behavior. It hoped to do this by casting growth as a common responsibility from whose achievement all would benefit and by facilitating the acquisition and exchange of relevant information. It sought to raise the ambitions and increase the entrepreneurial spirit of normally risk-averse actors and to encourage cooperation among social actors who preferred to keep each other at arm’s length. Mormet’s staffers argued that participation and consensus building would be essential to the Plan’s success. In sum, the Plan as originally conceived differed in purpose as well as in form from central planning as it was practiced in “command economies, where planning was part of a project hostile to capitalism. The French Planpromoted capitalism, and in doing so tried to draw simultaneously on the country’s statist, Jacobin tradition and on the decentralizing, participatory aspirations that were part of the Catholic tradition and would later become the bedrock of the second left. Chaban’snouvelle soci6t6 embraced the same contradictory pulls. The policy environment in which planning evolved, however, was dominated by the Jacobin tradition: not just politically statist, but in economic matters, authoritarian and protectionist. As Tocqueville was always quick to point out, the “Jacobin”tradition predated the Revolution by at least a century. It had been made into state policy by Richelieu (1585-1642) and especially by Louis X I V ’ s advisor and finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683). Richelieu devoted most of his energy to reducing the power of the Crown’s domestic rivals: aristocrats, Protestants, churchmen too loyal to Rome. Colbert recognized that the monarchy’smost radical weakness lay in

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its financial vulnerability, and he focused on increasing the wealth of the state. Like most statesmen of his time, Colbert was a mercantilist: he believed that states could maximize their wealth, and therefore their power, by accumulating trade surpluses and stockpiling precious metals. Under his direction, the state erected protective tariffs to inhibit imports, while at the same time favoring domestic economic activity by investing in infrastructure and by creating or supporting firms engaged in the production of export goods. Systematicintervention by the state in the economy came to be known as colbertisme or dirigisme (from the verb diriger, to direct or lead). Had Tocqueville been interested in historical detail rather than social analysis-in describing historical reality rather than illuminating it-Colbert would have been one of his villains. But then his slender (if unfinished) volume on the Old Regime and the Revolution would have taken on much greater proportions. The Old Regime was not as centralized as Tocqueville claimed, nor was French society as uniform and incapable of resistance.12 The state made itself a central player in every imaginable social arena, but it never even approximated the status of an all-powerful player. Prior to the 1950s, its strength was limited by the socioeconomic conservatism common to most governments, by political polarization, and by the doctrine of popular sovereignty. Especially before the advent of Keynesian concepts, the protection of the social status quo did not invite the construction of a powerful bureaucracy charged with tasks other than diplomacy and internal security. The emphasis on popular sovereignty made republican elites leery of creating decision-making structures that might bypass electoral accountability. Perhaps most important, continuous political polarization undermined the notion that political administration,much less politics itself, was in any sense an objective science. Positivism-the belief that human behavior and social relationships are determined by discoverable laws-had important roots in nineteenthcentury French social thought (most notably in Saiot-Simon and his disciple, Auguste Comte), but French history taught most observers that politics was a realm in which outcomes were shaped by a mix of values, art, skill, and luck. From the mid-eighteenthcentury on, first the monarchy and then the many regimes that followed maintained worldclass schools and competitive examinations to recruit and train military and civil engineers: the &Cole des Ponts et Chausskes came first, in 1747, followed by the Ecole des Mines in 1783 and the &ole Polytechnique in 1794. The enormously prestigious&ole normale, first set up a few days after the Ecole Polytechnique but later dismantled,was definitively established under the July Monarchy to prepare France’sbest students for the agrkgation, competitive examinations organized by field of study that secured for successful candidates the best teaching jobs in the country. Since the Ecole normale ostensibly identified an intellectual elite in a country where all political camps recognized intellect, the school counted

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a long list of politicians among its former students: Jaures, Blum (who withdrew after a year), Herriot, Pompidou.13 Robert Brasillach, the fascist intellectual and journalist whose execution in 1945 for collaboration stirred considerable debate, was a normulien, as was the ranking police official to whom he surrendered. Proposals to the contrary notwithstanding,there was no grunde bcole (the collective designation of the elite Parisian schools: the kcole normule, Powtechnique, and so on) that specifically targeted would-be political and ecunomic decision makers and administrators. In fact, there was no ugrbgution in political science until the late 1970s, whereas the ugrbgutions in literature and science date from 1821, with philosophy following in 1828 and history in 1830.14 The first successful effort to establish something like a school of public administration came at private initiative: in 1871, Emile Boutmy founded the &cole libre des sciencespolitiques. Although its graduates were numerous among the administrative and political elites of the Third Republic, the school remained private for threequarters of a century, until the Liberation, when it was integrated into the state system as the Institut d’btudes politiques (it retains its earlier nickname, “Sciences Po”). Mendes and Mitterrand both had diplomas from Sciences P0.15 Despite this absence of a tight corps of administrative decision makers, Tocqueville’sinsistence on the state as the linchpin of French social and political patterns was not misplaced. The state was a central player because the construction of a political community had been its great project: the monarchy provided the institutional scaffolding on which the kingdom was built. The state was also a central player because it meddled everywhere and made mischief in all the ways that Tocqueville described. Under the Old Regime, the state did not get rid of intermediary bodies, but it did render them incapable of elaborating and pursuing any independent political project (which is why Tocqueville’saccount, although sometimes descriptively inaccurate, remains analytically so powerful). At the same time, in part because it was chronically unable to bring its spending under control, the state remained dependent on social groups it would have preferred to control. The patterns set under the Old Regime shaped the options available to the reformers of the revolutionary era. The Revolution of 1789 did not inherit a monolithic state and a cowed civil society. Rather, the revolutionaries confronted a dizzying array of overlapping jurisdictions, competing legal doctrines (customary law, canon law, royal edicts), and corporate groups. This “administrativeimbroglio”16was both the condition and the product of the Old Regime’s habit of striking ad hoc compromiseswith social groups-compromises that never rose to the status of institutions because the monarchy abrogated them at its convenience. Well before the centralizingJacobin radicals arrived on the scene, the Revolution’smoderate leaders saw in this diversity a major obstacle to the establishment of civil equality and the rule of law;

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they also saw in it an impediment to the kind of patriotism and national solidarity they viewed as constitutive of a political community based on citizenship. The nation and the republic would be built from the center out and on the basis of uniformity. Revolutionaryleaders quickly moved to abolish feudal privileges (etymologically,privilege comes from the Latin Zexprivata, private law) and establish civil equality.They imposed Parisian French and a common system of weights and measures (the metric system, itself characterized by its simplicity and regularity), and they redrew the jurisdictionalmap of the country. Influential members of the ConstituentAssembly urged their colleagues to replace the country’s ancient provinces with numerically designated, geometrically regular units, rather like midwestern American states but with numbers instead of names. Less radical minds prevailed: the d6purtements (still with us) do have numbers, but they also have names, and their borders are not straight lines.” Elsewhere as well, a less systematicreality persisted: state institutions were too unstable during the revolutionary years to support the creation of an autonomous bureaucracy that would have been effectively insulated from social pressures and above the partisanship of day-today political struggles and that might therefore have been able to enforce the uniformity that revolutionary elites deemed necessary to the achievement of their goals. The Old Regime’s tradition of rhetorical centralization and practical compromise continued, but against a backdrop of expanding state power. Under the Revolution, centralization was promoted as a means to important and often liberal ends: the rule of law and the development of a sense of national identity uniting equal citizens. Under Napoleon, centralization was integrally tied to the regime’sproject of authoritarianpolitical control and so came close to becoming an end in itself. By 1815, centralization in all its complexity had become an essential element of French politics: it was identified with state building and nation building, and it had shown how crucial a tool it could be in ongoing partisan struggles. It would retain these characteristics. But as under the Old Regime, centralizationwould remain based on collusion between social groups and the state; it did not mean control of society by the state. The state was everywhere, but everywhere it faced constraints. The result was a hobbled state that liked to strut and a crippled civil society that found advantages in limping. This enduring pattern of thwarted politico-administrativeambition and social withdrawal helps explain why France could neither abide dictatorship for long nor sustain freedom without interruption. The country’seconomic life showed a similar ambivalence: the state intervened in the economy sometimes to pursue its own agenda (an agenda which itself was as likely to be stability as it was to be modernization and growth) and sometimes in response to social groups, which regularly appealed to the state to overrule market outcomes. Its interventions were often contradictory and never added up to control, for which it never had either the means or the arguments.

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SELECTIVE CAPITALISM: SOCIAL STRUCTURE The most influential person in modern French history to preach a “retour i la terre” (‘‘returnto the land”)was not a Green fed up with pollution, but Marshal Petain, fed up with the republic. “The land,” Petain intoned, “does not deceive. . . . It is the motherland itself. A field that lies fallow is a bit of France that dies. A field sown again is a bit of France reborn.” Petain also condemned what he saw as the self-interestedbehavior of capitalists and workers, locked in an unnecessary and destructive class struggle.’* However reactionary P W ’ s antiurban,anti-industrial,anticapitalistrhetoric may have been, it resonated widely in 1940 because it was not totally divorced from reality-as it would have been, for example, in England. France was unquestionably a major industrial power, part of a select league that still included only Great Britain, France, Germany,and the United States.Yet France was also still largely nonurban in its demographic patterns and, as we shall see in the next section,anticapitalistin its cultural preferences.It was a countrywith factories and workers, but it was not an industrial society-despite a signtficant burst of growth in the first decades of the twentieth century. “TheIndustrialRevolution is to be thought of as a movement, not as a period of time,”T. S. Ashton observes; “[elverywhereit is associated with a growth of population, with the application of science to industry, and with a more intensive and extensive use of capital. Everywherethere is a conversion of ruralinto urban communitiesand a rise of new social classes.”19It was this movement that France resisted. In 1931, when for the first time the “urban”population overtook the rural population, 48.8 percent of the population still lived in communes (towns) of fewer than two thousand inhabitants (people living in towns of more than two thousand inhabitants-a size equivalent to that of a very small liberal arts college-were considered “urban”).20In England, by comparison, the urban population outstripped the rural population in the 1840s; by 1911, 79 percent of the population was classified as urban.21This level of urbanization was not reached in France until 1990,when 75 percent of the population was cias sified as urban.22 Although the country as a whole was slow to urbanize, greater Paris acted like a population magnet-so much so that postwar policy makers would speak of “Pariset le desert franqais”23 and take measures to arrest the trend. Paris grew dramaticallyduring the nineteenth century: from a base of 500,000 (one-fiftieth of the country’s total population) in 1801, its population more than quintupled to reach 2,714,000 in 1931 (out of a total population of approximately forty-two million), with a further two million people concentrated in the suburbs.2* At the onset of the economic crisis in the 1970s, nearly one-fifth of the population of metropolitan France still lived in the capital (by then, the total population of the country had risen to about fifty-three million). Paris dwarfed (and continues to dwarf) its rivals: Lyon, Marseille,

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Lille, Toulouse, Nice, Bordeaux, Nantes, Strasbourg. Paris was the national hub, in every sense of the word: roads and railway lines fanned out from the capital, businesses located their main offices there, the most prestigious schools were there, the press and the publishing industry were concentrated there, and of course the government was there. But there were still some 36,000 communes in the “desert”-roughly the same number as there had been during the revolutionary period. Communes located to the west and south of an imaginary diagonal line extending from Le Havre to Marseillewere generally more disadvantaged than those located in the more prosperous northern and eastern half of the country. In 1931,about 36 percent of the French workforce was still engaged in agriculture25-despite a steady rural exodus underway since the mid-nineteenth century and despite the fact that among French soldiers killed in World War I, over halfwere peasants. By contrast, in Germany, 16percent of the workforce was employed in agriculture, in Britain, only 6 percent.26 The French agricultural sector included large, singleaop, commercial farms, especially in the northeast. But most farms were small, multicrop, family farms with very low profit margins, and for most peasants, the interwar years, and especially the 1930s, had been disastrous. Few farms were mechanized; most were too marginal to afford capital investments like tractors and too small to make such investment profitable. For most peasants-some eight million people out of a total population of about forty-twomillion-fanning remained a back-breaking, mind-numbing occupation, an inherited fate rather than a chosen profession. Turning to the working class, two equally important, equally true, and apparently contradictory stories can be told about its character during the interwar period. One story emphasizesthe continuingmargimhty of industrial workers. The other story stresses the increasing centrality of the industrial workforce in French social and political life. The first story is consistent with the information on urbanization and agricultural activity cited above and is best told with statistics about the relative size and composition of the working class. Even in 1946, industrial workers were still outnumbered by workers in both the agricultural and the service sectors: the primary (agricultural), secondary (industrial), and tertiary (service) sectors accounted for 34, 30, and 35 percent respectively of the active population.27 During the interwar period, most workers were neither the sons of working-class fathers nor the fathers of working&us sons. Except during the Depression, low birth rates combined with an expanding industrial sector created chronic labor shortages. Firms responded by recruiting peasants, women, and immigrants into the labor force. Workers responded by moving from job to job in search of better working conditions and by moving in and out of France’s enormous service sector. In many industries, employment was seasonal, and many workers combined industrial employment with continuing agricultural activity. Within the industrial workforce,

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employmentexperiencesvaried signrficantly.In 1931, about half of the industrial workforce was employed in large factories:23.6 percent in firms employing between 101 and 500 workers, 26.6 percent in firms employing more than 500 workers. But the other half of the workforce was employed in much smaller firms: 19.7 percent in establishments employing fewer than 11 people, 20.1 percent in firms employing 1 1 to 50 people, and 10 percent in firms employing between 51 and 100 people. Twenty-threeyears later, as postwar reconstruction gave way to rapid growth and modernization, small- and middle-sized firms (employing between 1 and 100 workers) still accounted for nearly half of all industrial employment.28 But the postwar working class did not emerge ex nihilo after the Liberation. For the organized working class to abandon the revolutionary syndicalism of its early years and embrace the Communist Party and its satellite organizations, something dramatic had to have happened. It had happened: this is the other story about the working class during the interwar years. First, during the initial decades of the twentieth century, the distribution of industrial employment shifted away from industries associated with developing economies (e.g., textiles) toward those associated with more mature industrial economies (e.g., steel, automobiles). The number of metalworkers doubled between 1906 and 1931; by the latter date, the number of metalworkers equaled the number of textile workers, and together the two groups accounted for half of all industrial employment. During the same period, the number of steelworkers tripled and the number of autoworkers quintupled.29 If half the industrial labor force still worked in firms employing fewer than 100 workers, the proportion working in firms employing fewer than 11 workers had dropped from just under a third to just under a fifth, and over two-fifths of all new workers were being hired by firms employing more than 500 workers.30 The Renault brothers opened their factory in Boulogne-Billancourt in 1899 with a handful of workers; by 1930, the company employed 20,000. Andre Citroen began producing cars in 1919; by 1929, his factories in the Paris suburbs (Boulogne-Billancourt was also on the outskirts of the capital) employed 31,000 workers.31 Pressed for hands, industrialistsdid more than recruit peasants,women, and foreigners. They also sought to increase productivity through mechanization and new forms of labor discipline: this was the second significant change that occurred during the interwar years. Citroen introduced assembly line production, and the methods of scientific management associated with Taylorism became widely used in the more modem sectors of the economy. Taylorism limited workers to repetitive, specialized, highly scheduled tasks; it was at antipodes from the work style of a skilled artisanal worker, who worked at his own pace to turn out a quality product, who might work and converse at the same time, and who might even own his own tools. The new methods of work created a new worker, open to political arguments and forms of social and political action that had not appealed to his forerunners.

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Finally, the dislocations caused by World War I and the changes in industrial activity that accelerated after the war provoked sigtllficant demographic changes: new population centers developed on the periphery of existing urban areas or around new centers of industrial activity. It was during the years between the two world wars that the Red Belt around Paris-composed of towns like Boulogne-Billancourt, Saint-Denis, Malakoff, Ivry, and Bobignybecame working-class bastions and Communist Party fiefs. In 1906,2,422people lived in Bobigny. By 1921, the population had grown to 6,750,and over the next decade it again nearly tripled, to 17,370people, many of whom lived in makeshift housing with few amenities. In 1931, only 4.2 percent of Bobigny’s residents had been born in the town; 58.5 percent had been born in the provinces or outside France.32 Once again, a new terrain and a population without local roots would open up new social and political possibilities. In sum, the interwar years marked a period of transition for France’s still diverse working classes,whose unity and strength remained compromised by the halting character of French industrialization, but whose older habits of social action and interaction had been disrupted by social change. Throughout the interwar period there was, as we have seen, a good deal of traffic in and out of the peasantry, the working class, and the lower-middle classes: peasants from Brittany took factory jobs in the Paris suburbs, industrial workers supplemented their income with agricultural work, workers went into business for themselves or found jobs in the lower ranks of the civil service, self-employed people closed their shops and took jobs as factory hands. The fluidity of the class structure depended in large part on the size and composition of the service sector. Today, a large service sector is associated with the transition from an industrial to a postindustrial economy. In the middle of the twentieth century, France’simmense service sector obviously had a different significance. The service sector included middle-classcivil servants and the liberal professions, but it owed its size to the enormous number of lower-middle-classsmall shopkeepers, artisans, cafe owners, hoteliers, and so on. Every neighborhood had its bakery, its corner grocery store, its small boutiques, its rival cafes-not to mention the butcher’s shop, the charcuterie, the cheese shop, the wine store, and thepdtisserie. People did their shopping daily, on foot and among people they knew. The service sector thus shaped both the most basic rhythms of daily life and the availablemechanisms of social mobility.

CAPJTALISM AND THE REPUBLICAN COMPROMISE: IDEOLOGICALAMBIGUITIES We have already heard Adolphe Thiers declare that the republic would be conservative or it would never be. In 1884,Jules Ferry had put a different twist on Thiers’s statement: “The Republic,” he asserted, “will be a peas-

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ants’ republic or will cease to exist.”33Ferry’s admonitions were aimed at the republican left. Royalism was no longer, Ferry argued, a viable threat to the Republic, now that the most plausible pretenders were “buriedbeneath two tombs” (notably that of the Legitimist Count de Chambord, who died in 1884). The real danger, Ferry warned, was that radical republican elites would themselves do in the Republic by failing to provide the country with strong leadership and stable government. The enabling condition of social progress was “a stable and solicitous government,” not agitation by an activist minority: “Progress is not a succession of sudden jolts or coerced changes. No: it is a slow development, an evolution. It is a phenomenon of social growth, of transformation. It first affects ideas, then habits, and finally becomes codified in law.”3* Ferry’s views were emblematic of the Third Republic’s social vision. The Republic did have a social project, but that project was citizenship, not e c e nomic growth or the transformation of the class structure. Political equality did imply new social relationships, but republicans did not think it required social equality. In the latter decades of the nineteenth century, many republicans viewed peasants as brutes with ballots. If the brutes could not be civilized-taught to speak, read, and write proper French, made aware of the world beyond their village, warned off from believing the threats and promises of sorcerers and priests-the Republic would not be secure. Peasants understood the values of property and order. The challenge republicans faced was the task of linking its own values (limited and representative government, individual rights, the rule of law and reason) to peasant priorities. Otherwise, at the first sign of disorder, peasants might fall for bonapartist demagoguery (as many had in the presidential elections of December 1848),and their desertion would spell the Republic’sdoom. Lkon Gambetta summarized the situation: Intellectually,peasants are a few centuries behind the enlightened section of the country. There is an enormous gap between them and those of us who have received even the imperfect classical and scientific education of our time, who have learned to read our history, who speak our language while, cruel as it is to say, so many of our compatriots can as yet only stutter it. A peasant devoted to working the land, who so courageouslybears the burdens of the day without any consolation except the ability to leave to his children the paternal field slightly enlarged all his passions, his joys, his fears are focused on the fate of his piece of land. Rumors and legends are his only window on the external world and the society in which he lives; he makes easy prey for crooks and tricksters; he unknowinglydeals blows to the Revolution accomplished in his interest. He loyally gives his taxes and his blood to a society for which he feels as much fear as respect, but there his role ends: if you talk to him of principles, he comprehends nothing, and naturally responds in terms of interest! It is only fair. It is therefore to the peasants that we must constantlyattend: they are the ones we must lift up and educate [releveret fnstrufre].35

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The transformative side of the Republic’s social project was captured in Gambetta’s phrase relever et instruire and made operational in the secularization and extension of the primary school system, achieved amidst passion and controversy in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Primary school was the only school the vast majority of French students ever attended, and its curriculum was designed to teach them everything republican elites thought most people would need to know. The secondary school system, with its emphasis on classical languages, literature, and philosophy, remained the preserve of a social elite. The Republic provided a limited number of scholarships for especially talented children from modest backgrounds, but the promotion of social mobility was not a task that republicans assigned to the school system. Free, secular, and compulsory schoolingwould, republicans believed, make citizenship a reality for all France’s sons; stability and order would ensure that the peasantry would not turn its democratic rights against the Republic. The protection of the social status quo was thus the other, and equally important, side of the Republic’s social project. It helps explain the Republic’s propensity to engage in economic protectionism, for example by adopting the Meline Tariff in 1892. The reluctance to push for social and economic change may have served the class interests of republican elites, but class interest may nonetheless not be the best way to explain it. Social and economic conservatism bought precious time for the Republic, not just with the peasantry, but with orleanists who, like Thiers, tended to judge political regimes on their capacity to provide order. The Republic’s double strategy-promoting citizenship plus social ordermight have seemed less satisfactory to its proponents had powerful forces on the scene pressed more aggressively for capitalist development. The French, however, showed little enthusiasm for the ”the perennial gale of creative destruction” that Joseph Schumpeter contended was an integral element of successful capitalism. “Thefundamental impulse that sets and keeps the capitalist engine in motion,”Schumpeterwrote, “comesfrom the new consumers’ goods, the new methods of production or transportation, the new markets, the new forms of industrial organization that capitalist enterprise creates.”%In a classic essay, David Landes argued that in France, even in the mid-twentieth century, the economic decisions of both entrepreneurs and consumers were still decisively motivated by values that departed from capitalist norms. Capitalists ran their family firms (maisom) the way bourgeois patriarchs ran their households: to maximize security,not profit. They resisted the risks associated with specialization,innovation, and external financing.Consumerswere highly sensitive to quality and bought sparingly, in part because they had little to spend, but also in part because they rejected American-styleuwaste”as morally wrong; low domestic demand in turn reduced the incentives capitalists had to switch to mass production.37

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Debate continues over the empirical accuracy of Landes’s analysis of entrepreneurial conservatism and its broader economic consequences, but even if evidence can be marshalled to suggest that British and American entrepreneurs were more cautious, and French entrepreneurs more daring, than Landes asserts, the diffuse and effective hostility to capitalism that Landes identifies is hard to miss-and few French observers missed it. It was a French Catholic, not a German socialist, who described the free market as “a free fox in a free chicken coop.”38Even in England and America, making the case for capitalism has often been an uphill battle.39 Language bears testimony to the uneasy reception that capitalism received. Adjectives associated with the dominant groups of other social systems-“patrician,” “noble,” “aristocratic”-remain flattering; “bourgeois,”in contrast, almost always carries pejorative connotations. Capitalism was particularly unwelcome in France. Its interests had been well served by the Second Empire, but its ethos was associated with orleanism. Orleanism is the only French political tradition of any importance that never managed to wrap itself in the legitimizing mantle of nationalism, and the low esteem in which orleanism was held rubbed off on capitalism: capitalism’s appeal was not enhanced by its association with people who were widely viewed as self-interested opportunists, oblivious to considerations of national honor and greatness. Nor was either the discourse or the actions of the Third Republic calculated to win support for the culture of capitalism. Challenged on its borders by German power and at home by implacable ideological opposition, the Republic cultivated civic and military virtues among its citizens and tried to sublimate social conflict and competition.Capitalism, in contrast, mobilizes competition and encourages materialist, individualist values. Anticapitalist rhetoric was the common currency of multiple and diverse groups, enabling it to blanket the body politic. Workers could choose among variants of socialism, syndicalism, and anarchism. Catholics condemned the materialism and individualism of capitalist society and saw the cities it spawned as dens of iniquity and unbelief. The peasantry feared the working class, whose assertivenessseemed to threaten order and property. The lower-middleclasses hated the competitionthat capitalism promoted. Bonapartistsdespised the pettiness of interest-based activity. And many groups associated capitalism with Jews and Protestants, and, like the proponents of Vichy’s “National Revolution,’’wished all three would vanish. This was the institutional, social, and cultural legacy that French politicians and civil servants inherited in 1945. Bent on promoting rapid economic modernization, they often differed in their assessment of how to manage social change. They agreed, however, on the need to override a legacy that had deeply compromised France’s international position.

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POSTWAR ECONOMIC GROWTH AND SOCIAL CHANGE Postwar French governments, unlike their American and British counterparts, assumed their new economic responsibilities against the backdrop of military defeat. In retrospect, the humiliation of 1940 seemed the natural consequence of prewar social and economic conservatism;regardless of political affiliation,France’spostwar leaders looked to the state to direct and drive economic change and growth, and so to restore France to its proper rung. The urgency of the undertaking seemed all the more immediate since the war and the Occupation had devastated the economy. Industrial production in 1945 was barely a third of what it had been in 1938. The industrial plant was technologically obsolete, ports and rail lines were unusable, and the housing stock was depleted.40 Over the next three decades, a mixed picture of change and continuity emerged: France’s dirigiste traditions were renewed, social structures changed dramatically, and anticapitalist attitudes remained deeply embedded in French culture and social relations.

Dirigisme Renewed Two fundamental, but seemingly contradictory, policy orientations promoted and shaped postwar growth. The acceptance in principle (and increasingly in practice) of free trade was one. The adoption by the state of a consistently interventionist posture in the economy was the other. Decisions in favor of both orientations were made very quickly after the Liberation. Both represented si&cant departures from prior policy patterns, and both stuck-through all the cabinet instability of the Fourth Republic and across the regime change of 1958. The commitment to free trade was exemplified by France’s participation in the Bretton Woods negotiations of 1944 and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) of 1947. The new international economic institutions acknowledged the interdependence of the industrialized economies and r e p resented the determination of the industrial democracies, including France, not to repeat the mistakes that had contributed in the years following World War I to depression, fascism, and renewed planetary conflict. The new economic order was geared to facilitate free trade by guaranteeing stable exchange rates and mandating the elimination of both nontariff and tariffbarriers to trade. The Bretton Woods agreements resulted in the establishmentof the International Monetary Fund (IMF). By making loans available to governments experiencing short-term trade deficits, the IMF sought to discourage governments from seeking to redress imbalances by manipulating exchange rates. GATT committed member countries to the elimination of nontariff bar-

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riers to trade and to the steady reduction of tariffs. The precise terms of the reductions were negotiated in successive rounds held at regular intervals; six such rounds were held before the onset of the economic crisis in the 1970s. Pierre Mendes France represented France at the Bretton Woods summit, and France was among the twenty-threefounding members of GAIT. Even more significant was the French commitment to a European common market. The Treaty of Rome, signed in March 1957, promised the gradual reduction of barriers to the movement of goods, services, and people among the six participating states: France, Italy, the Federal Republic of Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg (the last three countries are often collectively referred to as the Benelux countries). In essence, France redirected its attention from a community in which it had been economically dominant toward one in which it would face stiff competition. The early phases of European integration coincided with the last phases of decolonization. In the mid-l930s, just under a third of French exports had gone to the colonies.41In 1952,using exports as an index, France was economically even more engaged in the zone franc, which received 42 percent of French exports, while 16percent went to the industrial countries that would join the EEC. By 1970, barely a decade after the first reduction in customs duties dictated by the Treaty of Rome, fully half of French exports went to Common Market members, while only 10 percent went to the zone frunc.42 France’s increasing involvement with other developed economies helped make competitivenessa major goal of economic policy once the demands of postwar reconstruction and recovery had been met. After 1958, the emphasis on competitiveness dovetailed perfectly with the Gaullist desire to increase France’s international status and power, but the evident continuities of economic policy between the Fourth and the Fifth Republics should remind us that the Gadist commitment to enhancing French power was by no means the exclusive property of Gaullists or of the Fifth Republic. If the state was to do more than strut, it would need more than flashy feathers. Historically, arguments for free trade have been associated with arguments for “small”government and minimal state intervention. This was true most notably in nineteenthcentury England, and the combination would reemerge as an important ideological position toward the end of the twentieth century, when it would undergird the neoliberal response to economic globalization. Markets, it was (and would be) argued, should be left to themselves. In postwar France, however, a different logic prevailed. State officials, having recognized economic performance as an essential condition of French power and independence, argued it was far too important to be left to chance, especially in light of the longstanding weaknesses of French capitalism. This logic prompted a new willingness to increase the bureaucratic capacity of the French state, which was now publicly committed to a program of economic modernization.

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The postwar consensus around the need for modernization and growth did not constitute a political settlement; in previous chapters, we have seen the areas it did not cover. Limited though it was, however, it was extensive enough to underwrite a new understanding of the state’srole in society and a new acceptance of the need for trained bureaucrats. One result was the &Cole nationale d’administration (ENA), founded in 1945 on the initiative of Michel Debre, the man who would later help write the Constitution of the Fifth Republic and serve as de Gaulle’s first prime minister. Students entered the ENA’s two-year program by competitive-highly competitive-examination, after completing some other university level training, typically the public service track at Sciences Po or a law degree, or both. The examination system was supposed to create a meritocratic civil service elite; in practice, like the grandes koles system in general, it made entry for peasant and working-class children very difficult. An alternative admissions path was available to lower ranking civil servants, but had little effect on the privileged social profile of the student body. The list of postwar politicians who passed through the ENA ranges across the political spectrum and is long indeed: it includes Valery Giscard d’Estaing, Jacques Chirac, Michel Rocard, Lionel Jospin, Laurent Fabius (who also attended the &cole normale and Sciences Po), Jean-Pierre Chevenement, Edouard Balladur (cohabitation prime minister from 1993to 1995),and Alain Juppe (Chirac’s prime minister from 1995 to 1997). Students are ranked as they graduate. Top ranking graduates have the opportunity to join the socalled grands corps: most notably the Conseil dktat (Balladur), the Inspection gknkrale desJnances (Giscard, Rocard), and the Cour des c0rnptes.~3 Ministry staffs are frequently led by knarques (Balladur had served as Pompidou’s chief of staff). Other graduates move straight into top management positions in the private sector or in nationalized enterprises. Members of the grands corps enjoy tenure in their administrative posts; they may, and very often do, take leave to serve in other, often political, capacities. A significant number also eventually move from public service to the private sector. The product of a limited policy consensus, the ENA in turn helped propagate and perpetuate that consensus. Few would deny that there were important political differences between Rocard and Chirac, as there were between the political parties to which the two men belonged. There were also significant differences on questions of economic policy, not just between Rocard and Chirac, but between Rocard and the “first left” and between Chirac (at least in some of his phases) and others on the right. The ENA nonetheless provided an important institutional anchor for postwar economic and social policy. It imparted positive assumptions about the possibilities of state action, and it encouraged a common style of problem solving and management. Its top graduates occupied key positions in public administration, the private sector, and politics-and, in fact, circulated from one arena to another. Con-

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tinued support for the ENA during the years of economic expansion helps explain why discontinuities in France’s constitutional and political history were not paralleled by discontinuities in economic and social policy. Later, it would help explain French patterns of response to the economic crisis that began in the 1970s. The relative decline of the ENA’s prestige during the course of the crisis suggests a sea change in French views of the state. State intervention did not “cause”economic growth in postwar France-the economies of all the industrial democracies grew, despite different patterns of state-society relations-but it did profoundly shape the new economy. Acting on the assumption (right or wrong, fair or unfair) that French entrepreneurs had let the nation down economically in earlier decades and then betrayed it politically during the war, the state had moved to train a management pool suited to its goals. It also developed a virtual lock on the technical information and research activities critical to the economy. Its policies, including investment decisions and government contracts, encouraged economic concentration but inadvertently discouraged some kinds of innovation and the aggressive pursuit of new markets (especially overseas markets). Just as importantly, eco nomic policy came increasingly to be determined in a closed world, with key decisions negotiated directly between government officials and economic actors who shared their assumptions and priorities. Emblematic of the state’sapproach to growth and developmentwas the policy of “national champions.” The government would identlfy an industry (nuclear power, for example, or computers) or even a specific product (the Concorde, a supersonic passenger plane, or the Airbus). It would then pour resources into its pet economic activity. The concentration of resources was intended to produce technologies and goods capable of taking markets by storm-thus the label ‘‘national champions.” Typically, however, the government tended to target prestige industries and goods, goods whose consumers were usually governments (French or foreign), not individuals. Governments often make contract decisions for reasons not directly related to economic rationality-in order to promote economic development in a region plagued by high unemployment, for example, or as part of an effort to secure the loyalty of a political ally. Entrepreneurs dependent on government contracts are likely to view political connections and arguments as being at least as important as product quality. Even assuming that the government is prescient in its identification of particularly promising industries or goods, the logic described here suggests that the “champions”the government sponsors will not run far or fast. The costs of the strategy would only become fully apparent after the period of postwar period of growth and prosperity had ended. In the meantime, the results seemed positive. From the late 1940s until the onset of the economic crisis in the 1970s, the French economy grew constantly and across the board at a rate that was historically without precedent. Growth rates were in the double digits in 1947 and 1948;from 1949 to 1963,

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the economy grew at an average annual rate of 4.6 percent; from 1960 to 1973, the average annual growth rate was 5.8 percent.44 Other countries (West Germany, Italy, Japan) grew even faster, but French growth outperformed the United States and Great Britain. In the space of a generation, French life was transformed.

A N e w Social Structure A “revolution”involves a relatively sudden and radical change in a previously stable set of patterns. During the “thirtyglorious years” of expansion that followed 1945, economic growth and prosperity had a dramatic effect on French society. The population increased and became diverse in new ways. Indoor plumbing, washing machines, refrigerators, even telephones and automobiles, and of course televisions became widely available; they made life more comfortable, freed up time for leisure activities, and changed family life. The expectations made of the educational system shifted. The Catholic Church declined as a social institution. North African immigrants arrived in signtficant numbers. The rural exodus accelerated, while the farming units that survived became economically more efficient and integrated into a capitalist economy. While the peasantry slowly took its leave, the working class came into its own. The population of metropolitan France grew by almost 25 percent in the space of a generation, from about 42 million people in 1951 (a net increase of less than 2 million people in fifty years) to 52.7 million in 1973.As it grew, it changed: life expectancy increased, but so did the number of births, and the population became diverse in new ways. Life expectancy rose as state policies and prosperity made better health care, better housing, better diets, and workplace safety a reality for more and more people. In 1954, one household in five had a car; in 1972,three households in five had one. In 1964,43.5 percent of the population took vacations of at least four consecutive days away from home; in 1975, 52.5 percent did. In 1954, as the Algerian War began, almost no one had a television; by 1972, on the eve of the economic crisis, even though only 18 percent of French households had a telephone, threequarters had a television. In 1954, although 61.9percent of primary res idences had running water, only 26.6 percent had indoor toilet facilities,and barely one-tenth had a bath or shower. In 1973, almost all houses had running water, 69.7 percent had indoor toilets, and 65 percent had a bath or shower. In 1954, not even one household in ten had either a refrigerator or a washing machine; by 1972, 85.3 percent had a refrigerator and 63.8 percent had a washing machine.45 The birth rate, so feeble that for decades governments had worried about it, exploded in the years following the Liberation, as people responded to peace, prosperity, government subsidization of famiZZes nombreuses (large families, defined as those with more than two children),

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and the absence of readily available and reliable forms of contraception.Until 1966, the portion of the total population under age 21 grew steadily, peaking at 34.6 percent. Then the birth rate began to fall. By the time the economic crisis began, the population was aging. Even as the population grew, the number of people actively engaged in the workforce remained relatively constant. This was in part because people at both ends of the age pyramid withdrew: social security facilitated retirement and more young people remained in school. It was also in part because the participation of women in the labor force dropped (from 32.0 percent in 1946 to 27.5 percent in 1962*6), and this in turn reflected in part the declining importance of agricultural employment, which traditionally had been a family affair.47 A new middle class emerged, accustomed to economic security, increasing levels of material comfort, and upward mobility (it was also, as we have seen, prepared to experiment politically). Home ownership rose appreciably, from 35.5 percent in 1954 to 45.5 percent in 1973.48 The demands of an expanding modern economy and the needs of a growing population put increasing pressure on France’s educational system, largely unreformed since its halcyon days under the Third Republic. The system had been designed to deliver a high-qualitybasic education to the many, a high-qualityintroduction to high culture to the few, and scientific training to almost no one. It was therefore, in addition to being ill-suitedto the needs of a modern economy, a bifurcated system, even though both halves were centrally administered from Paris. Differently trained teachers dispensed two quite different kinds of education to two sociologicallydistinctive audiences. Theoretically, students were sorted on the basis of merit; in fact, the social system did the sorting. Children from working-class, peasant, and lower-middle-classfamilies typically confined their studies to the primary schools, which were free; more privileged children attended the lyckes (whosepetites classes provided presecondary level education), which until the 1930s charged fees. With larger age cohorts entering school and the statutory school-leaving age, established at 13 in 1882, rising to 14 under the Popular Front, then to 16 in 1959, postwar governments faced a choice. They could expand the primary school system, which had after all been intended to function as a system of mass education. Alternatively,they could reconfigure the educational system so that the secondary school model and its crowning diploma, the bacculaurtW-designed for an elite-would become the norm for all. The logically obvious option-the development of diverse educational models to serve the evolving needs, capabilities, and desires of a diverse populationwas never seriously considered: the centralization of the school system discouraged it, and it would have flown in the face of widely shared norms of fairness and objectivity that a school system with known standards and national examinations,in its own quirky way, respected. For various reasons,

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successive governments chose against building up the primary school model and decided instead to “democratize”the secondary school system. The key decisions were made under the early Fifth Republic, between the late 1950s and the mid-1960s.49The bifurcated system slowly gave way to a tripartite system organized around different age levels and educational stages (five years of primary education, four years of coZZ&e, three years of Zycke), with a new set of academic tracks structuring the critical final years of study before the baccalaurdat. As we shall see in the next chapter, the long-term results of well-intentioned reforms have not been happy for anyone. In the shorter term, however, increasing access to education seemed a positive thing, despite the growing pains associated with the process. New schools and universities were constructed in record numbers. In 1959, less than one-tenth of an age cohort could be expectedto obtain a baccalaurkat.By 1972,just over one-fifthof a cohort were becoming bacheZiers.50 In 1949- 1950, 136,700 students were attending university. A decade later, the numbers had jumped to 213,100.During the academic year interrupted by the events of May 1968, 508,100 students were at university, and by 1969-1970,the numbers had ballooned further to 625,600.5l In France as elsewhere in the western world, the size and relative affluence of the baby boom generation made possible the emergence of a youth culture. The English word teenager made its way into French in 1962. Familiesespecially urban, educated, affluent families-became less authoritarian. Parents became less intent on imposing predetermined rules and values on their children. Negotiation replaced the expectation of instant obedience. Young people were granted more and more private space, in which they could make their own choices-about what to read, whether to kiss, how to spend their free time. The increasingly permissive atmosphere of family life made the rigid discipline that still prevailed in the school system seem both oppressive and anachronistic. The protest movement of May 1968 would have been inconceivable without all of these developments: a new generation privileged in ways unimaginable to its predecessors, an overburdened and outmoded educational system, and a conflict between authoritarian structures and more permissive norms. Cultural change was affecting another major pillar of French society. In the middle of World War 11, two French priests had published a provocatively entitled pamphlet, La France,pays de mission?52 The title implied that France was a country in need of missionary attentions-despite the fact that an overwhelming proportion of the population self-identifiedas Catholic. The authors were not womed about some failure of French parents to baptize their children; virtually all parents did. What the vast majority of the population no longer did was attend mass with any regularity-and vocationswere becoming increasingly m e . Through the Fourth Republic, about a quarter of the population attended mass. This seemingly low figure was in some ways misleading.

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Religious observance tended to be concentrated in certain geographic areas (Brittany and the Vendee in northwestern France; Alsace and Lorraine in the east) and social groups (peasants, women, older people). In those areas and among those groups, the Church was still a powerful institution. It shaped the norms, opinions, and daily routines of the faithful.Culturally speaking, its language, symbols, and style of authoritymattered; they were a model to some and a foil to others, and most of those who might have considered the Church a foil in other contexts still sought its blessing when they married. But the Church was also, as the wartime pamphlet’s authors noted, an institution in crisis, as demonstrated by the declining number of vocations and the liturgical and doctrinal controversies before and after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Over time, the Church became decreasinglyable to serve its members (as fewer and fewer parishes had their own priest) and less and less able to project its influence beyond its shrinking audience (as older people, often alienated by the abandonment of the Latin mass, died and peasants left the land). By the time Franqois Mitterrand left office in 1995, attendance at mass had become a marginal social behavior, affecting less than one-tenth of the population. Baptism rates were down (from 90 percent in 1957 to 60 percent in 1994), marriage rates among couples were down, and religious marriage rates among couples who did bother to marry were down (from 75 percent in 1972 to 50 percent in 1994).53 While the baby boomers were still in school, the expanding economy looked elsewhere for manpower-and especially for cheap, unskilled labor. As we have seen, immigrant workers supplied it. In absolute terms, the number of immigrants on French soil doubled between 1946 and 1975, passing from 1.7to 3.4 million people.54 But this is a misleading statistic, since the total population was also growing. The percentage of immigrants in the population did not change dramatically during the twentieth century: it was 3.9 percent in 1921, 7 percent a decade later, 4.1 percent in 1954, and 6.5 percent in 1975.55 What did change was the composition of the immigrant population. In 1954, 13.5 percent of all immigrants were from North Africa, while 84 percent were of European origin (mostly Poles and Italians). By 1975, over onethird of all immigrants were from North Africa (62 percent were European).56 The new immigrants were geographically concentrated in expanding urban areas, near their places of employment, often in neighborhoods that offered few opportunitiesfor social cooperation and integration. In aJacobin country, North Africans were potentially vulnerable: they were racially distinguishable from white Frunpzis de souche (“native”French), they were Muslim, and they were associated with the Algerian War, an experience that many people in metropolitan France wished to forget. When the economic crisis began and unemployment shot up, immigrants of North African origin would make easy targets for frustrated nationalists looking for scapegoats. Before the crisis, however, their presence was not the

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social change that seemed most sigmficant.Attention focused instead on the dramatic evolution of two major actors in French social history: the peasantry and the working class. In the 1950sand l!%Os,a “ruralrevolution”reshaped the character of French society. The share of the workforce engaged in agriculture dropped steadily until it reached the level appropriate to an industrial society. From 1946 to 1972,the part of the workforce employed in the primary sector dropped from 36.0 percent to 12.0percent.57At the same time, capitalization and productivity gains increased French agricultural output. Farmers made more use of fertilizers, and tractors became a common sight in the countryside: 30,000 had been in use on the eve of the war; by 1950,that figure had quintupled.In 1970, 1,300,000tractors were working the fields. Productivity increased on average 6.8 percent annually between 1949 and 1962.58 The changes were coordinated and cushioned by corporatist arrangements between the state and the powerful representative of farming interests, the Fbdkration nationale des syndicats dexploitants agricoles, or FNSEA, which became especially influential under the Fifth Republic. Bent on modernizing the agricultural sector while minimizing social unrest, successive Gaullist governments helped reformist peasant leaders from the Centre national des jeunes agriculteurs (ostensibly the youth organization of the FNSEA) displace the FNSEA’s more traditional leadership in the early 1960s. Thus reconfigured, the FNSEA enjoyed virtual veto power over government agricultural policies. Agricultural prices were kept high. In the 1960s, Common Market politics was dominated by marathon negotiating sessions to hammer out the details of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP); only students with a taste for the tedious followed them. But the Common Market survived, to await more exciting days, and the CAP had its intended effect: standards of living improved for France’s shrinking agricultural population, and social peace was maintained despite momentous social change. As the peasantry shrank, the working class moved to the center of the social and political stage. Under the Third Republic, the peasantry had been simultaneously absent from and omnipresent in politics: too divided and passive to defend its collective interests politically, it was nonetheless electorally important and had been central to political arguments made by others about social harmony and stability. The working class had a different profile-alienated, organized (despite its divisions), and politically engaged-and a less positive image. In effect, an absent but valued and accepted group (the peasantry) exited the sociopolitical stage and was replaced by a very conspicuous but socially rejected group (the working class). In numerical terms, the growth of the working class during the period of postwar expansion was relatively modest: INSEE classified 6,465,000 and 8,026,000people as workers in 1954 and 1975 respectively.59Even proportionally, the weight of the working class was not impressive, for even as it

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continued to grow in absolute numbers, it lost ground to other groups: by 1954, secondary employment exceeded both primary and tertiary sector employment, but by 1972, the tertiary sector significantly outnumbered the secondary sector. Industrial restructuring had reduced industrial employment even before the onset of the economic crisis, and the tertiary sector was especially large because new office employment was added to a category already Mated by the continued fragmentation of French retailing and services. Comparativelyfew French workers were unionized- 15 to 20 percent, as opposed to 40 percent in Britain and 30 percent in West Germany-and those who were members of unions belonged, as we have seen, to a divided movement.& But these statisticsobscure a more important story. In the postwar decades, the working class occupied a strategic place in the collective life of the nation: since successive governments had staked French power on economic growth and industrial performance, the working class found itself a central player in a central drama. The stereotypicalworker was the one whose image fit with that drama: he was a miner, a steelworker, or an automobile plant worker who lived in the industrial northeast or in subsidized housing blocks (HLM,for hubitutions b Zoyer mo&&, low-rent housing) in the industrial areas around Paris or Lyon (the so-called banlieues rouges, or “red suburbs,”like Boulogne-Billancourt, which became the physical symbol of the organized, mobilized working class), belonged to the CGT, and voted for the PCF. Often, he was the son of a workingxlass father. May 1st demonstrationsand strikes mobilized hundreds of thousands of people, and the Communist Party-in its own account and in the eyes of many others, “le puissant parti de la classe ouvriere,” “the powerful party of the working class”-was at the apogee of its strength. In the postwar decades, all public references to “leParti” were universally understood to refer to the Communist Party. The party defined itself as a “partyof struggle,”61vigilantly defending “the”working class against a l l efforts to buy or coerce its sub mission to an inherently unjust order. It resisted “thenoxious rules of the game to which workers always fall dupe”;it sought to “[prevent]politics from being limited to a combat among leaders which the working class would just watch and applaud.”62 ‘‘Struggles”(Zuttes)were played out in multiple arenas, among which were work actions and strikes.Most strikes were politicized, since the Party always linked bread-and-butter issues to broader questions tied to domestic politics and the Cold War-and many were violent. This was especially true in 1947-1948, during the first months of the Cold War. There were important strikes in 1953, 1955, 1963, and of course in 1968. The organized presence of the working class, coupled with and reinforced by the Cold War and the institutional reforms of the Fifth Republic, helped create the “bipolarmoment” in the French party system-that relatively brief period between 1958 and the onset of the economic crisis when, as we saw

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in the last chapter, French politics seemed structured by the competition between “the”left and “the”right. That moment did not survive the dissolution of the working class, which happened with stunning rapidity as the e c o nomic crisis deepened and the Cold War ended.

Persistent Anticapitalism In other postwar industrial democracies, Keynesian policies anchored economic policy in general and represented a compromise settlement between advocates of socialism and partisans of the free market. The settlement legitimized market-oriented economies by guaranteeing that the government would intervene to prevent a repeat of the disasters of the 1930s. Employers accepted limits on the market; trade unions accepted the market basis of the economy. For different reasons, both labor and management agreed on the desirability of raising the standard of living of working families: for reformist trade unions, oriented toward bread-and-butter issues, securing a greater share of wealth for workers was a goal in itself; for management, rising standards of living among the general population promised to increase demand and therefore the opportunities for production and profit. This settlement did not emerge in France, where postwar economic policies were built around the ideas of growth and modernization and where the legitimizing connections were between economic growth and nationalist aspirations, not between growth and capitalism. Capitalism itself remained suspect for large segments of the population. Conflicts between labor and management continued to be framed in terms that made compromise, cooperation, and adaptation difficult. In the United States,both the formal rules [laiddown, for example,in the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act of 1935 and the Labor-ManagementRelations (Tat%-Hartley) Act of 19471 and the informal norms (for example, the unions’ emphasis on concrete material demands, to the exclusion of broad revolutionarygoals) governing labor relations encouraged direct negotiations between unions and employers.At the conclusion of the process (more or less bitter or businesslike according to circumstances), the two parties would sign a contract, stipulating wages and working conditionsfor a specified period of time. In large industries (steel, automobiles, and so on), a settlement between the unions and a specific firm (e.g., in the case of automobiles, between the United Auto Workers and GeneralMotors) was often used as a model across the industry, permitting both labor and management to avoid costly, repetitive battles. Labor-management relations evolved differently in France, despite early and persistent legislativeefforts (most notably in 1919, 1936, 1950,and 1971) to encourage collective bargaining. Both sides were too splintered organizationally and too rigid ideologically to be able to engage in effective face-to face negotiations. In the postwar period, no single voice spoke for labor:

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alongside the CGT and the CFTCKFDT, there was yet a third major labor organization,Force ouvri&re(FO), founded in 1948 by anticommunist dissidents from the CGT. The rivalries among working-class organizations often promoted outbidding while discouraging settlements, since a union that settled could always be portrayed by its competitors as having sold out (and at too low a price) to capitalist bosses. The preeminent position of the CGT (numerically and organizationallythe strongest of the peak organizations) and the domination of the CGT by the PCF guaranteed both a continuing emphasis on class conflict and revolutionary rhetoric and the perpetuation of profound politico-cultural divisions within the working-class movement, with the old syndicalist tradition renewed by FO and the CFDT drawing on its Catholic roots to contribute to the development of the “secondleft.” French employers were ill-organized, as divided as their adversaries, and often virulently opposed to granting any kind of legitimacyto organized labor. Employers objected to unions on two grounds: many viewed unions as undermining the rightful authority of employers, while others saw unions as the agents of class revolution, to be resisted by all means possible. Small businessmen tended to be more authoritarian than were the managers of large, modem firms. The two groups also often tended to have different economic interests and policy preferences, with the smallpatrons more hostile, for both political and economic reasons, to the modernizing ambitions of the Fifth Repubic, and the managers more implicated, personally through their career patterns and economically through the interests of their firms, in the economic strategies adopted by the state. The main peak organization of French business, the Conseil national du patronat franCais (CNPF), struggled to represent both groups. During the period we are considering, the CNPF’s main contribution to French economic performance was to sell European integration to a skeptical business community. This was a significant contribution, but it did little to improve labor-management relations in France.@ With collective bargaining largely inoperativeas a means of regulatingworkplace relations, the French developed other mechanisms for resolving conflicts. The state was a central actor in these patterns. In the vocabulary of labor relations in France, the so-called partenaires sociaux include not only the employers’associationsand the trade unions, but the state. For all the rhetoric of class conflict, the relations between management and labor in the postwar period were always a curious mix of conflict and accommodation,with the latter almost always initiated, mediated, and regulated by the state. Thus for most French workers, vacations were a political achievement: the Matignon Agreements that ended the massive wave of sit-down strikes in June 1936 gave people two weeks of paid vacation and Guy Mollet’s government added a third week in 1956. The most graphic illustration of this pattern of tripartite interaction-and of the state’s importance in it-is provided by the negotiated response to the

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worker strikes of May 1968,the so-called Grenelle Agreements. The situation was framed on the one hand by the government’surgent need to resolve a crisis that was threatening the stability of the regime and the viability of the economy, and on the other hand by the equally urgent desire of the communist-led CGT to reassert its control over a strike movement it had not initiated. The Agreements were reached during two days of intense negotiations on May 25 and 26. Ten million people were on strike. The government was represented by the prime minister, Georges Pompidou-a clear indication of the importance it assigned to the meetings. The main trade unions were also represented by their leaders, all of whom were well-known figures: Georges Seguy (CGT), Eugene Descamps (CFDT), and Andre Bergeron PO). Franqois Ceyrac, de facto leader of the CNPF, had been hospitalized for a minor operation; in his absence, the organization was represented by Charles Huvelin. Concessions that had seemed impossible before May encountered no more than minimal resistance. To the surprise of both the government and the unions, the CNPF quickly agreed to a 35 percent increase of the minimum wage (the salaire minimum interprofessionnelgaranti, or SMIGa). Other parts of the agreement provided for wage increases in both the private and public sectors, for a shorter workweek, and for more rights for union activity in the workplace. The Grenelle Agreements were never formally ratified. Accepted by the representatives of the three partenaires sociaux, they were unexpectedly rejected on May 27 by the CGT’s base. The negotiations themselves were then overtaken, first by the deepening political crisis (exacerbated by the PCF’s call for a “people’sgovernment” on the 28th and especially by de Gaulle’sdisappearanceon the 29th) and then by its resolution (see chapter 5). The Agreements were nonetheless applied, Both the government and the CGT were well served in the process: the former restored public order on its own terms, and the latter retained its dominant position within the conflictual world of working-class politics. The Grenelle Agreements outlined a pragmatic resolution to what looked like a potentially revolutionary situation. However, pragmatic though the Agreements may have been, they did little to convince the unpersuaded that capitalism was legitimate, efficient, or even unavoidable. The government’s priorities were social order, political stability, and economic performancenot the defense of capitalism. Among the unions, the CGT continued to attack capitalism and FO continued to squeeze it. Only the CFDT was interested in reforming capitalism (through, for example, enhanced opportunities for worker control and workplace democracy), and its demands were largely ignored during the negotiations. The CNPF had hidden in the government’s skirts, with the result that when the conservative right reasserted itself in the June 1968 elections, capitalism again seemed an appendage of political reaction.

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CONCLUSION France on the eve of the economic crisis was in many ways a country dramatically different from the morally and economically devastated country that had been liberated in 1944- 1945.Its political institutionswere stable, its people were prosperous, its culture was admired, and its economy seemed competitive. And yet because the state played so central a role in so many facets of social life, France would prove peculiarly exposed to the disruptive effects of what was initially called “the economic crisis.”Crises come and go, but this one was arguably the opening scene of a new act in human history, and so it did not pass. It came and stayed. We now call it globalization.Globalization fundamentally altered the role of the state. In the process, it created a complicated dynamic of collective disempowerment and individual freedom, to whose examination we must now turn.

RECOMMENDED READING

The Economy Braudel, Fernand. Civilizationand Capitalism, I P - I S t b centuty. 3 vols. Trans. Si2n Reynolds. New York: Harper & Row, 1981-1984. Caron, Franqois. An Economic History of Modern France. Trans. Barbara Bray. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979. Chevalier, Louis. CIasses laborieuses et classes dangereuses a Parispendunt lapremiere moitit?du XIXe si&cle.Paris: Librairie G6n6rale Franqaise, 1978. Cohen, Stephen S. Modern Capitalist Planning: The French Model. Rev. ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977. Crouzet, Franqois. Britain Ascendant: Comparative Studies in Franco-British Economic Histoty. Trans. Martin Thom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Fonteneau, Alain, and Pierre-Alain Muet. La gaucheface a la crise. Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1985. Hall, Peter A. Governing the Economy: The Politics of State Intervention in Britain and France. New York Oxford University Press, 1986. Heywood, Colin. The Development of the French Economy, 1750-1914.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Kindleberger,CharlesP. Economic G+-owthin France and Britain, 1851-1950. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964. Kuisel, Richard F. Capitalismand the State in Modern France: Renovation and Economic Management in the Twentieth Centuty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Jandes, David. “FrenchBusiness and the Businessman: A Social and CulturalAnalysis,” in E. M. Earle, ed., Modern France: Problems of the Third and Fourth Republics. Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1951, pp. 334-353.

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Levy, Jonah. Tocqueville's Revenge: State, Society, and Economy in Contemporaly France. Cambridge, M A : Harvard University Press, 1999. Lkvy-Leboyer, Maurice. "LesProcessus d'industrialisation: le cas de l'Angleterre et de la France." Revue historique, 239 (l968), pp. 281-296. Monnet, Jean. Memoirs. Trans. Richard Mayne. Garden City, NY:Doubleday, 1978. Noiriel, Gkrard. Les ouviers aiins la socidtt!franGaise,XrXe-XXe si&cle.Paris: Le Seuil, 1986. Weber, Henri. Leparti despatrons: le CNPF, 1946-1990.Paris: Le Seuil, [1991].

The French State Gkmion, Pierre. Lepouvoirp&ph&que: Bureaucrates et notables dam le systsme politique franGais. Paris: Le Seuil, 1976. Ohnet, Jean-Marc.Histoire de la ¢ralisation franGaise. Paris: Librairie Gknerale Franpise, 1996. Rosanvallon, Pierre. La crise de l'dtat-providence.Paris: Le Seuil, 1981. -. L'dtat en France de 1789 b nosjours. Paris: Le Seuil, 1990. Schmidt, Vivien A. From State to Market? The Transformation of French Business and Government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Suleiman, Ezra. Politics, Power and Bureaucracy in France: The Administrative Elite. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974.

The School System Ozouf, Jacques, ed. Nous les maitres ddcole: autobiographies dinstituteurs de la Belle dpoque. Paris:Julliard, 1967. Ozouf, Mona. L'dcole de la France. Paris: Gallimard, 1984. Prost, Antoine. L'enseignement en France, 1800-1967.Paris: Armand Colin, 1968. -. Education, socidtt! etpolitiques: Une histoire de l'enseignement de 1945 b nosjours. Rev. ed. Paris: Le Seuil, 1997. Talbot, John. The Politics of Educational Reform in France, 1918-1940.Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969.

Postwar Society and Social Change Fourcaut, Annie. Bobigny, banlieue rouge. Paris: Editions ouvrieres et Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1986. Le Bras, Herve. Les trois France. Paris: Odile Jacob, 1986. Le Goff, Jacques and Renk Remond, eds. Histoire de la France religieuse, vol. 4, Socidtd sdcularisde et renouveaux religieux (xx.si&cle).Paris: Le Seuil, 1988. Morin, Edgar. Commune en France: la m6tamorphose de Plodemet. Paris: Fayard, 1967. Remond, Rent. Le catholicisme f r a q a i s et la socidtd politique. Paris: Editions ouvrieres, 1995. Vincent, G65rard. Les FranGais, 1945-1975:Chronologie et structures dune socidtt!. Paris: Masson, 1977.

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Wright, Gordon. Rural Revolution in France: The Peasantry in the Twentieth Century. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1964. Wylie, Laurence. Village in the Vaucluse. Cambridge, M A : Harvard University Press, 1957. See also reading recommended for chapter 7.

1. See Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation:The Political and Economic Origins of our Time (Boston: Beacon Press, 1944).For a brief, classic overview of the indus trial revolution in Britain, see T. S. Ashton, The Industrial Revolution, 1760-1830 (Oxford Oxford University Press, 1948). 2. See Samuel Beer, Modern British Politics: Parties and Pressure Groups in the CollectivistAge (New York: Norton, 1982). 3. Readers interested in the relationship between institutions and economic policy should read Douglass C. North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Per$ormance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) and Peter A. Hall, Governing the Economy: The Politics of State Intervention in Britain and France
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(Paris: Armand Colin, 1968)and &ducation,sociktk etpolitiques: Une bistoire de l’enseignement en France de 1945 a nosjours (Paris: Le Seuil, 1992). 15. For a useful discussion of Sciences Po, see the series of articles and interviews included under the title “Sciences-Po: sur la formation des elites en France,”Le dk6at, no. 64 (March-April 1991), pp. 81-147. 16. The term is Goubert’s; L’ancien rdgime, vol. 2, Lespouvoirs (Paris: Armand Colin, 1973), p. 94. 17. See account in Pierre Rosanvallon, L’ktat en France de I789 a nosjours (Paris: Le Seuil, 1990), pp. 101-102. 18. The need to return to the virtues of rural life was a constant theme of Vichy’s discourse. The passage identifying cultivated land with the motherland is from a radio address that Petain delivered on June 25, 1940; see text in Philippe Petain, Discours atuc FranGais, I7 juin 1940-20 aozSt 1944, ed. Jean-Claude Barbas (Paris: Albin Michel, 1989), cited passage at p. 66. For a more general expression of Petain’s social and political philosophy, see his speech of July 8, 1941, in which he lays out his proposed “NationalRevolution” (text in Discours am FranGais, pp. 147-155). 19. T. S. Ashton, The Industrial Revolution, 1760-1830 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, l968), p. 114. 20. Fernand Braudel and Ernest Labrousse,eds., Histoire kconomique etsociale de la France, vol. N,Lore industrielle et la sociktk daujourdbui (si&cle1880-1980), part 2, Le temps des Guerres mondiales et de la grande crise (1914-vers 1950) (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1980), p. 61 1. Of course, the less urbanized a country is, the more “urban”a small town will seem, and French census authorities were not alone in using the 2,OOCkinhabitant threshold. The logic behind the threshold was that it distinguished towns large enough to support an urban social structure from villages that were essentially peasant dormitories. 2 1. Franqois Crouzet, The VictorianEconomy, trans. Anthony Forster (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), p. 90.The statistics are for England and Wales, and the threshold used for defining urban is 2,500 inhabitants. 22. Statistic taken from Dominique Borne, Histoire de la sociktk franGaise depuis 1945, 3rd ed. (Paris: Armand Colin, 1992), p.6. 23. From the title of Jean-FranqoisGravier’sParis et le dksert franGais (Paris: Le Portulan, 1947). 24. See Armand Fremont, France: G6ograpbie dune sociktk, 3rd ed. (Paris: Flammarion, 1997, p. 251. 25. The national statistical agency, the Znstitut national de la statistique et des ktudes kconomiques, more commonly known as INSEE, was set up in 1946, in conjunction with the Plan. Earlier statistics are notoriously uncertain, and the older they are, the worse they get. The absence of reliable statistics makes ongoing arguments about patterns of economic growth in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries particularly hard to settle, but it need not concern us here. The statistics provided are intended to be indicative of social realities. 26. British statistics for 1931 in Phyllis Deane and W. A. Cole, Britisb Economic Growth, 1688-1959,Trena3 and Structure (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1962), p. 142. 27. Fernand Braudel and Ernest Labrousse,eds., Histoire kconomique etsociale de

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la France, vol. N , LDre industrielle et la socidtd d’aujourdhui (si&cle1880-1980), part 3, Anndes 1950 a nosjours (Paris: Presses universitairesde France, 1982),p. 998. 28. Braudel and Labrousse, eds.,Histoire dconomique et sociale de la France,vol. IV,part 2, p. 773. 29. Gerard Noitiel, Les ouviers d a m la socidtd franGaise, XIXe-XXe si&cle(Paris: Le Seuil, 1986), pp. 121ff. 30. Braudel and Labrousse, eds., Histoire konomique etsociale de la France, vol. IV,part 2, p. 773 and Noiriel, Les ouviers dans la soci&e‘franGaise, p. 123. 31. Employment figures in Noiriel, Les ouviers dans la socibtd franGaise, p. 124. 32. Figures in Annie Fourcaut, Bobigny, banlieue rouge (Paris: Editions ouvrieres et Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1986), pp. 120 and 122. 33. Cited in Gordon Wright, Rural Revolution in France: The Peasantry in the Twentieth Century (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1964), p. 13. 34. Jules Ferry, speech in Le Havre, October 1883, in Pierre Barral, ed., Lesfondateurs de la Troisihe Rdpublique (Paris: Armand Colin, 1968), p. 138. 35. Con Gambetta, speech in Bordeaux, June 26, 1871, in Joseph Reinach, ed., Discours et plaidoyers politiques de M. Gambetta, vol. 2, part 2 (February 19, 1871-July 24, 1872) (Paris: G. Charpentier, 188l),p. 22. 36. Joseph Schumpeter,Capitalism,Socialism and Democracy(NewYork:Harper, 1950), quotes at p. 84 and p. 83 respectively. 37. See David S . Landes, “FrenchBusiness and the Businessman: A Social and Cultural Analysis,”in Edward Mead Earle, ed.,Modern France: Problems of the Third and Fourth Republics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1951), pp. 334-353. 38. FClicite Robert de Lammenais (1782-1854), cited by Henri Weber, Le Parti des patrons: le CNPF, 1946-1990, rev. ed. (Paris: Le Seuil, 1986), p. 68. 39. For a sense of what the case sounded like in the early days of capitalism, see Albert 0. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests: Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1977). 40. See Rosanvallon, L’btat en France de 1789 a nosjours, p. 243 and Braudel and Labrousse, eds., Histoire 6conomique et sociale de la France, vol. N , part 2, pp. 663-668. 41. FranGois Caron, An Economic History of Modern France, trans. Barbara Bray (New York Columbia University Press, 1979), p. 216. 42. See Jean-Charles Asselain, Histoire dconomique de la France du W I I I e si&cle a nos jours, vol. 2, De 1919 a lafin des anngees 1970 (Paris: Le Seuil, 1984), p. 126. 43. The Conseildbtat serves as legal counsel to the government and is the instance of final decision on all matters of administrative law. The Inspection g6ndrale des finances is responsible for insuring that state money is spent as it was intended to be spent. The Cour des comptes exercises an oversight function for all the economic activities of the government. 44. Figures for 1947 (10 percent), 1948 (13 percent), and 1949-1963 in JeanJacques Carre et al.,La croissancefranGaise:Un essai danalyse dconomique causale de Z‘aprks-guerre (Paris: Le Seuil, 1972), pp. 31-40; figure for 1960-1973 in Serge Berstein and Jean-PierreRioux, La France de l’expansion,vol. 2 , L’apogde Pompidou, 1969-1974 (Paris: Le Seuil, 1995), p. 133. 45. Figures on vacations and plumbing from INSEE, Donndes sociales, ddition 1984 (Paris: INSEE, [1984]),pp. 253 and 238; other statistics in Gerard Vincent, Les

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Francais 1945- 1975: Chronologie et structures dune societe‘ (Paris: Masson, 1977), pp. 282,284. 46. Franqois Caron, An Economic Histoty of Modern France, trans. Barbara Bray mew York: Columbia University Press, 1979),p. 188. 47. Caron, A n Economic Histoty of Modern France, p. 222. 48. INSEE, Donnees sociales, edition 1984, (Paris: INSEE, [1984]), p. 239. 49. See especially Antoine Prost, Education, societe etpolitiques: Une histoire de l’enseignement de 1945 a nos jours, rev. ed. (Paris: Le Seuil, 1997). 50. INSEE, Donnees sociales, edition 1984, (Paris: INSEE, [1984]), p. 477. 5 1. Figures in Antoine Prost, Education, societe etpolitiques: Une histoire de l’enseignement de 1945 a nos jours, rev. ed. (Paris: Le Seuil, 1997),p. 139. 52. Henri Godin and Yvan Daniel, La France, pays de mission?(Paris: Ed. du Cerf, 1943,1950). 53. Louis Drin, La societt?francaise en tendances, 1975-1995: Deux dbcennies de changement (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1998),p. 353. 54. Bernard Braun and Francis Collignon, La France enfkhes, 2nd ed. (Rosny, France: Breal, 1997),p. 58. 55. See Yvan Gastaut, L’immigration et l’opinion en France sous la Ve Rt!publique (Paris: Le Seuil, ZOOO), p. 10;Gerard Mermet, Francoscopie, les Francais: qui sont-ils?ou vont-ils?(Paris: Larousse, 1986),p. 171. 56. Mermet, Francoscopie,p. 171. 57. Franqois Caron, A n Economic Histoty of Modern France, trans. Barbara Bray (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979),p. 206. 58. Jean-CharlesAsselain, Histoire economique de la France du XVZZZesi6cle a nos jours, vol. 2, De 1919 a laJn des anndes 1970 (Paris: Le Seuil, 1984),p. 118. 59. Gerard Vincent, Les Francais 1945-1975: Chronologie et structures d’une socibtb (Paris: Masson, 1977),p. 274. 60. Indicative figures in Jean-Daniel Reynaud, Les syndicats en France, vol. 2, Textes et documents (Paris: Le Seuil, 1975),pp. 124ff. 61. See especially analysis in Georges Lavau, A quoi sert le parti communiste francais? (Paris: Fayard, 1981),chapter 8. 62. Georges Marchais to the youth movement of the Party, L’Humanitb,February 12, 1980,cited in Lavau, A quoi sert leparti communistefrancais? p. 325. 63. On the CNPF, see Henri Weber, Le Parti despatrons: le CNPF, 1946-1990, rev. ed. (Paris: Le Seuil, 1986). 64. The SMIG was created in 1950.In 1970,it was replaced by the salaire minimum interprofessionnel de croissance, or SMIC. Unlike the SMIG, the SMIC was pegged to both inflation and economic growth. People who made the SMIC were known as smicards. In November 1988,the SMIC was supplemented by the revenu minimum d’insertion,or RMI, a package of benefits intended by the Rocard government to keep marginally employed people inside the social mainstream. The RMI is discussed in chapter 7.

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PART THREE CONTEMPORARY DILEMMAS

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CHAPTER 7

Reinventing France: Social Change, Identity, and Citizenship A state’sdecline could always,in de Gaulle’simagery, be attributed to the ambitions of an identifiable adversary: a rival nation, a rebellious domestic group, a powerful corporate interest. In the 1990%globalization was the primary force buffeting the state, and it often seemed the more bewildering because it was a faceless historical process, an agent without an address. The French writer Pascal Bruckner thought the anonymity of globalization was one of its more disturbing qualities.’ Globalization did not strike everyone as an anonymous process. Outside the United States, globalization is viewed by many as a new form of western imperialism, and more specifically, of American imperialism. In Europe, and especially in France, globalization is often seen as a process that-at bestcould turn the world into one big America. In 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels famously claimed that communism was “a spectre . . . haunting Europe.”2A century and a half later, the spectre haunting Europe was the American social model, and while it was perceived as a bright future by some, it was viewed as a threat by others. The core domestic issues in this dispute center on social rights and the management of diversity. The “Americanmodel” combines (in the eyes of its European observers) a minimalist welfare state with a broad acceptance of group politics. On both points, it clashes with French republican institutions and values. In the postwar period, the French state provided a high level of social protection to all citizens, in effect creating a set of social rights. Areas covered included employment, healthcare, education, and housing. Beginning in the 1970s, high unemployment increased the demand for social protection, while the international exposure of the French economy deprived the state 199

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of some of the instrumentson which it had relied to provide protection. Globalization seemed to be generating a society divided between winners and losers. At best, the state seemed able only to cushion the losers’ fall; more often, it seemed reduced to spectator status. Rightly or wrongly, the French associated emerging trends at home with long-standing patterns in the United States. Government studies and scholarly research monitored French trends in terms of American results: thus the 1999edition of INSEE’sDonnkes sociules:La sociktbfrunpise included articles on “Salaire minimum et emploi en France et aux EtatsUnis,” “Les bas salaires en France depuis le debut des annees quatre-vingt et quelques elements de comparaison avec les Etats-Unis,”and “Lessansdomicile B Paris et aux Etats-Unis,”3and a 1996 survey of research on exclusion included chapters on “L’underclussurbaine dans I’imaginaire social et scientifique am&cain” and “Le workfure aux Etats-Unis.’4 Similarly, the combination of advancingexclusion and urban violence in French citks prompted anguished comparisons between the quurtiers dksbkritks of French urban areas and American ghettoes.5 American forms of multiculturalismwere equally unsettling to the French. The Jacobin state did not “manage”diversity: instead, it either ignored it or eradicated it. The Republic was, according to a long procession of constitutional documents, une et indivisible. Republican universalism and the doctrine of popular sovereigntycombined to discourage group politics of the sort practiced in the United States. The French state was constitutionallyobligated to treat all citizens alike, and citizens were expected to assert themselves in the public arena on the basis of what they all shared, namely reason, not identity. Arguments from identity-however identity might be defined (religious belief, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, and so on)-were incompatible with the dominant political culture of the Republic. Identity was a private matter, not a source of either public rights or public duties.6 Policies like affirmative action found little support. The deliberate blindness to “private”differenceswas one side of the Jacobin coin;the state’sdeterminationto turnpeasants,Algerians,and anyone else within its reach into “bons Franqais”7was the other side. In the 1980s and l w s , the assimilationist orientation of republican political culture collided with a multicultural reality and “differentialist”demands voiced by Muslims, women, gays, and others. Again,the United Statesrepresented a kind of antimodel: French critics of differentialist arguments saw the United States as a “tribalized society increasingly incapable of any common project. They did not want le droit h la dzg6rence (the right to be different) to become a dzffience des droits (a difference of rights). The debates over social protection and the management of diversity have cut across traditional lines of partisan cleavage, but they have not-or not yet-produced stable new alliances. They help explain the current basis of

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the ongoing dysfunctions of the party system. Analytically, they link the crisis of the state to the crisis of representation. To grasp the terms of these ongoing debates is to look in on a democratic society struggling to redefine itself culturally and politically. The French are in a jam; perhaps we are all in the same jam. This chapter and the chapter that follows explore how social and political actors in France perceive the dilemmas and the options created by the complex and interlocking changes that are reshaping our world, from the way we form “families”to the way we use military hardware.

WINNERS AND LOSERS IN THE NEW FRANCE The economic developments associated with the economic crisis and globalization have had a dramatic effect on France’ssocial landscape. In just over a decade, the working class was virtually eliminated as a s i m c a n t social and political actor. The banlieues rouges were replaced by the quartiers d’exiZ.8 A new underclass emerged, marginal in every sense: living on the edges of France’surban areas, left out of the new economy, unrepresented in politics, unsuccessful in the educational system, unloved by the police and the courts. “We are currently experiencing,”the sociologist Alain Touraine noted, “the passage from a vertically stratified society,which we were in the habit of calling a class society . . . , to a horizontally stratified society where the important thing is to know whether one is at the center or on the periphery.”Class society was marked by exploitation; the new society is marked by segregation and exclusion. “The big thing today,” Touraine observed, “is no longer to be ‘up or down,’ but ‘in or out.’”9ExcZusion was understood to be “less a condition than a process”:lOit might begin with a failure in school, illness, the sudden loss of a job or an apartment,or family problems, things that could happen to anyone. A poll taken in September 1995 suggested that more than one French person out of two feared being sucked into a downward spiral by such an event.11 The process produced “superfluouspeople,”12dependent on but unnecessary to mainstream society. When Jacques Chirac evoked “la fracture sociale” in the 1995 presidential campaign, this was the reality he was deploring. He rode the rhetoric to victory and was promptly punished by the electorate (see chapter 5 ) when his government failed to deliver on his promises (the poll cited above was taken after the elections and before the strikes of 1995). People who perceive themselves as oppressed and exploited press for systemic change: for an abolition of the hierarchy that relegates them to the lowest rungs (as predicted by the refrain of the Internationale, written by a cornmunard in 1871 and set to music by a French worker: “C’estla lutte finale;/Groupons-nous,et demain,/l’Internationale/Serale genre humain”)or

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for a reversal of roles (“Les aristocrates a la lanterne!/Ah! Fa ira, qa ira, qa ira,/les aristocrates on les pendra”).l3People who are excluded simply want “in”:they want the same choices and the same respect that others enjoy. In France, employment patterns and the evolution of the educational system mediate how choices are distributed and experienced. They place people on one side or the other of the fracture sociale.

Living without Work Work is a socially and psychologically defining experience in all modern societies. Right from the start and more than any other single indicator, the unemployment rate defined public perceptions first of the economic crisis and then of globalization. Unemployment also focused the minds of politicians, whether they were in office or running for office. In France, sociologists described unemployment as “a true crisis of civilization"^* and “the gangrene of the late twentieth century.”15With a different stake in the topic, Franqois Mitterrand told an interviewer in the summer of 1980: “Withfifteen hundred thousand or two million unemployed people, a country like ours ceases to be a free country; it has accepted the violation of a fundamentalpact.”16 During the postwar, precrisis years, “full”employment was conventionally considered to be consistent with an unemployment rate of around 4 percent. By this standard, the French economy was a full employment economy until 1976 and has not been one since then. In 1977, the then prime minister, Raymond Barre, by training an economist, made it official: “fullemployment,”he said, “isfhished.”17Two years earlier, the number of people unemployed had exceeded 1,000,000.By 1981,2,000,000people were unemployed. In March 1993, the figure topped 3,000,000.~* Between 1960 and 1973, the average annual unemployment rate in France was 2.0 percent.19 During the first five years of the crisis, it climbed steadily averaging 4.6 percent. In the 1980s, it averaged 8.9 percent and in the 1990s, 11.2 percent.20 Initially, it was hoped that unemployment would decline when economic growth resumed. Per capita growth was particularly weak in the mid-1980s and through most of the 1990s (0.5 percent in 1991, 1 . 0 in 1992, -1.3 in 199321), but it was relatively strong in the late 1980s and again in the late 1990s (4.1 percent in 1988 and 3.6 percent in 1989;2.7 percent in 1998 and 2.5 percent in 19992*),and yet unemployment and underemployment remained unacceptably high. The CEO of the conglomerate Saint-Gobainwatched with dismay as his company lost half its workers over the course of a decade; they were replaced, he wrote, by “marvelouslittle automatic machines,”leaving the company’sfactories looking like “great, empty cathedrals.”23 Unemployment rose against a backdrop of significant changes in the composition of the labor force. In absolute terms, the labor force has grown continuously since 1945. As a percentage of the total population, however, the

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labor force declined until the mid-l970s, then increased slowly but steadily through the end of the century, reaching 44.2 percent in 1999(up from 42.2 percent in 1970).24The precrisis figures reflect the growth in the total population, new possibilities for retirement and longer periods of school attendance, and a continuous decline in the proportion of women working outside the home. In the post-1975 figures, the changing needs and preferences of women mask the effects of rising unemployment.In 1974,30.8percent of all adult women were part of the labor force (up, as we saw in chapter 6, from 27.5 percent in 1962); twenty-fiveyears later, 38.7 percent were working outside the home.25 In 1995, 45 percent of the total work force was female-up from 36 percent two decades earlier.26 In 2001,483 percent of all women were working outside the home, and 44.8 percent of the work force was female.27 Working people, of whatever age or gender, worked at-or lost-different kinds of jobs at the beginning of the twenty-first century than did their counterparts a generation earlier. The industrial sector contracted, and the nature of industrial employment changed. In 1980, the secondary sector accounted for 33.1 percent of all employment,while the tertiary sector accounted for 58.1 percent. Twenty years later, the figures were 22.7 percent and 73 percent (by 2000, only 4.3 percent of the work force was still engaged in agricultural activity).28 In December 1990, the last coal pit in the Nord-Pasde-Calaisclosed. In March 1992,the Renault factory in Boulogne-Billancourtshut down. Job creation-relatively strong in the late 1980s, erratic in the 1990s-was concentrated in small- and medium-sized firms and in the service sector. In 1975, 18 percent of the private-sectorlabor force worked in firms employing fewer than ten workers; in 1996, 26.1 percent worked in small firms.29 Job creation benefited, above all, young workers with formal educational q u u cations. But even then, most new jobs were relatively insecure, and many were part-time. Between 1983 and 1998, the proportion of the workforce employed in what the French call fomzes particuli&es demploi (part-time work and temporary jobs, including government-subsidized training p r o grams) quadrupled, from 2.6 percent to 8.9 percent.30 In the private sector, part-time employment rose from 11 percent in 1990 to 17.2 percent in 1998.31The expansion of part-time employment was driven by supply rather than demand, as firms responded to legislativemeasures that lowered the barriers to the creation of part-time jobs. In 1990, 34 percent of part-time job holders would have preferred to be working more hours; in 1997,43.3percent wanted more hours.32 How then were different sorts of people affected by rising unemployment and changing forms of employment?For whom did the new economy mean a different lifestyle and a different set of satisfactions and anxieties from those typical of earlier generations, and for whom did the new economy mean more or less permanent social marginalization?

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As the general rate of unemployment rose, unemployment affected more and more people directly, but it meant different things to different peoplethat is, it had a different impact on the margin of choice available to differently situated individuals. This point can be made anecdotally. A thmy-year-old mother with a university degree and an employed spouse might interpret and experience unemployment positively, as an unplanned opportunity to devote more time to her children, her social life, and her interests before returning to the workforce at a later date, possibly with additional professional skills obtained on the side. A thirty-year-old father with no academic qualifications who loses his factory job has fewer options: among his peers, tending the house is likely to be considered “women’swork,” “havingfun”during “work hours’’ would be stigmatized as the behavior of a shirker, and training programs would be unattractive because of previous academic failures and because “school”would be associated with nonadult status. A sixty-year-old truck driver with forty years’participation in the labor force behind him might lose his job and accept his situation, with more or less bitterness, by calling it “early retirement” (as might an engineer or a bank clerk); in any event, he would receive a pension. The twenty-five-year-old dropout son of unemployed, divorced parents, unable to find a job, would obviously experience unemployment quite differently. No one would say of him, as they well might of a thtrty-five-year-oldunemployed manager with a degree from a grunde &Cole,male or female, with or without children, that he was “betweenjobs.” If we turn from anecdote to analysis, what the “losers”in these stories have in common is their greater or lesser unwanted distance from the possibility of stable employment. The thirty-year-old unemployed factory worker will probably not fall victim to the kind of material misery that threatened the unemployed during the Great Depression. What he will lose is his social status, his sense of belonging and usefulness, and his confidence in his ability to make sense out of the social order-and marginality will be the only social experience the twenty-five-year-olddrop-out ever has. Unemployed people describe themselves as bored, lonely, degraded, unable to get things done. A forty-twoyear-old unemployed delivery person, married with two children, told an interviewer, “I don’t eat, I don’twork, I get on my own nerves, it’s not a life.”33 A fifty-seven-year-old unemployed trucker described unemployment as a “tomb”:“unemployment,what is it, the real word, unemployment is a tomb, that’s it, it’s a tomb . . . , the guy gets buried slowly and then he falls slowly and then he disappears in the bottom and there you are and that’s it.”3* The longer a person remains “buried,”the less likely he is to climb out of the hole. In fact, experiences of employment and unemployment are best conceptualized as lying along a spectrum. At one end are the happy few, secure until retirement in their careers and jobs; this category, which once included unionized workers with seniority, is now largely limited to civil servants and certain liberal professions. At the other end are people like the

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young drop-out evoked above. Most people fall in between: they have jobs they could lose, or they have temporary or part-time jobs, or they have government-created jobs, or they are in government-sponsored training programs. Many receive some form of public assistance. Most are anxious. Since people value employment for the social status it confers but are able to survive physically without employment, they may refuse jobs that do not, in their view, respect their dignity or provide the recognition they seek. A fortyeight-year-oldunemployed worker and trade unionist explained why he would not accept a job that paid less than the job he had lost by saying that he would not prostitute himself.35 The delivery person already cited recounted with indignation a meeting with a social worker, who suggested to his wife that he take a job as a street sweeper: Can you imagine me-me!-with

a broom? No, but I really can’t see myself, I’m

sorry, but really, what would I look like? Can you imagine me like the lazy louts

who . . . [sic] And that’s what she suggested, the social worker, when we asked for some help. She said to my wife: “why doesn’t your husband try street sweeping?” Can you see me-me!-every time a buddy goes by, hiding myself there with my broom, it’s a thing for bums. . . . It’s not a job for a human being, it’s a thing for les bicots.36

However offensive the delivery man’s language, his message was that he wanted to be treated like a human being. Personal dignity and individual recognition have become the cardinal demands of a new culture in which collective forms of self-affirmation (for example, participation in the PCF’s Zuttes) no longer inspire confidence or exercise appeal. Dignity, in this new account, can be measured by the range of private choices available to the individual and accepted by society. Individuals increasingly view institutions (schools, firms, political parties, unions, formal religious organizations, government itself) as unwelcome intruders on their personal autonomy, not as possible vehicles (much less indispensable instruments) for producing the conditions of personal self-realization.Ideologies that seek to mobilize people within institutional frameworks for collective purposes are treated with a mixture of suspicion and contempt, as ifthey were always and only a smokescreen behind which power-oriented individuals pursue their own private goals. Ideologies, like institutions, seek to regulate behavior for purposes that reach beyond the individual. As such, they are now typically disdained as inhibiting choices, as though collective purposes were choices not worth considering.

Freedom without Power The cultural shift outlined above might seem to suggest an acceptance-at long last-of the competitive mechanisms of the free market and a move

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toward the American social model. A detour back to the school system, however, may illuminate the ambiguities of France’snew liberalism. High school students enjoy being at school-not because they find what they are learning meaningful (they do not), not because they have precise career ambitions and believe the curriculum relevant to those ambitions (neither part of the statement holds), and certainly not because they find the brutal selection process that determines the academic track to which a student is assigned (and which will decisively influence his eventual employment possibilities) personally satisfying or socially legitimate. Students enjoy being at school because, except when they are actually in class, they are free to do as they please. In this sense, school is defined and experienced as a time of day and a place, not as an institution with rules. Indeed, school offers a refuge from the world of institutions and rules (families, firms, and so on). Today, students define the &c&e as a system in which “onehas lots of freedom, but no rights”.. . . The lyde experience is structured by the encounter between a liberal organization that imposes no constraints on personal conduct [the school-asplace] and rigorous and bureaucratic tracking procedures [the schoolasinstitution] in which students feel they have no rights.37

In this system, the sociologist Francois Dubet notes, “studentsfeel free and without power.”38They have no sense of identification with their school or their grade, nor do they desire that sense of belonging, which would necessarily come at the cost of a loss of personal freedom. They create a tolerant social space, not by elaborating mechanismsfor resolving conflicts, but by staying out of each other’s way. They view their goals and frustrations in purely personal terms: they cultivate authenticity and resent being made to feel the object of contempt. They cope with their sense of powerlessness by acting strategically and instrumentally in the competitive arena, looking for the most direct and efficaciousroute to success.Intellectualcuriosity is not generallyviewed as efficacious; cheating often is. Any departure from the established rules by someone in authority is likely to be met with hostility, not because the rules are accepted as legitimate, but because change (or simply unexpected behavior, like a teacher who steps outside the pedagogicalnorms or includesmaterial not on the required curriculum)upsets existing strategies, reducing the individual’s already meager chance of achieving success in a system structured to produce a few winners and a hierarchy of relative losers. Provocations may lead to violence against a specific teacher; in 1986, 1930, and 1998, they led to social explosions of varying magnitudes. But the explosions, however spectacular while in progress, were flash-in-the-panaffairs: no organized group led them and no organized group remained to push for reforms once order had been restored. After as before, the students were “free,”but also “withoutpower.” The system was correspondinglystable, but of dubious legitimacy.

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In the 1930s, high unemployment created fertile soil for communist and fascist movements, each of which proposed a radical transformation of the social and political order and actively sought power. Nothing of the sort happened anywhere in the developed world when, in the final decades of the twentieth century, globalization contributed to unemployment rates higher than had been seen since the Great Depression. The once “powerfulparty of the working class” is a mere shadow of its former self, whether the yardstick used is organizationalstrength, electoral importance, ideological coherence, or rhetorical bite. As a racist, xenophobic party, the National Front is certainly ugly enough, and the presidential elections of 2002 proved just how disruptive its presence could be, but it is not a revolutionary party or even an organized countercommunity. Instead of provoking a centralized, organized, revolutionary response (from the right or the left), the crisis seemed graduallyto engender, as we saw in chapter 5, a resentful convergence around lapensbe unique, or neoliberalism. Convergence did not sigmfy consensus. It was based on a calculation of what was possible: it reflected an assessment of the limited options available to people acting within the context of an increasingly obsolete institutional structure (social, political, economic) for which no one could imagine an adequate substitute. It did not correspond to widely held beliefs and values, which continued to be shaped by an underlying hostility to capitalism. As with the school system, the new circumstances offer a curious mix of freedom and powerlessness. The sphere of private choice has become much larger. The privileged but antiauthoritarian demonstrators of May 1968 had mocked the stuffiness and middle-class proprieties of the society in which they lived, and Giscard, hoping to capture the votes of people who valued the choices money could buy, opened the floodgates by reforming the laws on divorce and abortion. Under the left, the airwaves were opened up: some would argue that there is now nothing on television worth watching, but be that as it may, there is certainly plenty to watch. Young men no longer face obligatory military service, which was phased out in the 1990s. In most settings (beginning with the family), most rules are negotiable. Social codes of every sort (governing dress, language, relationships, the content and timing of meals) have been relaxed. And yet when it comes to the central social experience of employment, increasing numbers of people feel alone, exposed, and powerless. Their fears and frustrations, like those of the students, sometimes boil over into revolt, as happened in the fall of 1995. But the strikes of 1995, like the student strikes that periodically capture the headlines, went nowhere: they generated no political organizations and no program. Exclusion does not lend itself to classic forms of political mobilization. Between 1976 and 1996,French trade unions fragmented and lost two-thirds of their members; unionization rates among French workers are now believed to be in the single digits.39

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Empowerment depends on organization. In the summer of 1982,the socialist-ledgovernment, still in its euphoric phase, secured passage of the Auroux laws (named for the minister of labor,Jean Auroux). The laws were intended to enhance workplace democracy by guaranteeing freedom of speech to workers on the job and by decentralizing the negotiation of working conditions to workplace councils. The measures were vehemently opposed by the CNPF, which failed to factor the continuing employment crisis or the decline of the unions into its calculations. As unions became less powerful, however, workers lost leverage in the workplace, and employers were able to turn the new governance structures to their own advantage. At the turn of the century, the CFDT, ably led from 1992 to 2002 by its first female secretary-general, Nicole Notat (born 1947), continued to played a significant role in the formulation of broad economic options [in part because of its willingness to strike policy deals with the Mouvement des entreprises de France (MEDEF), created in October 1998 as the successor organization to the CNPF], but in most settings, managers and those sympathetic to their interests enjoy the upper hand.

Public Policy: State Intermention afler Dirigisme The limits of la penske unique are suggested by consistently high levels of public expenditure, and especiallysocial expenditure,in France. In 1980,levels of public social expenditure,measured as a percentage of GDP, were 2 1.1 in France, 20.3 in Germany, 18.2 in the United Kingdom-and 13.1 in the United States. In 1988, as Chirac left Matignon, the figures were 26.0, 21.2, 19.4,and 12.9.By 1997,when the Juppe government fell, public social expenditures were running at 29.3 percent of GDP in France, 27.7 percent in Germany (still bearing the costs of unification), 25.3 percent in the United Kingdom, and 14.9 percent in the United States. Between 1988 and 1997, expenditureson active labor market programs (subsidized employment,training programs, and so on) increased from 0.8 to 1.3 percent of GDP in France; during the same period, they fell from 0.7 to 0.4 percent in the United Kingdom and from 0.24 to 0.17 percent in the United States.40 The core assumption of Anglo-American neoliberalism (exemplified by Reagan and Thatcher) was ideologically grounded and held that state intervention in the economy was bad. In contrast, the core assumption of French neoliberalism (exemplified by Mitterrand’s decision in 1983-1984 to stay in the EC) was empirically grounded and held that France could not separate itself from the world economy. The double result of this divergence was that social spending in France remained high and that, as Peter A. Hall observed, 4 citizens were “inclinedto equate market forces with foreign influence.’’The combinationwas unlikely to enhance the legitimacy of either the state or capitalism. France’shigh levels of social spending were both a product and a per-

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petuator of the idea that the state had a central role to play in ensuring equitable social outcomes. Before the 1980s, state intervention in the economy had promoted both economic performance and social equity. Now, because of external pressures, the state had to leave the promotion of growth and competition largely to market forces, while engaging in compensatory social spending to avoid the reproduction on French soil of the American social model. The French state was still interventionist,but now it lacked the means it needed to reach its objectives. Its interventions resembled chronic care rather than curative surgery-simultaneously feeding skepticism about capitalism, public discontent with the political class, and the national obsession with decline. Since the early 1980s,governments of both the left and the right have produced a steady stream of policies designed to mitigate the social impact of economic changes they could not or chose not to resist. Most of these policies sought to address the problems of marginality and exclusion while implicitly assuming that full employment could not be reinvented in some new form, much less restored in its precrisis form. At the turn of the millennium,the Jospin government did finally take on the problem of full employment, passing into law a controversial series of measures intended to spread work around by reducing the workweek from thirty-nine to thirty-five hours with no loss of pay. The reduction of the workweek was contested in conventional partisan terms and partially reversed after the 2002 elections by the Raffarin government. The obstacles encountered by the other politiques d'insertion, policies designed to reverse exclusion, were in many ways more interesting: they were institutional rather than partisan. The will was there; the tools were not (or not yet). Policies aimed at answering exclusion with insertion were crafted to keep people employable: by helping them individually and directly (for example, through job training), by reforming institutions intended to impart skills (the school system), or by altering social environments (rundown, underserviced urban neighborhoods) where marginalitywas coming to represent the norm. From the mid-1980s on, a long series of measures sought to limit unemployment (especially youth unemployment, which was and remains very high) and assist at-risk individuals by subsidizing temporary employment and training programs. The best-known programs targeted young people; they included the travawc dutilite' collective ("UC, 1984-1989), the stages dinitiation a la vie professionnelle (SIVP, 1984-1991), the contrats emploisoZi&rite' (CES, initiated in 1990), and the emploisjeunes (initiated in 1997). Other programs facilitated early retirement; still others sought to address the problems of the long-term unemployed. In 1997, 2.85 million workers were benefiting in some way from the government's employment policies, up from about 1.7 million in 1991.42 The most ambitious and innovative of all the employment programs was

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the revenu minimum dinsertion (RMI), proposed in 1988 by the newly installed Rocard government, adopted on a 547 to 3 vote in the National Assembly, and subsequently reviewed and renewed in 1992.Already in 1988, there was broad agreement that the insertion of “those who have nothing, who are powerless, who are nothing”43represented “anardent national obliga t i ~ n . ”The * ~ law was ambitious because it sought to close gaps in the existing system of social protection and to guarantee a minimum income and benefits (e.g., health insurance) to all citizens.45It was innovative as well as ambitious in the means it prescribed. Rather than simply cutting checks to poor people, the program challenged both beneficiaries and government agents to act in new ways. Beneficiaries were required to participate in designing a course of action adapted to their particular needs. Officials were supposed to enter into patterns of initiative and cooperation at the local level and to devise partnerships with private associations that had particular expertise and interest in working with marginal individuals. The number of people receiving help through the RMI rose steadily through the 1990s,reaching over one million people (or two million, if dependents are counted) at the end of 1997. The population applying for benefits became increasingly young; in 1997, one out of fifteen people between the ages of twenty-five and twenty-nine was receiving benefits through the RM1.G Most were single, and about a third would leave the system within the year. Together with the plethora of other programs that subsidize or provide employment, the RMI demonstrates the French state’s continuing penchant to intervene in the economy.The RMI has not done away with exclusion, nor did anyone expect it to. The benefits it provides do not even raise recipients above the poverty level. But its direct effect on individualsmay not be its most important long-run contributionto France’sadjustment to the new economy. Its real contributionis institutional,in the incentives it has created for responsible action, initiative, and cooperation at the local level. It has, in other words, encouraged the development of new institutionaltools, and new tools are what France needs most. The school system exemplifies the centrality of institutions in shaping the mechanisms and experience of exclusion-and so far, the school system has defied efforts to reform it. The educational system is colloquially referred to as Ze mammouth, and it tends to roll over on ministers who try to change it. Sometimes disgruntled students provide the weight; on other occasions, the powerful teachers’unions have done the crushing. In the late 1990s,Ze mammouth claimed Claude Allegre (born 1937) as another in a long string of ministerial victims; he had run afoul of a teachers’ union, the Syndicat nationaZ de Z’kducationsecondaire (SNES). Out of office, Allegre, by training a scientist and never one to mince his words, gave Z’kducation nationab a zoological demotion. The mammoth, he said, is “the ancestor of the elephant,” and thus “a relatively recent arrival.”The educationalestablishmentwas more like

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a dinosaur, the former minister thought, recalling that dinosaurs “livedin the Mesozoic era and were related to The system has not, of course, been totally immobile. In November 1985, the then minister of education,Jean-PierreChevenement,announced that the government would work toward the goal of seeing 80 percent of every age cohort earn a baccalaurbat or equivalent degree. To this end, he promoted the immediate creation of a new baccalaurkat, the baccalaurkat professionnel. Chevenement hoped both to raise the educational level of young people entering the job market and to make available educational options more sensitive to the demands of the new economy. The effects of the reform were not those intended by the minister: students flooded the lycbes, yet because the government was tightening the budget in response to the economic crisis, public spending on education was actually falling as a percentage of GDP. In the resulting squeeze, the original logic of the reforms was compromised.** Chevenement’snew “bacpro”proved popular, though the jury is still out on whether the new curricular options will serve the needs of the new economy. In the late 1990s, about three-fifths of each age cohort was receiving a baccalaurkat. About one-third of the cohort was receiving a traditional (“general”) baccalaurkat, about one-tenth was getting a bacpro, and the remaining 17.5 percent were receiving technical degrees.@But the real problem lay with the 8 percent of students who left school with no diploma of any kind and the further 22.9 percent who left with minimal qualifications.50 In 1996,the unemployment rate among young people leaving school without a diploma was a staggering 62.5 percent. Students with minimal qualifications [holders of the Certaficat daptitude professionnelle (CAP) or the Brevet d’ktudes professionnelles (BEP)] faced an unemployment rate of 47.6 percent. Among bacheliers who had not gone on to university, the unemployment rate was 33 percent.51 A government study, noting that “the hierarchies of salary and status depend on a combination of three factors: the level of education, the degrees obtained, and the area of training,”emphasized the longterm disadvantages encountered by underqualified workers: After five years out of school, the situation of the people with the most degrees contrasts starkly with the situation of the least-trained people. The former are rarely unemployed and for the most part have stable, skilled jobs. Half of the latter group is unemployed, and those who do have work are often in insecure jobs or are working part-time.52

The perpetually thorny problem of educational reform was related to the equally immense problem of urban renewal. Problem schools in France are sometimes called lyckespoubelles (poubelle is the word for wastebasket or trashcan) and many lycbes poubelles serve the anomic, dilipidated quartiers

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d’exil,where apartment buildings are disparaged aspoubelles dpeuple, trashcans for people (an alternative expression is cages u peuple, human cages). Urban riots have become regular occurrences in France. Les Minguettes (a quartier dbfavorisb in Vknissieux, a former communist bastion near Lyon) erupted in the early 1980s;Toulouse did the same in December 1998. In the intervening years, the problem neighborhoods of many urban areas made the news by making trouble, with an important wave of urban violence in the early 1990s. The quartiers dexil bear little resemblance to the old banlieues rouges. The latter were structured, intact communities, with a rich associational life informed by working-class traditions and organized for the most part by and around the PCF and its satellite organizations. The experience of work provided an indissoluble link between the banlieues rouges and the rest of society. Workers and their employers faced each other across the barricades (figurative and occasionally literal), but they belonged to the same world and were in constant contact. Their confrontations, exemplified by both strikes and electoral battles, had rules, sides, and purposes. In contrast, the quartiers dexiZ are socially atomized and deinstitutionalized zones. They represent a “whole universe of instability and precarious conditions,” a “decomposed, broken, anarchic”world53 in which s i m c a n t numbers of people, especially young people, lead aimless, disoriented lives punctuated by seemingly senseless acts of usually self-destructiverage. Work no longer shapes expectations, identities, or social relations, and so injustice is associated not with exploitation, but with interactions that suggest exclusion: expressions of social contempt in general and racism in particular. Those who live in this world call it Zagal&e: “GaZ6rermeans not knowing how to use one’stime, being involved in fleeting relationships, looking for work without really looking, being a delinquent without really being one.”5* In such a setting, riots may happen on a regular basis, but organized social struggle will be a rarity. Riots in the quartiers dexiZ are typically triggered by some incident in which a police action gives rise to accusations of racism or disrespect. In Toulouse, the trouble started on a Saturdaynight in mid-December. A seventeen-year-oldboy, Habib, was shot as a police officer tried to pull him out of a car he was allegedly attempting to steal. Somehow, the boy and his accomplice managed to flee, but the boy died on the street about three hundred yards from where he had been shot. The four police officers, in violation of standing rules, failed to report the fact that they had used their weapons (two shots were !ired, by two different officers). Habib’s body was found by a neighborhood resident. “Theylet him die,”another youth declared, “Even a dog, you don’t just let it die.”55The subsequent riots had an expressive value in an environment where, as another boy from Habib’s neighborhood put it, “Wordsare pointless.” In these incidents, the riots occur without a plan, without leaders, and without rationally chosen targets (other than

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police property): the rioters turn their destructive energies on whatever lies in their path, that is, on their own neighborhoods, in “a kind of hate and rage reminiscent of a prisoner’s violence against his own environment.”56 Just as the RMI showed that the left and the right could unite to find individual exclusion unacceptable, so the kind of collective exclusion at work in the quartiers dexil was universally deplored. Correcting it was viewed by both the right and the left as a governmental responsibility.Jacques Chirac’s government of 1986, so eager in other areas to roll back policies elaborated by the left in power, never dreamed of imitating Ronald Reagan’s assault on social spending. In France, urban policy is a bipartisan headache and governmental activism is a shared response. The solution is elusive because the problems-rundown housing, bad schools, poor transportation networks, high unemployment, community breakdown, crime, drugs-are so intertwined. Rebuilding an urban neighborhood is the domestic equivalent of state-buildingmissions abroad, and the text on how to succeed at either task has yet to be written. Generally speaking, the left has tended to emphasize community organization,while the right has emphasized the need to provide security. But riots remind the right that anomie is not a healthy social condition, and spikes in the crime rate, like the one that captured public attention in the months before the 2002 elections, remind the left that crime is a general concern. In the late 1990s, the Jospin government tried to strike a balance between the two approaches by implementing a form of neighborhood policing (police de proximite?. SociologistsFranqois Dubet and Didier Lapeyronnie attribute the intractability of the social problems posed by the quartiers dexil to the broader institutional framework in which the problems developed.57 The fundamental problem in the quurtiers dexil, they argue, is social disorganization: the quartiers are experienced by insiders and viewed by outsiders as jungles, not comunities. The organizing principle of the banlieues rouges was class consciousness and class solidarity; cohesion evaporated as the industrial working class shrank. The only possible organizational principle available in the quartiers d’exil is territorial, but for it to become operational, local governments would have to be far more autonomous, and local democracy far more vigorous, than is currently the case. Both the right and the left speak of a need for local democracy (d6mocratie de proximite?. Even in more promising neighborhoods than the quartiers dexil, however, creating local democracy has proven immensely difficult. In 1982, the newly elected left-wing government launched a bold decentralization program. Most overarching reforms fail; this one-billed as “la grande affaire du septennat”58and acknowledged within a decade as “oneof the decisive reforms in France’sadministrativehistory”59-did not, but it also did not democratize local political life or offer powerful tools for dealing with

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urban problems. The reform was successful in large part because it furthered the interests of France’s local notables (e.g., mayors), an already well-positioned group and one which was all-inclusivein partisan terms and therefore particularly useful to a reform-oriented government in search of a coalition. The new distribution of tasks and authority created a “governmentof notables, by notables, and for notables.”@It transferred powers from the central government to local units; it did not democratize or otherwise transform the local units: it included “no fiscal reform, no territorial reform, no establishment of a hierarchy among different levels of government, no popular participation.”61Had the reform attempted to address some of these needs-had it, for example, undertaken to rationalize local jurisdictions, eliminating in the process thousands of France’s 36,800 towns-it would almost certainly have been fiercely and successfully opposed. Strategic considerations thus had important substantive consequences. As adopted, the decentralization reforms of the 1980s recast the political framework of the country around a three-tier system of subnational political units: communes, dt!partements, and regions. The communes were preserved for the political reasons just cited, even though they were widely viewed in expert circles as an obstacle to effective social and economic policy. They were too small and too numerous, and their legal boundarieshad little to do with e c o nomic needs or social problems. Since they could not be legislated out of exis tence, the government eventually settled on a less radical, less coercive strategy. In July 1999,the government proposed and the parliament adopted a loi SUY l’intercommunalit6, designed to encourage joint projects among communes; it also invented new territorial designations-agglom&ations and pays-that would be defined by cooperativearrangements worked out by local actors, rather than by someone drawing a line on a map. The law was part of a broader approach, designed to incite cooperation among functionally differentiated bureaucracies (e.g., transportation and housing) and across different levels of government, all the way up to the European Union, which has dedicated funds available for urban renewal and socially disadvantaged localities. Local government partnerships to achieve developmental goals would be fmned as contracts and supported by the central state. These reforms demonstrate an awareness of the need to retool the French state, and they did not give rise to much partisan debate. After the 2002 elections returned the conservatives to power, the Raffarin government emphasized the importance of further decentralization, proposing to give the regions constitutional status, asking central ministries to identlfy policy areas that might be reassigned to local authorities, and moving, on an experimental basis, to decentralize control over the use of EU development funds (the first region to benefit from this experimental concession of authority was Alsace). The decentralization approaches under consideration may or may not have

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the institutional impact intended and may or may not encourage more successful policy initiatives in neighborhoods like the one in which Habib died. Whereas local notables had a clear stake in the success of the first decentralization reforms, it is not clear that similarly powerful groups have a stake in the more recent measures. The new moves also seem unlikely to address the lack of transparency and information that has been one of the impediments to lively democratic debate at the local level, even though the Jospin government did attempt to strengthen the representation of opposition forces in local deliberative bodies. But whatever the effect, the ongoing reforms are part of an accelerating effort to redefine state-society relations in France. Far more controversial than urban policy or decentralization was the Zoi Aubly of June 1998 (completed by a second law promulgated in January 2000),which provided for a gradual reduction of the work week from thirtynine to t w - f i v e hours. The legislation called upon labor and management to negotiate the details of the shift on a branch-by-branchbasis; failing such agreements, the new arrangementswould be imposed by the government.The laws bore the name of Martine Aubry, Lionel Jospin’s minister for employment. Unlike the RMI,the Aubry Laws were contested on partisan lines and vehemently opposed by organized business; both were appealed to the Conseil constitutionnel. Business interests insisted that the law would make French firms less competitive internationally; economists warned that the effects of workweek modifications on employment are complex and hard to predict. The Jospin government argued that no one had proposed a better plan for increasing employment or come up with an alternative mechanism for creating an inclusionary social dynamic. When the Raffarin government moved to roll back important provisions of the Aubry laws, it was satisfying an important constituency rather than proposing a different strategy.

THE NEW POLmCS OF IDENTITY As the debate over the Aubry Laws showed, the apparent convergence around la pensbe unique did not mean that economic issues ceased to fuel public debate and political competition-and the popularity of antiglobalization groups (discussed in chapter 8) suggests the fragdity of agreementsbased on neoliberal policies. But from the late 1980s on, both the elites and the body politic often seemed increasingly engaged by a set of noneconomic questions. The new questions all had to do, in one way or another, with political identity. Who belonged to the national community?On what basis?Who had what rights, and why? In the past, whose rights had been violated and with what implications for present-day actors?The debates about Vichy and Algeria, examined in previous chapters, unfolded during this period, and these were also the years that witnessed the rise of the National Front. The

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acquisition of citizenship, the political relevance of gender, the rights and duties of France’s Muslim community, the place of Corsica in the Republic, legal recognition of gay couples: all became major public issues. More than anything else, these debates reflected some combination of anxiety, selfdoubt, and uncertainty; they were the by-product of the uncomfortable realization that, behind and beyond the economic crisis, profound changes were taking place. The Cold War ended, making the United States the world’s sole superpower. Germany united. Where did all this leave France?As globalization accelerated, communication seemed to overtake culture, and the language of communication (i.e., of computers, business, and popular music, but also, increasingly, of diplomacy) was Enghsh, not French. France seemed suddenly small, exposed, and potentially insignificant. Many people experienced the new situation as a threat and a loss, and they reacted by denying the irreversible character of the changes underway, attributing them to individual and collective weakness rather than to the impersonal forces of history. They stigmatized concessionsto cultural diversity and European integration as indications of national decadence and moral bankruptcy. “We are the first generation to refuse to transmit our values,” Jean-Pierre Chevenement told a group of young people gathered to support his 2002 presidential bid (and celebrate his sixty-third birthday), “and we are leaving you the market and an era of emptiness.”6* At their worst, brandished by the militants of the National Front, these arguments shaded into racism and xenophobia. At their best, used by unreconstructed GaulIists and by some on the left (e.g., Chev?nement), they articulated a nostalgic defense of the French republican model, with its emphasis on la Rgpublique une et indivisible, centralized political authority, and French culture. The arguments resonated far beyond the confines of the core audiences to which they were addressed, as the close vote in the September 1992 Maastricht referendum and the initial doubledigit support for Chevhement’s pres idential candidacy a decade later suggested.63 Those who argued against anxiety and pessimism contended that European integration and cultural diversity offered opportunities for France to re-create its democratic traditions and reassert its cultural greatness, but they could not deny that they were asking their compatriots to venture, without a map, into the unknown. To change the metaphor, France was continuing its democratic education as it had begun it: without a textbook.

A Politics of Anxiety? By the 1980s, cultural diversity was a fact of French life, especially in urban areas. It was not, however, a particularly celebrated fact. The French republican model had been designed to assimilateheterogeneouselementson its own terms, not to accommodate them on theirs. But as social codes became more

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flexible, as the extension and instnunentalizationof education made the transmission of culture through the school system increasingly problematic, and as globalization made a mockery of the pretensions of the Jacobin state, the new identity being proposed to candidates for assimilationbecame more and more uncertain. Immigrants were no longer joining a club with fixed rules to which they could be expected to conform; rather, they were walking in on a club with a long and venerable history, but whose purpose and character were no longer self-evident.Members least comfortablewith the discussion in progress sought to close the doors on new participants:debates about how French citizenship could be acquired showcased uneasiness with cultural diversity.The Code de la nationazite' was debated during the first cohabitation period, between 1986 and 1988, and again in 1993. Beginning in 1989, the debate about citizenship was accompanied and in many respects overshadowed by a debate about the meaning and purpose of Zazcite',that untranslatable founding principle of both the French school system and the republic.

Citizenship Citizenship regimes in modern democratic countries are typically founded on jus soZi, with an admixture of jus sanguinis.Jus soli confers citizenship by virtue of place of birth and residence;jus sanguinis confers citizenship on the basis of blood lines. Thus in the United States, any baby born on American soil is entitled to American citizenship Gus soZz3, as is any child born to American parents abroad Gus sanguinis).@Immigrants may apply for naturalization, and the expectation is that most legal immigrants will eventually become citizens. As it stood in the 1980s, French law (unlike German law) roughly paralleled American law: any child born in France or abroad was French if at least one parent had been born in France (i.e., metropolitan France or preindependence Algeria), and any child born in France automatically became French upon attaining adulthood unless she declined citizenship. With its low birth rate, modern France had always been in need of warm bodies, and its liberal citizenship regime had served it well. Given high unemployment,it was almost inevitablethat immigration would become a political issue. Immigrants, it was claimed, were a burden on the economy: they cost French workers jobs and took advantage of France's generous system of social benefits. Across the industrialized world, this was a familiarargument.In France, a specific context-Jacobinism and the country's colonial past-changed its dynamic and shaped its impact. In July 1974, after actively recruiting immigrant workers for years, France suspended legal entry by would-be immigrants. Under Giscard, as the recession deepened but before immigration had become a major public issue, the government sought to encourage immigrant workers to return to their countries of origin; not surprisingly, the policy had little effect.

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Of all “foreigners,”North Africans were consistently the least accepted. They were also easy to identify. While Italian and Spanish immigrants were favorably viewed, North Africans were not: they were judged lazy, devious, and potentially violent; they were considered hard to assimilate; they were rebuffed as possible neighbors or in-laws.65 Yet there they were. And there was the National Front, urging their removal, blaming them for everything from unemployment and crime to the decline of western civilization. The National Front’s anti-immigrant rhetoric created a dilemma for the mainstream conservative parties, and especially for the RPR, whose electorate seemed particularly vulnerable to Le Pen’sappeal. Two strategies were available:the right could combat the Front either by cozying up to it and stealing its fire or by branding it as neofascist and attemptingto isolate it. For years, the conservative parties wavered ineffectually between the two strategies. The citizenship debates were in part the product of the conservatives’need to protect their right flank. In June 1991, Jacques Chirac asked listeners to imagine the feelings of a French worker confronted on his doorstep by the sight of an immigrant family “witha father, three or four wives, some twenty kids, drawing 50,000 francs in benefits-naturally without working. If you add to that the noise and the odor, the worker on his doorstep, he goes nuts.”&A few months later, Giscard spoke of an “invasion.”67 Each time conservatives recovered a legislative majority (and therefore the office of prime minister), they sought to m o w the Code de la nationalitb. Thus, when the right won the legislative elections of March 1986, the Chirac government quickly moved to propose reforms. France would no longer embrace all children born on its soil: instead, the law would require the children of immigrants to embrace France-by explicitly applyingfor citizenship as they reached adulthood, presenting a clean police record, and swearing an oath of allegiance. Alain Chalandon, Chirac’sminister of justice, defended the proposed reforms by asserting that membership in a national community should reflect an act of will.@Several former leftists who had become conservatives insisted that the introduction of choice and will into the citizenship regime demonstrated a new respect for those concerned: Annie Kriegel (1926-1995), once a communist and later a brilliant analyst of the PCF, defended this position in the columns of Le Figaro. Our ability to make important choices, these conservativesargued,is what makes us free. A well-known historian connected the philosophical position to the policy issue: “Une patrie,” Pierre Chaunu wrote, “cela se choisit” (“A fatherland has to be chosen”).@The self-styled proponents of will and choice did not, however, extend their argument to include children born to French parents, who for unexplained reasons were exempt from the moral requirement of choosing their country of citizenship. The right’s proposed reforms immediately ran into opposition, and not just from the parties of the left and the trade unions. On October 30, the Conseil

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d h t rendered an opinion critical of the oath requirement. Mitterrand, still president and therefore in a position to exercise a suspensive veto, announced his opposition to the new measures at a cabinet meeting on November 12.70 Civil society mobilized: the Catholic Church expressed its misgivings, prominent cultural figures denounced the proposals, and SOS-Racisme,a civic association created in November 1984 and well known for its huge concerts and its popular antiracist button (“Touche pas a mon pote”-“Let my buddy be”), mobilized against measures that were clearly intended as an attack on multiculturalism.The government,in the person of the deputy minister for research and higher education, Main Devaquet, had already provoked student protests by proposing to make admission to university selective and to charge fees for attendance. The student movement added opposition to the government’sproposals on citizenship to its list of grievances. On December 6, 1986, Malik Oussekine, a twenty-two-year-oldstudent arrested during a protest, died while in police custody. Massive demonstrationsensued. With Oussekine’sdeath, the government lost control over the debate: in what was now understood as an upordown vote on racism, the government’s“racist”positions were bound to lose. On September 8, 1987, the government withdrew its proposals, promising to revisit the issue should the right triumph in the presidential elections of 1988. Instead, Mitterrand won reelection. The debate, however, was just beginning. In June 1987, Chirac had appointed a twenty-membercommission to study the citizenship question. Chaired by Marceau Long (vice president of the ConseiZ d ’ t a t ) , the commission represented a range of views; its members included two well-known sociologists, Dominique Schnapper and Main Touraine, neither of whom could be expected to rubber-stamp the government’s positions. The commission worked through the fall. Many of its public hearings were broadcast live on television. Noting that France-no longer an imperial power and still unsure of an emerging European identity-was “in a transitory phase,” the commission proposed three broad goals: -encourage rather than impede . . . the acquisition of French citizenshipby foreigners durably established in France; -improve those routes to citizenship that involve a conscious choice and that promote the social integration of the individual; -affirm more clearly the essential and indivisible values that are the foundation of French society and that shape its identity.’]

Integration of foreigners was the common ideal; very few voices celebrated multiculturalism as a good in its own right. The question was about how integration should be achieved, not about whether it was an appropriate or realistic goal. Some saw recognition of Ze droit a la d@&ence as facilitating eventual integration; accordingly, they argued that the majority community

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should create a safe, inclusionary space in which new citizens could adjust in their own way and on their own schedule to their new culture. Others saw le droit a la d@e‘rence as the entering wedge of national disintegration and contended that postulants for citizenship should first demonstrate their attachment to their new community by conforming to its established rules and norms.

Laicit6 The continuing controversy over citizenship shaped the context in which a debate over lui’cite‘eruptedin the fall of 1989.In the debate over citizenship, the lines of cleavage had more or less matched the usual divisions between left and right (modified by another division, setting the two extremes against the moderate parties): the left was accommodationist, the right was more exclusionary. In the debate over lai’cite‘, the lines of cleavage cut through parties (and groups in civil society), not between them. On October 4, the principal of a collkge in Creil, a town in the Oise (north of Paris), expelled three Muslim girls who had refused his order to remove their headscarves while in school. The principal, Ernest Cheniere, had taken on a tough assignment upon his arrival in Creil in 1987. His school, Gabriel-Havez, served some 850 students from two dozen countries; a majority of the students were at least nominally Muslim. Creil, with its public housing blocks and its underprivileged population, had been designated a ZEP, or priority education zone (zone d‘e’ducation prioritaire, created in 1982 by the socialists to “givemore to those who have less”);teachers received bonuses for working there, and student-teacher ratios were lower than would normally have been the case. Cheniere was himself of West Indian origin. Both his parents had been schoolteachers,but their household was Catholic. The principal’spolitical sympathies were conservative: he subsequently joined the RPR, and was elected to the National Assembly as an RPR deputy in 1993. In his school, he was known as a disciplinarian with a short fuse. He had been skirmishing with the girls, two of whom were sisters, since the previous spring. Headscarves, he argued, were an outward manifestation of submission to religious authority; as such, they had no place in the classroom.An arrangement whereby the girls would be allowed to wear their scarves during recess but not during class had broken down when the girls claimed that gym was not a class. Cheniere, angered by what he saw as outside manipulation of the situation by Muslim extremists, barred the girls from school. The controversy quickly escalated, and by the end of the month, the entire country-from President Mitterrand’swife to schoolchildrenin the provincesseemed caught up in it. This time, it was impossible summarily to dismiss one side or the other by labeling its positions racist. From the beginning, the debate about headscarves was understood by everyone to be a debate about diversity

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and its limits. Nearly a century after its introduction,what did Zui’cite‘mean?What democratic purpose was it supposed to serve?Were headscarves a stand-in for Islamic fundamentalism, and was Islamic fundamentalism the late-twentiethcentury equivalent of late-nineteenthcentury Catholic reactionary obscurantism?If so, what was the argument for letting the enemy inside the gates?If not, how could one know in advance?Was the purpose of Zui‘a’te‘to create an arena for rationalist discourse or a safe place for individual selfdiscovery?If toleration and Ze droit a Zu d@&ence superceded Zui’cite‘,why not allow other cultural “traditions”-including polygamy and genital mutilation?If diversity became a primary value, what would prevent the “Lebanonization”or the “tribalization”of France? What would prevent Ze droit a Zu d@&ence from becoming la diffience des droits? “Onceupon a time,”Jacques Julliard wrote in Le NouveZ Observateur, “in the days of the Enlightenment, of the Republic, of individual reason, it would have been considered an insult to say to a Christian or a Jew that he was defined by the fact that he was a Christian or a Jew.” Now, in the name of diversity [dzflirence],which does, it is true, express part of our identity but also represents the old dark hole in which collective constraints conspire with small acts of personal cowardice to turn us away from freedom; in the name, as I said, of communities, those great hothouses of intolerance,you are classified, typed, neutralized.72

In the same issue, Le NouveZ Observateur published an interview with Lionel Jospin. As minister of education,Jospin was at the forefront of the controversy. The interview appeared under the title “Accueillez les foulards!” (“Welcomethe scarves!”). School authorities,Jospin argued, should do everything possible to persuade parents to send their girls to school without scarves. Should persuasion fail, however, the girls should be allowed to attend school in their scarves. “Society has changed,”Jospin reminded his readers, ‘‘Lazcitbno longer needs to be expressed in adversarial terms.” The girls’ education, the minister reasoned, was properly the school’s top priority. “The purpose of French schools,”Jospin argued, “is to educate and integrate, not to reject.” He was willing to draw a line, but not at the wearing of headscarves: scarves would be allowed, but religious proselytism and coercion on school property would not be tolerated, and students would not be excused from studying subjects that allegedly offended their beliefs.73 The next week, five prominent intellectuals-among them Elisabeth Badinter, Regis Debray, and Main Finkielkraut-blasted Jospin’s positions in an open letter entitled “Profs, ne capitulons pas!” (“Profs, we mustn’t capitulate!”). Badinter (born 1944) taught philosophy at the kcole polytechnique; she was the author of a best-selling study of motherhood and would later become one of several prominent feminists to oppose the effort to legislate

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parity.74 Her husband, Robert Badinter (born 1928), served as minister of jus tice from 1981 to 1986 and sat on the Conseil constitutionnel from 1986 to 1995. Debray (born 1940), a normalien (first on the admission lists in 1960), agrbge‘ in philosophy (1965), had narrowly escaped death while fighting as a guerilla in Bolivia, where he was imprisoned from 1967 to 1970. Back in France, he divided his time between writing novels and books on the sociope litical role of intellectuals and the media. In the early to mid-l980s, he was an advisor to Mitterrand. In 1983, he helped secure Klaus Barbie’s return to France. By the late 1980s, he had rediscovered de Gaulle and the republic, and throughout the 1990s,he spoke out regularly and consistently in defense of a unitary, sovereign republic.’, Finkielkraut (born l949), like Badinter, taught philosophy at the &Cole polytechnique; his books and essays offer a critique of modernity, modern individualism, and the politicization of memory. Like Debray, he would later play an important role in the debates on intervention (or lack thereof) in the former Yugoslavia, but in those debates he and Debray would part company (see chapter 8).76 The open letter deliberately dramatizedthe controversy in progress: “Time will tell,” the authors began, “whether the year of the bicentennial [of the Revolution] will have marked the Munich of the republican school system.” It is not simply by bringing together in the same place, Monsieur le Ministre, a little Catholic, a little Muslim, and a little Jew that one builds a secular school. A school strives to create a space where authority is based on reason and experience, things that are accessible to everyone.In light of this goal, and because the school is for everyone, it cannot allow within its walls any distinctive sign that deliberately and in advance of any action or experience classifies the children it welcomes. . . . The proponents of the “newlai‘cit6,”among whom you count yourself,preach an undefined tolerance. They want a school open to communitarian pressures, be those pressures religious or economic, a school where each teacher is expected to bow to the social environment,a school where each student is constantly surrendered to his parents, reminded of his status, chained to his “roots.” Such a school accepts the idea of socialpredestination. Following this logic, the school would be made permeable to the world of business and to religious dignitaries. It would be a school for sale, subjected to the norms of its immediate environmentand to external particularisms.In our society,the school is the only institution that is dedicated to the universal. For this reason, free women and men are not prepared to compromise on the principle of its independence, which is perpetually threatened by the power of existing authorities-eccnomic, ideological,or religious.”

Lakitb had originally been intended to secure the Republic against its cultural and political enemies. In the course of a Senate debate over school textbooks in 1883,Jules Ferry had put the Republic’s opponents on notice: “We promised religious neutrality [i.e.,freedom of religion and equal treatment of

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all faiths],” he said, “we did not promise philosophical neutrality, any more than we promised political neutrality.”78In the 188Os, the Church had represented a formidableadversary. A century later, the opponents of compromise in the headscarf controversy argued that the enemies of luzdte’-and of democracy-were still alive and well. As evidence they pointed to the rise of the fundamentalist Front & salut islarnique (Islamic Salvation Front) in Algeria. Franqoise Gaspard (born 1945), known in the 1980s as the former socialist mayor of Dreux and prominent in the 1990sas a gay feminist activist, called lakite‘ “thenewest ideology on earth,”and added, “it is precisely because [as an idea] it is new and isolated that it remains fragde.”79Jean Daniel (born 1920 in Algeria), the influential editor of Le Nouvel Obseruateur, supportedJospin’s position, but he agreed with Gaspard that the confrontation over hiicite‘was in fact an intra-Muslimbattle between fundamentalists and “modern,”liberal Muslims and that the Republic owed its support to Muslims who defended secularism and equal rights for women.80 Jospin focused on the policy question at hand, and therefore on the French context. Like Danielle Mitterrand, the president’s wife and a human rights activist, and other proponents of compromise, Jospin suggested that references to Munich were misplaced: “FundamentalistIslam cannot threaten the French Republic,”he argued; “If this Republic did not know how to respond in a humane way to a handful of young girls wearing scarves, then I’d be worried! But it hasn’t yet come to that!”Sl In France, Islam was a minority religion with a comparativelyweak institutional structure and little influence beyond its immediate audience. In the court of public opinion, the republic had clearly won out over rival forms of government. Blanket exclusions of girls who wore scarves would simply play into the hands of Muslim extremists, while creating unnecessary obstacles to integration. Whose interests would be served, the proponents of compromise asked, if the girls’ parents took their children out of the public school system and enrolled them in Muslim schools? Then, Jean Daniel noted, “the temple of republican virtue would have remained undefiled, but it would be deserted.”82 Many young people, and some who were less young, saw headscarves as just one more youthful getup and viewed the fuss as another unwelcome effort to intrude on their private space. “In an age when people wear absolutely anything,”the actress Silvia Monfort (1923-1991) declared, “I find it incrediblethat we should be making rules about wearing or not wearing scarves.”S3Jospin made a broader political point, suggesting that intransigence would alienate even non-Muslim children: “Young people aren’t shocked by headscarves,” Jospin warned, “Butthey are shocked by the prohibition of scarves.”% Most adults, survey data indicated, tended toward a more rigid interpretation of lazcite‘.85 As Yvan Gastaut put it, “The French respected different cultures on condition that the cultures be declining, disappearing, or fusing with the republican model, and in any event restricted to the private sphere.”%

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“The affirmation of ethnic particularisms is finding echoes across Europe,” Elisabeth Guigou (born 1946 in Morocco), a top-level civil servant and advisor to Mitterrand, remarked, “but in France, this development shakes the foundations of the republican model.” In the 1990s, Guigou would serve as minister for European affairs and then minister of justice.87 She had put her finger on the problem. “Isn’tthere a middle ground,” she asked, “between a homogenizing republicanism and a provocative affirmation of ethnicity?”m It was a high-stakes, high-anxiety debate. People who defended the traditional conception of lazcitk could not be sure that their solution was realistic (Could it be enforced? Might its perverse unintended consequences overwhelm its beneficial intended effects?).People who urged a more open interpretation of the principle could not be sure that in a contest between the republic and its contemporary competitors, the republic would win. “I will bet my money on the l?cole de la Rkpublique,”Jean Daniel declared, even as he admitted that his confidence in the continuing nation-building capacities of the school system might be misplaced.89

Citizenship Again: The Corsican Problem The questions raised by the citizenship debate remain unresolved.Through the 1990s, the debate regularly rekindled controversy over the question Guigou had posed. Each political camp responded according to its ideological lights and the specific challenges of the moment. After the right won a crushing victory in the legislative elections of 1993, the Balladur government secured passage of a text that obliged immigrant children to apply for citizenship should they wish to acquire it. They could do so at any time between their sixteenth and twenty-first birthdays. The left was in no condition to resist. SOS-Racisme had also imploded. The new text became law. By 1998, however, the left had recovered and returned to power, and once again, the citizenship laws changed, this time back toward jus soli. In the meantime, events in Corsica renewed speculation about the “tribalization”of France. According to the 1999 census, Corsica’stwo dkpartements were home to 260,000 people. Beginning in 1975, small proindependence groups, often with ties to organized crime and frequently at war with each other, had engaged in a campaign of assassinations and bombings. Most of the underground movements were offshoots of the Front de libhation nationale de la Come (FLNC), founded in 1976 and banned in 1983.The usual targets of nationalist violence, aside from rival nationalists, were law enforcement officials, local political figures (often mayors), and government buildings. The political salience of the violence increased dramatically on February 6, 1998,when Claude Erignac was shot to death in downtown Ajaccio. Erignac was the prefect for Corsica, and President Jacques Chirac, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, and Minister of the Interior Jean-Pierre Chevenement all left

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Paris to attend his memorial service. “By striking the representative of the State,”the prime minister said, “this indescribable and abject act affects the whole nation.”%Jacques Chirac called nationalist violence the work of “a handful of outlaws, enemies of their own land” and reiterated the standard republican position about unity: “Franceis une et indivisible. It is of course made up of regions and provinces that differ one from another. . . . But there is only one France. The national territory is a single whole, united everywhere by the same law and the same rights.”9* For the previous decade, governments in Paris of both the left and the right had alternated between repression and secret negotiations with figures from the nationalist underground. Neither strategy had produced peace. Political reforms had been similarly without decisive effect: the Joxe law of 1991, which created a territorial assembly for Corsica, provoked a split in the FLNC but did not end the violence.92 The government named a no-nonsense replacement, Bernard Bonnet, to Erignac’s position and promised to restore order. In April 1999, an inappropriate police action forced Bonnet’s resignation.93 The level of violence, which had seemed to be declining, rose again, with repeated incidents in the summer and fall of 1999. Before and after Erignac’s assassination,Jospin had publicly stated that he would not negotiate with groups that had not renounced violence. On November 30, 1999,the prime minister reversed his position: he announced that he would summon elected officials from Corsica to negotiations in Paris. Nationalists sat in the Corsican territorial assembly; led by Jean-GuyTalamoni and Paul Quastana, they would also sit at the negotiating table. Jospin later argued that circumstances had left him no choice: Who can blame the government for trying to find and propose a political solution to the Corsican question?Unless one thinks that there is no solution. . . . Or unless one supposes that there is no problem, a supposition that the last thirty

years, with their procession of destructive acts, would not confirm.94

The minister of the interior,Jean-Pierre Chevenement, opposed any negotiations that explicitly or implicitly legitimized a violent movement that represented at most 15 percent of the island’spopulation; he also opposed any solution that would compromise the principle of a Rbpublique une et indivisibZe. Chevenement’s positions were supported by other members of the cabinet, but Jospin, relying heavily on his own staff, largely circumvented Chevknement and eventually cajoled other cabinet members into accepting his choices.95 The “Matignonagreements”were negotiated between December 1999and July 2000. Jospin clearly wanted the problem solved and took his allies where he could fmd them-namely, in the person of Jose Rossi, who was both the president of the Corsican assembly and the parliamentary leader of Main

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Madelin’s conservative Dbmocratie libbrale in the National Assembly.% Jospin appeared willing to grant the island what amounted to limited autonomy, along with increased development aid and a commitment to include Corsican language instruction in primary school curricula on the island. Events concentrated public attention on Corsica. Chevenement tendered his resignation on July 27, 2000, and left his cabinet position on August 29. Jean-Michel Rossi (born 1956), a cofounder of the FLNC who spent ten out of the last twenty-five years of his life in prison, was assassinated on August 7. Rossi had expressed his support for the “Matignon process,” and, with another nationalist leader, Franqois Santoni,had written a book-length denunciation of the nationalists’internecine disputes.97On the mainland,where the idea of Corsican independence had more support than it did on the island, public opinion seemed hesitant and divided-though once again, not simply along partisan lines. The government looked for ways to circumvent constitutional obstacles to the settlement it hoped would bring civil peace to Corsica. It placed a temporal limit on the experimental grant of legislative authority it proposed to make to the Corsican assembly; it promised a referendum for 2004. “Equality does not mean uniformity,”the government contended, and it challenged anyone to deny that the island had specific needs and problems. If AlsaceMoselle could have a church-state relationship that deviated from the republican norm, governmental spokespersons asked, why could Corsica not have a special status? The government insisted on the pragmatic character of its proposals and on the putative lack of alternatives.98 The government’sproposals were submitted to the Corsican assembly on July 20 and approved on July 28.99 Throughout the summer, the debate over Corsica dominated the national press; press organizations as different politically as Le Nouvel Observateur and the conservative daily Le Figaro criticized the government’s initiative. On the left, many members of the gauche plurielle shared Chevenement’smisgivings about the Matignon agreements, though few were as inclined to stand on their principles. On the right, Gaullists were usually critical,100but a number of non-Gaullist conservatives supported the government’spolicy.101 The legislation implementing the new relationship between the mainland and the island ran into resistance from Jacques Chirac and from the Senate; after it was finally adopted in December 2001, the Conseil constitutionnel struck down the provision delegating legislative authority to the Corsican assembly.102 Well before the long-term effects of the legislation could be known, the results of the 2002 elections redoubled the uncertainty surrounding the future of the island. Jospin’s treatment of the Corsican problem exemplified his approach to the difficulties of rethinking democracy without the benefit of a textbook. The prime minister had emphasized the government’swillingness to give all segments of Corsican opinion a place at the table and to consider all propos

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als in open debate. The process would, he argued, create its own legitimacy and would force Corsican participants (including the nationalists) into patterns of responsible action. Chevenement believed otherwise. He distrusted improvisation in general, and improvisations that undermined important principles in particular: What better signal could the government send Corsicansto tell them that the law has only a relative value and that respect for the law is only a provisional conces sion?What better way to tell the French that the Constitution is only a precarious convention, one that can be changed according to evolving circumstances and opportunities? When the government treats the law not as the expression of common rules, but as a legal obstacle to the flexible management of local affairs, it abandons citizens to the thickets of rules elaborated in Corsica under conditions of blackmail and fear. It ruins the very essence of the republican pact.103

Chevenement attacked the “lethalchain of events”engendered by a shortsighted “institutionalimprovisation,”calling it a time bomb and a “domestic Munich” and warning that it would set in motion “a process of territorial and ethnic fragmentation.”lo* JacquesJulliard acknowledged that the agreements negotiated by the government might bring a temporary calm, a calm that inspired a feeling that recalled the ‘‘lkhe soulagement”(“cowardlyrelief ”) Leon Blum had experienced when summit diplomacy seemed to have “solved”the Sudeten crisis in September 1938. Like Chevenement, Julliard condemned the government’s de facto promotion of a violent, intolerant minority and its concessions to a logic of national disaggregation. A government can legitimately negotiate with armed men only if they lie outside its proper jurisdiction, Julliard wrote. He had opposed the Algerian War, and now he tried to answer people who drew analogiesbetween Corsican nationalism and colonial struggles: I f . . . you believe . . . that Corsica is a French colony in the process of emancipation, then yes, it is appropriate to negotiate its independence directly with the FLNC and other masked men. If, on the contrary, you believe that Corsica is a French province . . . then it is inappropriate to reward violence. Because in the last analysis, when a sovereign state negotiates-secretly or in the open-with an armed interlocutor without first demanding of the latter that it lay down its arms, the state implicitly recognizes its opponent’s right to independence. Or else we accept that France is no longer France but Lebanon, where consensus is obtained, once violence ceases, by negotiation among militias.105

Absent a nation, the (Corsican) literary critic for Le Nouvel Observateur wrote, it made little sense to talk of nationalism, and like others,Angelo Rinaldi thought Corsica lacked the prerequisite public institutions and culture to quallfy as a “nation.”Clan intrigues and conflicts were the stuff of public life in Cor-

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sica, in town halls as in the nationalist underground. In 1991,the Conseil constitutionnel had rejected the notion of a “peuplecorse”on normative grounds, arguing that it was inconsistent with the constitution.’%Rinaldi contested the idea on descriptive as well as normative grounds: “Fromone end to the other of a d6purtement with fewer inhabitants than the 15” arrondissement of Paris,” he wrote, “about the only thing everyone has in common is a certain way of whistling home the goats.”107Rinaldi deplored the assertion of a Corsican nation as a racist, reactionary fantasy, and he ridiculed the idea that a “mosaic of dialects . . . that just manages to express everyday happenings” could be confused with a true language. He denounced language instruction in Corsican as a “mutilationof students’minds, a huge step backwards,”undertaken at just the moment when, because of globalization,it would most decisively disadvantage the children it affected.108 Julliard suggested that Jospin’s supposedly pragmatic solution to the Corsican problem would undermine the government’s ability to address other problems even more central to France’s future: France faces an enormous problem of integration. . . . Is this a good time to strike at the foundations of what still constitutes her integrative abilities, that is, her unity and her cohesion? . . . [I]f . . . her national unity gets auctioned off by bits and pieces, leaving her a mosaic of ethnic, regional, religious, and sexual communities, no one should be surprised when the ethos of every man for himself triumphs more or less everywhere, along with a philosophy of entitlement for which soon no one will be prepared to pay. We have to decide whether the Republic is our common home, or our favorite free ride.109

If globalizationwas battering the walls of the “commonhome,”Julliard was in favor of reaching out to the neighborhood, not of organizing a retreat to small rooms. Better a political investment “tothe advantage of the next higher level-in this case, Europe-than to the advantage of the region or of petty local fiefdomswhose greed and despotic tendencies are only too familiar.”llO Julliard reiterated the point he had made during the headscarves controversy: small, identity-based communities tend to be ugly, illiberal places: “To my ears, ‘Corsicafor the Corsicans’has the same ring as ‘Serbiafor the Serbs’ and ‘Francefor the French.’ It is the awful beast of communitarian identity, prugenitor of every manner of crime.”111 Listening to the debates about citizenship, luiicit6, and Corsica, it is easy to understand the feeling of crisis that gave them their emotional charge. Yet survey data, demographic statistics, and unfolding events suggest a difficult transitional period, not a crisis. Right-wing rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding, France was not being “invaded”by unprecedented hordes of foreigners; modem Ftance, like the United States, had always been a nation of immigrants, and as we have seen, the proportion of foreigners in the total population did not change dramaticallyover the course of the twentieth cen-

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tury. And despite the social disaster of the quartiers d’exil,most second-gen-

eration North Africans (known as beurs) were being successfully integrated into French society.112 At the beginning of the twenty-first century, people of North African descent still encountered hostility in France, but their difficulties had decreased as time passed. As spotlights lit up the Parisian sky to celebrate the bicentennial of the Revolution, France was not on the verge of a catastrophic, Munich-like collapse of will, nor was the country comparable to Rome on the eve of the barbarian invasions. “L’effetCorse” (as Le Monde entitled a series on France’s cultural regions in late August 2000113) was unlikely to bring about the breakup of France. But like the world, France was clearly changing, and the pessimists were justified in reminding their more sanguine compatriots that in the long history of humankind, not all stories have happy endings.

Rethinking the Relationship between Public and Private Gender politics offered another angle on le droit a la d@&ence and la dif fbrence des droits. Debates about the legal standing of homosexual couples and gender-based quotas occurred in many countries at the end of the twentieth century. In France, the republican tradition’sinsistence on universalist language and the centralized character of political debate and decision making affected how these common issues were processed. Like the controversy over Muslim headscarves, the debates about gay couples and parity posed the problem of group rights and so sometimes created unexpected alliances. The debates took place at the national level, in parliament and in the national media. In the United States, in contrast, Vermont’s decision to recognize gay couples had little direct effect on (say) Texas. In France, national debate and the nationally binding nature of the changes adopted increased the visibility of the issues and may well have heightened the anxiety levels of those who lost. Finally, the debates about gender issues suggested a shift in how the French collectively drew the line between public and private. The French had never shared either the American obsession with extramarital sex or the British obsession with homosexual affairs on the part of public figures. Even medical information was considered private: most French people did not learn that Georges Pompidou was gravely ill until he died. But the demand for recognition entailed an acceptance of publicity. The public glare is now more invasive, even if it lacks the censorious quality of its Anglo-Saxoncounterpart.

Parity In France, elected officials and top-level civil servants are overwhelmingly male. Between 1981 and 1997,the number of women sitting in the National

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Assembly hovered between 5 and 6 percent; this meant that in 1996, only thirty-two out of 577 deputies were women. This was an improvement over the Assembly elected in 1973, in which only eight deputies out of 490 (1.6 percent) were women. In the surprise elections of 1997, parties on the left (most significantly the PS) made a concerted effort to nominate women in winnable districts, and as a result, the number of women in the new Assembly rose to sixty-three (10.9 percent). Even so, France was well behind Germany (26.3 percent) and the United Kingdom (18.4 percent), not to mention Sweden (40.4 percent), Finland (33.5 percent), Denmark (33.0 percent), and the Netherlands (3 1.3 percent).ll* The decision-making bodies of the main political parties (except the Greens) were predominantly male. A mere 2.6 percent of the prefectoral corps and 2 percent of ambassadors were women. Women were also underrepresented in leadership positions in the private sector and, perhaps more surprisingly, in top academic positions. True, Mitterrand had appointed a woman to be prime minister in 1991, but even Edith Cresson’smost vehement critics would probably have conceded that her gender had made her the target of more venom than either her policies or her politics could explain. After the presidential elections of 1995, Main Juppe appointed twelve women to his thirty-two-member government. In common parlance, the women were nicknamed Zes juppettes, a play on the prime minister’sname and the French word for skirt uuppe), with the diminutive suffix ette thrown in. The label probably speaks more eloquently to the place of women in French public life than all the dismal statistics that advocates of parity liked to cite. The fate of the juppettes was also significant: when Juppe reshuffled his cabinet on November 7, 1995,all but four lost their positions. Politically,Juppe later explained, the women had nothing to offer: All of them demonstratedremarkable qualities. But they had no political base, no personal clout within the parties. I had taken most of them from the professional

world and civil society, because the parties had no women to offer. And when, out of political necessity, I asked myself, “Can this one bring along the RPR, or can that one speak for the PR or the CDS,” the answer was no.115

Prior to the 1990s, feminist groups were not politically important in France for the same reason that other forms of group politics were not politically important: republican Jacobinism delegitimized all differentialist arguments, and French politics was organized around all-embracing ideological projects (sometimes but not always informed by references to class). Beginning in the 1980s, the simultaneous demise of ideological politics, changes in the class structure, and the decline of the Jacobin state opened the door to group politics. Feminist groups were especially quick to enter because they benefited from the material and moral support of international networks in general and

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European networks in particular and because women were not marginalized to the same extent or in the same ways as were, for example, North African immigrants. The international designation of March 8 as a day to honor women provided a convenient occasion for mobilizing events. Beginning in 1989, a series of meetings and conferences organized by the Council of Europe, the European Community, or UNESCO helped legitimize and publicize the idea of parity. The most important gatheringswere held in Athens in November 1992 and in Rome in May 1996; both brought together cabinetlevel female politicians from across Europe. Edith Cresson and S h o n e Veil signed the Athens Declaration, which endorsed parity and demanded “profound changes in the structure of decision-makingprocesses.”116 The movement in favor of parity gathered momentum through the early 1990s; in the summer of 1996, it moved to the center of the political stage. The possibility of adopting a quota system had already been taken off the table: in November 1982,the Conseil constitutionnel had struck down a law stipulatingthat in municipal elections in towns of over 3,500 people, no more than threequarters of the candidates on any electoral list could be of the same gender. Quotas affecting the composition of elected assemblies, the Court declared, violated Article 3 of the Constitution of 1958 and Article 6 of the Declaration of Rights.117 The focus therefore shifted to constitutional reform and parity. On November 10, 1993, a network of groups cooperating as “Femmespour la parite” (“Womenfor Parity”)took out a full-page advertisement in Le Monde. “Paritybetween the sexes,”the “Manifestedes 577” proclaimed, “is a precondition for achieving democracy, just like the separation of powers and universal suffrage.”A total of 577 signers, 289 women and 288 men-equal to the number of seats in the National Assembly-demanded the adoption of a law stipulating: “Elected bodies at both the subnational and national levels are composed of equal numbers of women and men.”11*In the European Parliament elections of June 1994, Michel Rocard insisted on a PS list on which women would enjoy equal representation with men (the socalled “chabadabada”list, after the soundtrack of Claude Lelouch’s 1966 movie, “Un homrne et une femme,” “A Man and a Woman”);the PCF, the Greens, Jean-Pierre Chevenement’s Mouvement des Citoyens, and the trotskyists also ran lists that were essentiallyparitaires. In contrast, four-fifthsof the candidates on the joint RPR-UDF list led by Dominique Baudis were men. In the 1995 presidential election, Lionel Jospin endorsed the principle of parity. Jacques Chirac, who won the election, was more circumspect.119He promised to establish a research office and a national commission. The commission was never appointed, but the Observatoire de la parite‘ was created on October 18, 1995. It would play an important role in framing the public debate about parity. The section of the Observatoire assigned to study parity in political life was headed by Roselyne Bachelot (born 1946), a nonconformist conservative deputy affiliated with the UDF, later minister for the

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environment and sustainable growth in the conservative government of 2002, and Gisele Halimi (born 1927), a leftist lawyer, feminist, and human rights activist. Both were proponents of parity. In June 1996, ten women with ministerial experience in governments of the left and the right joined together to publish “Le Manifeste des Dix,” this time in L’Express.120 The Ten included Simone Veil and Edith Cresson.121 While the earlier Manifeste des 577 had stated a clear demand, it had offered little in the way of arguments to support parity. The Munifeste des Dtjr was both less simple in the remedies it proposed and more detailed in the arguments it supplied. The same arguments would be repeated over the next three years. The “inabilityof the French political system truly to accept women,” the women asserted, could only be explained by “somethingmore deeply rooted than a simple prejudice.”The women looked at the republican tradition- “in France, in the beginning, one always finds our republican heritage”-and they did not like what they saw: “a tradition deeply rooted in a Jacobinism that is no longer useful.” Jacobinism constitutes the core of our not always democratic republican tradition, and Jacobinism was first and foremost a male thing. Practically as well as symbolically. Centralizing and hierarchical,preachy and arrogant as well as pedagogical,rhetoricaland rationalistto the point of chimerical abstraction,Jacobinism is a kind of concentrate of virile qualities. . . . Taking others as they are, sensitivity,the concrete, a concern for everyday realities were all excluded from the political arena. And women went with them.

The time had come, the women argued, to “feminizethe republic.” The presence of women in decision-makingcapacities was all the more urgent because of the social and economic changes taking place. The Ten embraced a differentialist argument, asserting that women were inherently well equipped to deal with certain kinds of social problems. What indeed are the new sources of wealth, of well-being,and finally of power? They are: information and its transmission, knowledge and its diffusion, human relations,whether interindividualor collective. How can we not see that in these areas, women, because of their identity and their history, are at least as welland often better-placed as men to rise to the challenges of our times?

The women argued that since the system itself was the problem, the system could not be expected to produce an endogenous remedy for female underrepresentation: “Debating, educating, persuading, encouraging no longer suffice. . . . The time has come to use compulsion, even if only on a temporary basis. ” The Ten demanded immediatevoluntarist measures by the political parties,

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the government, and women’s associations. In essence, they were prepared to support whatever measures might be necessary: quotas, a limit on the number of offices any individual could hold concurrently, financial incentives to parties, legislation making sexism a civil and penal offense, a constitutional amendment, a national referendum. Lionel Jospin, agreeing that “the time for compulsion has indeed arrived,” predicted that ten years would be required “to move toward parity among elected officials.”122What Jospin could not predict was Jacques Chirac’ssurprise dissolution of the National Assembly in April 1997 or the left’s victory in the subsequent elections. Jospin became prime minister in June 1997. He was on record in favor of parity, and his wife, Sylviane Agacinski, was a prominent paritaire.123 In his dbclaration de politique genbrale, Jospin committed the government to securing the necessary constitutional amendment.124 The constitution offered two possible amendment paths, one involving the electorate,the other parliamentary:Article 11 allows amendments affectingthe institutional shape of the Republic to be adopted by referendum; Article 89 allows amendments to be adopted by a joint session of the two houses of parliament. The government chose the latter route. OnJune 28,1999, the National Assembly and the Senate, meeting in joint session, voted to modify Articles 3 and 4 of the Constitution of 1958. Articles 3 and 4 fall under Title I of the Constitution, which deals with sovereignty. Article 3 was changed to include language intended to enable parliament to legislate parity: “The law favors equal access by women and men to elected offices and to elected functions.”Article 4, which defines the role of parties and political groups, was amended to obligate parties to contribute to equal access “inways determined by the law.”Legislation stipulatinghow parity was to be achieved followed: it was adopted on May 3, 2000, upheld by the Conseil constitutionnel on May 30, and promulgated on June 6. France uses different electoral systems for different elections, and the new legislation established different requirements for different kinds of elections.125 In single-roundPR elections,like those for the European Parliament, parties are now required to propose equal numbers of men and women, alternatinggenders in the rank order of candidates established by the electoral list. In PR-based elections that are spread out over two rounds of voting, as is the case in municipal elections in towns of over 3,500 people and in regional elections, parties are required to propose equal numbers of men and women within every group of six candidates, moving down a list.126 In the tweround, first-past-the-postelections for the National Assembly, parties are required to field equal numbers of male and female candidates (leaving open the possibility that women will be relegated to “unwinnable”districts). In parliamentary elections, violations of the rules are punishable by fines levied against offending political parties. In PR-type elections, lists that do not meet the parity requirements are barred from competition. Throughout the 1990s, the conservative parties (in power from 1993 to

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1997) dragged their feet on parity. The Senate, where the right had a majority as the proposed amendments came up for discussion, was particularly recalcitrant, in part because many senators suspected that the government would use the goal of parity as a pretext for moving toward a broader reliance on proportional representation. In the end, however, the crucial parliamentary votes were lopsidedly in favor of parity. The June 1999 vote to amend the Constitution was indicative:out of a total 831 deputies and senators, 783 cast a vote, and 741 of those votes were in favor of the proposed measures. As is clear from these numbers, most conservative deputies and senators (109 of 138 RPR deputies, 61 of 70 UDF deputies; 61 of 99 RPR senators, 42 of 5 2 Union centrikte senators) ultimately voted in favor of the amendments, even though the right had vigorously contested their wisdom in earlier parliamentary debates.127 Many conservativesmay have hoped that the parliament would later be unable to come up with the required enabling legislation or that the Conseil constitutionnel would strike down such legislation despite the new amendments; the law of May 3, 2000 was indeed immediately appealed to the Court by conservative opponents in the Senate, who argued that “the constituent authorityintended to avoid the use of compulsion” and that the new constitutional provisions allowed only measures that would noncoercively “favor”equal access to elected office by women, ”preferringincentives and excluding any rule that would abusively limit the voter’s freedom of choice.”128But the Court upheld the new legislation, and parity enjoyed overwhelmingpublic support. Few politicians were prepared to appear ringurds or machistes129-or just inordinately attached to their own positions. But there was a genuine debate about parity, well worth considering insofar as it offered “a magnified image of political debates that have become cruciaL”130It took place on the left, among feminists and people whose commitment on principle to gender equality could not be easily questioned. It pitted universalist republicans against differentialist communitarians; each group found the other ringurd, but usually kept the debate at a higher intellectual level. Generallyspeaking, people who were uncomfortablewith compromises on kazdtc? were even more nervous about inscribingparity as a permanent legal requirement, and they would also (as we will see) express reservations about the PACS as an appropriate measure for guaranteeinggay rights. For these people, parity was a misplaced effort to “gutrirle m2le par le mal.”131 The critics of legislated parity argued that its proponents were striking at the foundations of the republic.132 To the critics, the purituires’ positions were philosophically incoherent, inconsistent with historical lessons, and dis respectful of democratic politics and important realities. The philosophical conflict centered on the notion of universalism-the idea that rights can be defined in general terms, with minimal regard for specific situations or different kinds of individuals. The purituires asserted that

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the universalist ideals of the republic had been definitively unmasked and dis credited by inegalitarian realities, and that in any event, “humanity”comes in two forms, one male and the other female, each necessary to the perpetuation of the species, and each therefore entitled to equal representation. Their critics countered that such arguments demonstrated a misunderstanding of key terms as well as poor logic. “Theyproclaim that they are going to make the universal concrete because the universal is an abstraction and these days everything that is abstract is getting tossed in the trash,” h a b e t h Badinter remarked. She linked the argument to a broader political approach, before returning to the philosophical problem: You may have noticed that for the last fifteen years, all the talk has been about pragmatism and the concrete:people improvise,without taking into account the long-term consequences of decisions, and we make fun of “big ideas.” But to speak of a concrete universal is a contradiction in terms, something that seems obvious but is wrong.133

“Theuniversal does not have a specifiable content,”Dominique Schnapper wrote, “it is a point of reference and an aspiration.”13*“Thesubject of deme cratic rights,”the historian Mona Ozouf (born 1931) explained, “isno one in particular,”and that was precisely why democratic universalism had proven such an enduringly revolutionary idea, “becauseif one imagines for even a second that those rights depend on a specification of their subject-whether the specification is beauty, health, intelligence, wealth, age, race, gender, whatever-one immediately strips the rights not just of their ability to become more extensive, but of their power as tools of protest.”l35Historically speaking, the abstract universalism theparitaires seemed so quick to discard was a relatively new idea, and without it, democratic politics could not exist. A democratic nation bases its legitimacy on an essential principle: that all its members, whatever their historical or religious origins,their gender, their social characteristics, whatever their differences and the inequalities that separate them, are all and also citizens.As cifizens,they constitute an abstract political community, the “communityof citizens,”composed of individuals who are free and equal in terms of their civil, legal, and political rights. The “communityof citizens”is an abstraction or a utopia, but it is a creative utopia in that it offers a basis for the organizationof common life in its most concrete forms. By using citizenship to transcend differences of concrete roots and particular loyalties among its members-differences whose reality and value it does not deny-by transcending the inequalities of the economic order, this utopia promotes unity and social bonding.136

Le droit a la d@&rencerepresented, Catherine Kintzler argued, uaregression toward the shattering of the body politic into social communities,”a

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wholesale concession to “the barbarous principle that defines identity by resemblance and proximity and divides humanity.”137“I do not believe and I never have believed,”Robert Badinter told his fellow senators, “that there is any difference between a man and a woman that can be made into a political principle.” “Humanity,”he concluded, “iswhole through its parts,” of which gender differences were one aspect. Otherwise, the concept of human rights made no sense; it could not be reconciled with a dzzience des droits. [Humanity]is what is common to all human beings, beyond all differences. This is why universality. . . is a defining property of human rights. . . . Human rights [les droits de l’bomme, the rights of man] are the rights of all human beings, without regard for their gender, their race, or anything else.138

Olivier Duhamel (born 1950), a political scientist sympatheticto the PS, associated the logic of theparitaires with the logic of apartheid “Theidea that a vote, whatever its nature, should take into account a physiological particularity,” he wrote, “isimmediately and unbearably antidemocratic.”139 The opponents of legislated parity seemed astounded by the degree to which the paritaires seemed oblivious to the lessons of history-comparative and French, recent and less recent. The counterrevolutionaryphilospher Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821) had preceded the paritaires in denouncing the abstract character of individual rights and the emptiness of the abstract liberal individual. The argument that women had specific qualities was an old trope of reactionary discourse, long used to confine women to the kitchen and the nursery. “Thisis no different from the line Vichy took,”Elisabeth Badinter exclaimed.140Badinter had a long activist past. She understood the communitarian temptation. I went down that path in the 1970s. I was a young agr6g6e in philosophy, very active in the Jewish community, very feminist. Like many of my contemporaries, I was sensitive after 1968to the demand for Ze droit a la dzrbrence that had been formulated first by the Black Panthers and then taken up by American and French feminists.We were all differentialists. It seemed great to share everyone’srights and at the same time to have a little extra, as women, as Jews, etc.141

The shock had come a few years later, when Badinter realized that conservative intellectuals like Main de Benoist (born 1943) had confiscated differentialist arguments and were using them quite effectivelyto justrfy positions that would soon be those of the National Front. “Theextreme right favored Ze droit a la d@ience,” Badinter recalled, “becausedifferentialismjustified in its eyes the separation of groups, and therefore exclusion. We all know the argument: ‘Be what you want; we are what we are.’”14* The countries with the highest proportion of women in political office had

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not adopted quotas or legislated parity. In the contemporary developed world, quotas (under whatever guise) were an American idea. The writer Daniele Sallenave (born 1940) suggested that the purituires were adopting an American model that had already demonstrated its defects and limits: The United States, faced with the too obvious emergence of social and cultural handicaps, preferred to avoid social confrontations and sharp political battles by resorting to legal measures known as “positive discrimination.”. . . These measures are in harmony with American legalism. They have nonetheless now given rise to vigorous criticism, even from those who are their beneficiaries.I43

On the left, the critics of legislated parity had the better philosophical arguments, and they could make a persuasive historical case that le droit h la dqfbence was unlikely to support liberal democratic politics for long. On the right, legislated parity commanded at best lukewarm support. Why then did parity become the law of the land?The critics of legislated parity did not rest their case on philosophical and historical grounds alone; they also argued that legislatingparity was apolitical mistake, a misguided choice in favor of a quick fix.They suggested that the intellectual incoherence of the pro-parity camp reflected above all the unwillingness of the purituires to organize and fight a sustained political battle. The Constitution and the republican tradition on which it rested were not the problem, parity’s critics argued. French political parties were the problem. But the constitution was much easier to attack-and infinitelyeasier to change-and thepurituires chose the easy path, deliberately disregarding the long-term dangers their strategy entailed. “This kind of measure is but a caricature of real solidarity,based on struggle and action,”Daniele Sallenave warned; “creatingquotas (or parity, what’s the difference?)means preferring the ‘natural’recognition of my rights to the conquest of those same rights. It’s an antipolitical,bureaucratic, undemocratic strategy.”144“Itwasn’t a critique of the universal that was needed,”Elisabeth Badinter argued, “buta critique of the political establishment.”l*5But that was just the problem: “itis easier for a deputy to vote for parity,”JacquesJulliard conceded, “thanit is for him to step aside in favor of a woman when the party is choosing candidates.”l* In sum, thepurituires won because their assertion-simultaneously descrip tive and normative-that the number of women in French political life was ridiculously low was virtually uncontested (at least in public) and because the solution they proposed did not require a lengthy and frontal political struggle against either the institutions or the class of individuals most directly responsible for discouraging women from pursuing careers in public life. In essence, an argument from expediency won out over an argument from principle. The critics of parity warned that thepurituires, in their willingness to do whatever it took to achieve their goals, were opening the floodgates to

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communitarian demands: “How the devil does gender deserve more consideration than other differences?”Olivier Duhamel asked.147 Elisabeth Badinter sharpened the point: Which is more difficult in a society like French society: to be a beur or to be a woman?Doesn’twhat blacks and beurs go through every day entitle them to say that their experience gives them a particular perspective on problems that Parliament does not properly understand?l**

Danikle Sallenave warned that the paritaires’ solution to female underrepresentation would set a precedent that would “beinterpreted in an expansive and even abusive way, by all those who, for good or bad reasons, will try to compare their situation to the situation of women: blacks and beurs, gays and Muslims, Seventh-DayAdventists.“149 Would it? The decision to legislate parity, like a flexible approach to lai‘cite‘ and the readiness to improvise a status for Corsica, can be viewed as a bet. The decision’s opponents warned of its possible unintended effects. Their warnings may help defeat their predictions, by discouragingthe extension of the logic that informed theparitaires’ efforts. But at least in the short run, the intended effects of the parity legislation have been substantiallyfrustrated in ways that the critics’ arguments could have anticipated. The critics had cautioned that political shortcuts often lead to dead ends. In the legislative elections of June 2002, the major parties defied the requirement to nominate equal numbers of men and women: fewer than one-fifth of UMP candidates were women, and just over one-third of PS candidates were women. The UMP and the PS were more interested in protecting incumbents and maximizing seats than in avoiding the fines stipulated by the parity legislation.The smaller parties, less able to afford the fines and with no prospect of overall victory, were more careful to respect the law: the extreme left and the Greens obeyed the law’s requirements, with the National Front just behind (49 percent of the FN’s candidates were women). Only nine new deputies were women, bringing the percentage of women in the National Assembly to 12 (7 1 out of 577 deputies).150

The Pacte Civile de Solidaritt? The debates over the Pacte civile de solidarite‘(PACS, Civil Union Pact)-”a contract between two adults, of opposite or the same sex, drawn up in order to organize their common life”l51-and parity overlapped thematically and chronologically. Homosexuality, criminalized by the Vichy regime, had been decriminalized in 1982, during Robert Badinter’s tenure as minister of justice. No move was made, however, to give gay couples legal standing. That same year, the first AIDS cases were reported in France. In 1986, 2,213 cases were

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recorded over half of the victims were gay or bisexual. Effective medications were not yet available, and people had not yet internalized the practice of “safe sex.” In the late 1980s, AIDS decimated the gay population, and losses were particularly devastating (and publicly noticeable) in the plastic and performing arts. Dying men were finding themselves without social security and workrelated benefits, and the partners of dead men were being turned out of their apartments. In this context, extending legal recognition to gay couples seemed, at least to many people on the left, a social necessity. In 1989 and again in 1 9 7 , however, the Court of Appeals ruled that statutory references to free unions and concubinage could not be understood to include gay couples, since covered couples were assumed to be living “like spouses,”in “a stable and continuous relationship resembling marriage,”and marriage was, the court assumed, by definition a relationship between a man and a woman.152 The court decisions forced the issue of gay couples’ rights into the legislative arena. The PS was slow to adopt the cause of gay couples. The early 1990s were in any case difficult years for the party, and from 1993 to 1997, the left did not command a majority in parliament.Jospin had an ear for women’sconcerns but seemed to shy away from gay issues,which were believed to be politically risky. Initial legislative proposals were the work of parliamentarianswith ties to JeanPierre Chevenement’sMouvement des citqyens and the gay movement. A first bill was proposed in 1990; between 1990 and 1998, when the PACS bill was introduced in the NationalAssembly, a series of proposals were made. They differed in how they specified the kinds of relationship they sought to recognize and in the rights and duties they conferred on the partners to the relationship. Most proposals did not focus exclusively on same-sexcouples: in one of its versions, the PACS bill would have coveredfrutries (siblings living together), and in its final version, it was available as an option to heterosexual as well as to homosexual couples. Some proposals allowed one partner to “divorce”the other with little warning and few residual obligations; as adopted, a PACS remains binding on the partners unless they mutually consent to end it or until a settlement can be worked out in court. Unlike the parity debate, the PACS debate quickly became a partisan confrontation. The right, speaking through the impassioned and immoderate voice of Christine Boutin, framed the government’sbill as an attack on the family and the social order. The left, initially unenthusiastic about an issue that seemed to promise significant political costs and few benefits, displayed its misgivings about the legislation to disastrous effect by failing to show up for a crucial procedural vote in the National Assembly on October 9, 1998. The right killed the bill. Publicly humiliated by the success of the right’s parliamentary maneuver, the left reintroduced the legislation. Partly because of ambiguities in the proposed statute (What kinds of couples would be covered?What rights and duties would be created?)and partly because Madame Boutin’s conservative Catholic views (close to those of

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homophobic,antiabortion fundamentalistsin the United States) invited either condemnation or applause, but rarely discussion,the quality of public debate over the PACS never rose to the level attained in the controversy over parity. If anyone doubted the existence of a homophobic element in French society, the parliamentary debates (which lasted over 120 hours) and the slogans used in an anti-PACS protest march that mobilized some one hundred thousand people in Paris on January 31, 1999(“Pedesau bkher,” “Pasde neveux pour les tantouzes”153)were a reminder of the prejudices gays still faced. The long (and unfinished) controversy over the status of homosexual couples nonetheless raised serious social issues, and once again, the dEicult questions were aired in intraleft debates. The society-wide face-off between differentialists and universalists resurfaced. The differentialists argued that gay people should stand together and assert themselves as gays, as if they were fundamentally defined by their sexuality; if they criticized the PACS, it was for diluting the focus on gay couples and for not going far enough in extending gay rights. The universalists countered that gays should demand only measures promoting “integration,normality, and indifference,”*5*so that they would be defined politically by their sexual preferences no more than heterosexuals were by theirs. Most universalists supported the PACS rather than reinforce the homophobic camp, but they warned against the consequences of constructing legal categories on the basis of sexual orientation. The debate between differentialists and universalists affected many potential communities (women and immigrants as well as gays), but it had a particularly personal meaning in the gay community, since homosexuality could be denied or simply kept private (by comparison, hiding one’s gender is virtually impossible). At stake in the gay debate was not just the acceptance or refusal of communitarian politics, but different understandingsof the right to privacy. Who would decide an individual’s identity? Militant differentialists did not consider sexual preference to be a private matter. The association Act Up exemplified the differentialist position and made the news in the spring of 1999 by threatening to “out”a conservative deputy who had marched in the anti-PACS protest of January 31.155 Privacy and identity were central to the issue of gay marriage. That issue hovered over the PACS debate and captured the most complex societal questions embedded in the PACS controversy. In promoting the PACS, the government had insisted that it was not creating a rnariuge bis. It recognized that there was broad public support for extending legal recognition to gay couples, but much less support for gay marriage. The PACS did not confer on PACS couples the right to adopt children or to receive medical assistance in conceiving them. Marriage certificates are delivered at city hall; to reinforce the distinction between a marriage and a PACS, it was decided that PACS certificates would be given at the courthouse. Still, many people saw the PACS

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as a first step toward recognition of gay marriage, and even on the universalist left, not everyone was comfortable with what they saw. The debate about gay marriage was difficult and confused in part because no one seemed certain any more of what marriage was. No one, in fact, seemed able to define “family.”In the space of a generation, between the 1970s and the 1990s,the family had gone from being an institution “that articulates the difference between the sexes and the difference between generations” to being “a relational network” in which individuals (spouses, former spouses, lovers, children,stepchildren,in-lawsand former in-laws)constantly negotiate the terms of their relationships.156 In the late 1990s, about 40 percent of all French children were being born outside of marriage, and an equal percentage of marriages was ending in divorce. In a world of joint custody and reconfigured couples, who knows what parenthood means? The destabilizing factor driving the changes was the increasing equality of women, which transformed the dynamic within the institution of marriage. The sociologist Irene Thery identified three challenges created by the new situation: redefine the family circle now that a finite space and a temporal commitment no longer guarantee the identity of the group; resecure genealogical lines now that the permanence of the couple is no longer their basis; open up the symbolic order of family relations to unconventional figures who disturb the distinction between blood relations and relations based on agreements [alliance],157

Evelyne Pisier, a philosopher and jurist who opposed parity on universalist grounds, used the controversy over gay marriage to highllght the inconsistencies of theparitaire argument and to articulate a case for gay marriage. Her argument must have made people uncomfortable across the political and social spectrum, and it illustrates the enormous political and intellectual difficulty of the identity issues with which France grappled in the 1990s. The paritaire argument was based on the differentialistassertion that “humanity” is divided in a fundamental way by the fact that it is gendered; the same assertion informed the movement to create feminine forms of male nouns (professor, minister, author, and so on). In introducing the constitutional amendmentsin the National Assembly,la minister of justice Elisabeth Guigou quoted Sylviane Agacinski: “Humanityis universally gendered. . . . This is how we escape the logic of an exclusionary universalism, one which, recognizing neither men nor women, but only ‘the citizen,’ lends cover to legal sexism, as in 1789, or to de facto sexism, as is the case today.”158 Embedded in theparitaire argument, Pisier suggested, was “a sort of call to heterosexuality that delegitimizes in advance homosexual demands for marriage and parenthood.”159 Precisely in order to distinguish themselves from differentialists making communitarian arguments on behalf of other groups, theparitaires had elevated the difference between the genders to a

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truly fundamental difference, “ m e difference differente.”’a But the difference they were exalting was precisely the difference that had been used historically to oppress both women and homosexuals: “a theological and political determination to master sexuality is the common matrix for both sexism and homophobia.”161By supporting first parity and then the PACS, Pisier argued, theparitaires were laying the foundationsfor homophobia one day and then fighting it the next. To Pisier, universalism seemed a far preferable strategy, intellectually and politically. Only universalism could protect individual rights and choices; only universalism could reliably protect Ze droit h la d@rence. The universal has meaning only if its multiplicity is conceded. We would have no need for the concept, were it not for the human multitude and its multiple differences-differences not just between individuals, but within each of us, freely expressed: by our choices, our attitudes, and at different moments of our lives. It is therefore difficult to support the demand, however symbolic it may be, to differentiatebetween the sexes while at the same time laying claim to universalism.162

Like Elisabeth Badinter and other critics of parity, Pisier ridiculed the idea that “abstract”universalism stood in need of being made “concrete”: “The essential trait of any ideal is that it is abstract. . . . It is therefore not the ideal that is the problem, and to want to replace it with a concrete universalism makes literally no sense. Actions, not principles, are concrete.”163 Turning to the problem of action and the issue of gay marriage and parenthood, Pisier argued that the right to “solid social institutions based on norms that are likely to favor a democratic conception of justice” is a right that may limit other rights. She was therefore willing to entertain the argument that marriage was a crucial social institution that deserved special legal protection. But given the empirical diversity of types of couples and patterns of parenthood, she saw no argument that could support allowing gay couples to conclude a PACS while prohibiting them from marriage and parenthood. Either gay partnerships contradict the social order and should not be recognized at all, she argued, or they do not, in which case, gays should enjoy the same options available to heterosexuals. She concluded in favor of gay marriage and the right of gay couples to become parents. The PACS quickly became an accepted fact of French social life, unlikely to be reversed by any future political majority. The first PACS was signed on November 15, 1999, a week after the legislation took effect. By October 1 , 2001,43,970 PACS had been registered, about 60 percent of them apparently by heterosexual couples.1a Survey data indicate strong support for the PACS, even on the right. In September 1998 (just before the initial parliamentary debate), a poll suggested that 49 percent of the public supported the proposed legislation;two years later, that number had grown to 70 percent. Support for

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the PACS, as measured in September 2000, is overwhelming among younger age cohorts (88 percent among individuals between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four, 83 percent among those between twenty-five and thuzy-four), where homosexuality is also commonly described as “an acceptable way of living one’s sexuality” (the opinion of 83 percent and 74 percent of the two cohorts). Among conservative voters, 59 percent of RPR supporters also s u p port the PACS, as do 55 percent of UDF voters (but 47 percent of those who identtfy with Alain Madelin’s Dhocrutie lib&uZe). Across socioprofessional categories, support for the PACS approaches threequarters of the individuals polled-thus roundly disconfirmingthe PS’s cautious initial assessment of the PACS as a measure likely to be supported only by educated, upperclass urbanites. Two-thirds of the survey sample indicated support for legislation criminalizing homophobic speech, but less than a third supports allowing gay couples to adopt children. The population is evenly split on the question of gay marriage165-but this apparently conservative position may not mean much, since in 1998 the population was also evenly split on the PACS. Listening to Christine Boutin hold forth for hours on the floor of parliament about the putatively disastrous desacralization of marriage and the impending end of Christian civilization, one might have thought that French society was deeply divided by the lifestyle questions associated with the PACS. Instead, the evidence suggests that the political class-both right and left-was deeply out of touch with where public opinion was and where it could be led. This was especially obvious in the case of the right, whose elected officials used every parliamentary means conceivable to block the legislation, orchestrated a petition campaign by mayors opposed to the PACS, and then lined up to support an appeal to the Conseil constitutionnel (the appeal was signed by 213 deputies and 115 senators, includingAlain Juppe and Raymond Barre, both former prime ministers, and moderate conservativeslike Gilles de Robien,Jacques Barrot, and Franqois Bayrou). But the left failed to lead (as it had, for example, in imposing the abolition of the death penalty in September 1981): it misread public opinion and then mismanaged an important social debate.

The Politics of Scandal By the 1990s, scandals seemed to have lost their mudslinging, partisan punch-even when they involved the president of the Republic (Jacques Chirac) or the president of the Conseil constitutionnel (and former foreign minister, Roland Dumas), and regardless of whether the central figure was declared beyond the reach of the law (Chirac, by virtue of his presidential office) or sentenced to prison (Dumas). Instead, scandals came to seem part of the everyday life of the Republic, analogous to a low-gradevirus that refuses to go away. On one level, scandals seemed to satisfy a taste for public gossip. The facts

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in the Elf Affair-the scandal that brought down Roland Dumas-were extraordinarily complex and implicated major figures in Germany as well as France. It seems unlikely that the mass public found the substantive side of the case particularly riveting. In contrast, the human side of the cases could often be distracting. Christine Deviers-Joncour (born 1947), for examplethe self-styled “whore of the Republic” who was simultaneously Elf’s agent and Dumas’s mistress-made for juicy copy.166 At a deeper level, the procession of scandals suggested persistent and significant institutional problems.167 More than anything else, the scandals served as a reminder of how insular the political class had become and of how hard it was to hold politicians meaningfully to account. For all the changes taking place in and around France, one thing had not changed: the French republic had yet to invent adequate political transmission belts. Governments lacked the institutional tools they needed to address social problems like exclusion, and the political parties were not organized to respond to the issues of identity and membership discussed in this chapter. Whenever parties split or waffled on major public issues-Zui’cit6, European integrationthey encouraged the view among ordinary people that parties were simply cartels of people pursuing private ambitions in the public arena. Even when the private ambitions were satisfied by the capture of electoral office rather than the illicit accumulation of resources, the exercise seemed corrupt. The Jospin government’s campaign to “modernize political life” was designed to address this general malaise. Parity was part of it: whether or not women were intrinsically more practical and inclined to dialogue than men, parity would, it was hoped, prompt an influx of new people into politics. The new women would introduce the concerns and habits of civil society into the previously closed shop of French politics, thus breaking the insularity of the political class for long enough to establish a dynamic of openness and renewal within the political world. The government also moved to limit the number of offices an individual could hold concurrently (a reform urged by many people who deplored the relative absence of women in public life), on the argument that limiting the cumul des munduts would increase the number of offices up for grabs and so make room for newcomers, give public figures more time to cultivate ties with their constituencies and constituents, and make the daily schedules of politicians less lethal to the pursuit of a normal private life. Continued efforts to promote decentralization were another important aspect of the government’smodernization project, and as we have seen, decentralization remained a governmental priority after the political majority changed in 2002. Main Minc suggested a more depressing analysis of the divorce between the public and its elites than any government was likely to admit, but one that recalled Tocqueville and the arguments of Michel Crozier and Stanley Hoffmann. Minc (born 1949), valedictorian of his ENA class, was a manager and

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business consultant who became a highly visible and influential public intellectual; politically,he moved back and forth between the second left and the moderate right (represented, for example, by Edouard Balladur). Minc argued that the ”undemocraticcharacter of French elites is an exact reflection of the poverty of its civil society,”with its fragmented unions, its weak parties, and its statedominatededucational system. In France, he lamented, elites are p r o duced by the state (e.g., by the ENA) because there are no independent institutions strong enough to generate viable competitors.’” The state and civil society were still reinforcing each other’s inadequacies.

CONCLUSION When the French headed to the polls for the presidential and legislative elections of 2002, the party system seemed-as usual-several steps behind a changing society and a turbulent world. Chronologicallyspeaking, the major players in the presidential race should all have been candidates for retirement: Chirac and Jospin were pushing seventy and sixty-five respectively, Chevenement was sixty-three, Le Pen was born in 1928.169 Chirac had first served as prime minister a quartercentury before the 2002 elections. Most people did not believe that the election, whatever its result, would produce any new departures in policy. Jospin admitted that he was not proposing a socialist program; few listeners were likely to have been shocked by the news, and the results demonstrated just how few were mobilized by his vacuous talk of “Une France active, sibe, juste, moderne, forte.” Chirac and Chevenement promised swifter and more certain justice for youthful offenders-but then, so did Jospin, and the effect of the emphasis on crime was to motivate Le Pen’s electorate. Chevenement claimed that Chirac and Jospin were cut from the same cloth and that it was time for both to go, but while his own positions did differ signrficantly from those of the two main candidates, he had been repeating them for over a decade and had little prospect of rallying more than a dedicated minority. In what seemed like a distant past, self-styledrevolutionarieson the left had disparaged elections as meaningless pseudocompetitions between interchangeable candidates. Their slogan was “elections,piege a cons!” an expression that loses both its rhyme and its provocative vulgarity in translation, but whose message is that elections are for suckers. In April 2002, there were no fist-waving protesters shouting ‘‘elections,piege a cons!” in the streets of the Latin Quarter, but there were also no lines at poLLing places as the French cast their first-round ballots for president. The results-a second-round contest between Chirac and Le Pen-made the abstentionists and people who had “thrown away” their votes on minor candidates seem like suckers. But the abstention rate went up another notch in the June 2002 legislative elections.

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Record numbers of candidates stood for election-8,446 candidates for 577 seats, up 20 percent from 1997 and 45 percent from 1988170-and record numbers of voters nonetheless stayed home. Abstention had once been associated with social marginality. By the millennium, abstention had become common among well-educated, well-integrated,politically informed citizens. The right and the left were not interchangeable, but the political goods they offered did not answer to the demands of the society they purported to serve.

RECOMMENDED READING Beroud, Sophie, Rene Mouriaux, and Michel Vakaloulis. Le mouvement social en France: Essai de sociologiepolitique. Paris: La Dispute, 1998. Boisard, Pierre et al. Le travail, quel avenir? Rev. ed. Paris: Gallimard, 1997. Brunet, Jean-Paul. Saint-Denis, la ville rouge: socialisme et communisme en banlieue ouvriere, 1890-1939.Paris: Hachette, 1980. Castel, Robert. Les mdtamolphoses de la question sociale: Une chronique du salariat. Paris: Fayard, 1995. Drin, Louis [pseud.]. La socidtdfranGaise en tendances, 1975-1995, deux dbcennies de changement. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1998. Dubet, Francois, and Didier Lapeyronnie. Les quartiers d’exil. Paris: Le Seuil, 1992. Dubet, Franqois. Les lycdens. Paris: Le Seuil, 1991. Guaino, Henri. L’dtrange renoncement. Paris: Albin Michel, 1998. Guyomarch, Alain et al., eds. Developments in French Politics 2. Houndmills, Bas ingstoke, Hampshire, U.K.: Palgrave, 2001. Hall, Peter A., and David Soskice, eds. Varietiesof Capitalism:The Institutional Foundutions of ComparativeAdvantage. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Lavabre, Marie-Claire. Le fil rouge: Sociologie de la mdmoire communiste. Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1994. Machin, Howard, and Vincent Wright, eds. Economic Policy and Policy-Making under the Mitterrand Presidency, 1981-1984. New York: St. Martin’s, 1985. Marchand, Olivier. Le plein emploi, l’improbable retour. Paris: Gallimard, 2002. Marchand, Olivier, and Claude Thelot. Le travail en France, 1800-2000.Paris: Nathan, 1997. Mendras, Henri. Social Change in Modern France: Towards a Cultural Anthropology of the Ftfth Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Mouriaux, Rene. Crises du syndicalismefranGais. Paris: Montchrestien, 1998. Paugam, Serge, ed. L’exclusion:1’6tat des savoirs. Paris: La Decouverte, 1996. -. La socidtdfianGaise et sespauvres. 2nd ed. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1995. Paugam, Serge. Le salarid de la prtfcaritd:les nouvellesformes de l’intdgrationprofessionnelle. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2000. Paugam, Serge, and Duncan Gallie, eds. Welfare Regimes and the Experience of Unemployment in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Rey, Henri. La peur des banlieues. Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1996.

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Rosanvallon, Pierre. The New Social Question:Rethinking the Welfare State. Trans. Barbara Harshav. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000. Schnapper, Dominique. L’bpreuve du chbmage. Paris: Gallimard, 1994. Touraine, Alain, ed. Legrand refus: Rbjlexions sur la gr&vede dbcembre 1995.Paris: Fayard, 1996.

Immigration, Citizenship, and Multiculturalism Gaspard, Franqoise, and Farhad Khosrokhavar. Le foulard et la Rbpublique. Paris: La Decouverte, 1995. Kepel, Gilles. Allah in the West:Islamic Movements in America and Europe. Trans. Susan Milner. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997. -. Les banlieues de l’lslam: naissance d’une religion en France. Paris: Le Seuil,

1987. Noiriel, Gerard. Le creusetfranqais:histoire de l’immigration,XIXe-XXe si&cle.Paris: Le Seuil, 1988. -. Rkfugiks et sansgapim: La Rbpubliqueface au droit dmile, XIXe-XXe sit?&. Paris: Hachette, [ 19981. Schnapper, Dominique. The Community of Citizens: On the Modern Idea of Nationality. Trans. Severine Rosee. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1998. -. La France de I’intkgration:sociologie de la nation en 1990. Paris: Gallimard,

1991. Tribalat, Michele. Faire France: Une enqu&tesur les immigrbs et leurs enfants. Paris: La Decouverte, 1995. Weil, Patrick. La France et ses &angers: l’aventure d’une politique de l’immigration de 1938 h nos jours. Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1991. Wieviorka, Michel, ed. Unesociktkfragrnentke?Le multiculturalisme en dbbat. Paris: La Decouverte, 1997. Wieviorka, Michel. La France raciste. Paris: Le Seuil, 1992.

Parite and Related Issues Amar, Micheline, ed. Lepi&gede laparitk: argumentspour un dkbat. Paris: Hachette,

1999. Bachelot, Roselyne, and Genevieve Fraisse. Deuxfemmes au royaume des hommes. Paris: Hachette, 1999. Conseil d’etat. Rapportpublic 1996,Sur le principe d’bgalitb. Paris: La Documentation franpise, 1998. Ephesia. La place desfemmes: les enjeux de l’identitb et de l‘kgalitk au regard des sciences sociales. Paris: La DCcouverte, 1995. Gaspard, Franqoise, et al. Au pouvoir citoyennes! Libertk, kgalitk, paritb. Paris: Le Seuil, 1992. Halimi, GisPle et al. La paritb dans la viepolitique: Rapport de la commissionpour la paritk entre lesfemmes et les hommes dans la vie politique. Paris: La Documentation franpise, 1999. Heinich, Nathalie. “Les contradictions actuelles du feminisme.” Esprit, no. 273 (March-April ZOOl), pp. 203-219.

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Mossuz-Lavau,Janine, and Anne de Kervasdoue.Lesfemmes ne sontpas des hommes comme les autres. Paris: O d e Jacob, 1997. Mossuz-Lavau,Janine, and Mariette Sineau. Enqugte sup les femmes et lapolitique en France. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1983. Mossuz-Lavau, Janine. Femmes/Hommes,pour la paritd. Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1998. Pisier, Evelyne. “Sexes et sexualites: bonnes et mauvaises d&erences.” Les Temps Modernes, no. 609 (June-August 2000), pp. 156-175.

PACS and Related Issues Bachelot, Roselyne, ed. Le PACS entre haine et amour. Paris: Plon, 1999. Borillo, Daniel, and Pierre Lascoumes. Amours dgales? Le Pacs, les homosexuels et la gauche. Paris: La Decouverte, 2002. Eribon, Didier. RdJexions sur la question gay. Paris: Fayard, 1999. Martel, Frkderic. The Pink and the Black: Homosexuals in France since 1968.Trans. Jane Marie Todd. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999. Thery, Irene. “Difference des sexes et difference des generations: I’institution familiale en desherence.”Esprit, no. 227 (December 1996), pp. 65-30.

NOTES 1. See Pascal Bruckner, “Y a-t-il une alternative au capitalisme?”Esprit, no. 271 (January 200l), p. 21. 2. The opening line of the Manifesto of the Communist Party reads: “A spectre is haunting Europe-the spectre of communism.” 3. “Low Salaries in France since the Beginning of the 1980s and Some Points of Comparison with the United States” and “The Homeless in Paris and in the United States,”in INSEE, Donndes sociules: L a socidtd franpzise (Paris: INSEE, 1999), articles at pp. 128-131,162-168,480-489. 4. “TheUrban Underclass in the American Social and ScientificImagination”and “Workfarein the United States,”in Serge Paugam, ed., L’exclusion: I‘dtat des savoirs (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1996>,pp. 248-262 and 472-483. The use of untranslated terms is often indicative of social perceptions: no society wants to be in need of its own word for “underclass,”and the perpetuation of a large population of “workingpoor”through “workfare”and other policies is a part of the American model that the French wish to avoid. 5. In French, the word citd is typically used to denote a group of buildings set apart from some broader social unit: a citd universitaire, for example, refers to student housing (segregated from regular residential neighborhoods), and public housing developments are often referred to as citbs. Other expressions for troubled neighborhoods include quartiers ddshdritt%,quartiers difficiles,and quartiers dexil. Since in France (in contrast to the United States) central cities are prosperous while peripheral areas are often less advantaged, references to suburbs (banlieues)are often intended to suggest poorer neighborhoods.

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6. Matters pertaining to “identity”are not even considered appropriate objects of public comment. This may help explain why the French often seem so “private”or “reserved”to more gregarious American observers. 7. The expression recurs in political discourse, academic writing, and everyday speech. See Christian Jelen’sstudy of immigrants,Zl feront de born FranGais (Paris: Laffont, 1991) and Eugen Weber’s classic work, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1976). 8. See Franqois Dubet and Didier Lapeyronnie, Les quartiers d’exil (Paris: L e Seuil, 1992). 9. Alain Touraine, “Facea l’exclusion,”Esprit, no. 169 (February 1991), p. 8. For a discussion of how the term exclusion entered the public vocabulary, see Serge Paugam, “Laconstitution d’un paradigme,”in Serge Paugam, ed., L’exclusion:l’ktat des savoirs (Paris: La Decouverte, 1996), pp. 7-19. 10. Franqois Dubet, “L’Exclusionscolaire: Quelles solutions,” in Paugam, ed., L’exclusion:l’ktat des savoirs, p. 497. 11. Poll cited in Serge Paugam, “La constitution d’un paradigme,”in Paugam, ed., L’exclusion: l’ktat des savoirs, p. 16. 12. See Robert Castel, Les mktamolphoses de la question sociale: Une chronique du salariat (Paris: Fayard, 1995). 13. The Znternationale actually combined demands for each version of systemic change: the oppressed would topple their oppressors,but in the new world, all would be equal. Thus the first verse ran: Debout! les damnes de la terre! Debout! les forqats de la faim! La raison tonne en son cratere: C’est l’eruption de la fin. Du passe faisons table rase, Foule esclave, debout! Debout! Le monde va changer de base: Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout! The lyrics, which as usual lose in translation, are less familiar to Americans: Arise, ye prisoners of starvation Arise, ye toilers of the earth For reason thunders new creation ’Tis a better world in birth. Never more traditions’ chains shall bind us Arise, ye toilers no more in thrall The earth shall rise on new foundations We are but naught we shall be all. These words, sung at countless marches and meetings in the postwar decades, were familiar to generations of French men and women, which is another reason for including them here. 14. Daniel Mothe, “Les salaires ou l’emploi?”in Pierre Boisard et al., Le travail, quel avenir? new ed. (Paris: Gallimard, 1997), p. 83.

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15. Dominique Schnapper,LZpreuve du cbbmuge, new ed. (Paris: Gallimard, 194), p. 13. 16. Franqois Mitterrand, Ici et maintenant, conversations avec Guy Claisse (Paris: Fayard, 1980), p. 303. 17. Raymond Barre, cited in Renk Mouriaux, Crises du syndicdisme franGais (Paris: Montchrestien, 1998), p. 21. 18. These numbers should be viewed as lowend estimations. Most countries sys tematically undercount the unemployed. In France,for instance,someone who works for pay for one hour a week counts as “employed”-even ifthat person wants or needs full-time employment. 19. OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development], OECD Historical Statistics 1960-1997 (Paris: OECD, 1999), p. 45. 20. OECD, OECD Historical Statistics 1970-1999 (Paris: OECD, 2001), pp. 42, 45; figures for the 1980s and 1990s are standardized. 21. OECD, OECD Historical Statistics 1970-1999, p. 48. 22, OECD, OECD Historical Statistics 1970-1999, p. 48. 23. Roger Fauroux, &tats de sewice (Paris: Hachette, 1998), p. 68. 24. OECD, OECD Historical Statistics 1970-1999, p. 36. 25. OECD, OECD Historical Statistics 1970-1999, p. 38 for the figures for 1974 and 1979. 26. Louis Drin [pseud.],La sociktd fraqaise en tendances, 1975-1995, d e w dbcennies de cbangement (Paris: Presses universitairesde France, 1998), p. 51. 27. INSEE, La France en breL Internet ed. (Paris: INSEE, November 2001), p. 10. 28. INSEE, La France en breJ p. 10. 29. INSEE, Donnkes sociales: La sociktd fraqaise (Paris: INSEE, 1999),pp. 101f. 30. INSEE, France, Portrait social 1998-1999 (Paris: INSEE, 1998), p. 124. 31. INSEE, France, Portrait social 1998- 1999, p. 4. 32. INSEE, Donnkes sociales: La sociktk francaise, p. 180. 33. Cited in Dominique Schnapper,L’kpreuve du cbbmage, new ed. (Paris: Galh a r d , 19941, p. 133. 34. Cited in Schnapper, L’dpreuve du cbbmage, p. 100. 35. Cited in Schnapper, L’dpreuvedu cbbmage, p. 116. 36. Cited in Schnapper,L’kpeuue du cbbmage, pp. 107-108. Bicots is a pejorative term for North Africans; it has the same connotationsin French that the word nigger has in English. Street sweepers in France are overwhelmingly immigrants or of North African descent. 37. Franqois Dubet, Les lycdens (Paris: Jx Seuil, 1991), p. 214. The bracketed labels are mine. 38. Dubet, Les lyckens, p. 214. 39. See Grard Mermet, Francoscopie2001 (Paris: Larousse, [2000]),p. 305; Mermet puts the figure at 7 percent. For an analysis, see Rene Mouriaux, Crises du syndicalisme franGais (Paris: Montchrestien, 1998). 40. OECD, Social Expenditure Database, Public Expenditure, vol. 2001; available online through SourceOECD. 41. Peter A. Hall,“TheEvolution of Economic Policy,”in Main Guyomarch et al., eds., Developments in French Politfa 2 (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, U.K.: Palgrave, 2001), p. 189.

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42. INSEE, Donn6es sociales: La soci6t6 franGaise(Paris:INSEE, 1999), p. 115. 43. Franqois Mitterrand, Lettre a tom les FranGais, in Le Monde, April 9, 1988, p. 14.The Lettre was Mitterrand’s campaign platform. He released it on April 7,1988; Le Monde published the text in two segments, on April 8,1988 (pp. 7-9) and April 9, 1988 (pp. 12-14). 44. Claude Evin, the minister of solidarity,in a speech on October 4,1988, introducing the proposed law cited in Serge Paugam, La socfdt6franGaiseet sespauvres: l’exp&ence du revenu minimum dinsertion (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1993), p. 90.Evin is a socialist,but ardent and ardeur are favorite Gaullist words. 45. Foreigners and people under twenty-five are not covered by the RMI.Young people are excluded because they are normally covered by other programs. 46. INSEE, Donndes sociales:La socidtd frangaise (Paris: INSEE, 1999), pp. 406f. 47. Claude Allegre, Toute v&td est bonne a dire: Entretiens avec Laurent Joffrin (Paris: Laffontflayard, 2000), p. 23. 48. For an analysis, see Antoine Prost, Education,soci6t6 etpolitiques: Une histoire de l’enseignement de 1945 a nos jours, rev. ed. (Pans: Le Seuil, 1997), pp. 204-221. 49. INSEE, Donndes sociales: La socidtd frangake(Paris:INSEE, 1999), p. 96. 50. INSEE, France, Portrait social 1998-1999 (Paris: INSEE, 1998), p. 157. 51. INSEE, L’entr6e desjeunes duns la vie active (Paris: INSEE, 2000), p. 24. 52. INSEE, L’entrde des jeunes duns la vie active, pp. 13 and 20. 53. Franqois Dubet and Didier Lapeyronnie, Les quartiers dem.1 (Paris: Le Seuil, 1992), pp. 11 and 112. 54. Dubet and Lapeyronnie, Les quartiers dexil, p. 111. See also Dubet, La galhe:jeunes en survie (Paris: Fayard, 1987). 55. “Encolere apres la mort de Habib, des jeunes de Toulouse racontent leur vie dans les cites,”Le Monde, December 18, 1998, p. 10. The forty-one-yearaldpolice officer who fired the fatal shot was immediately suspended,but the investigating pros ecutor, by evoking the likelihood of “an accidental shot in the confusion of the moment” (see “Lesviolences ont dkborde les quartiers du Mirail des I’apresmidi de lundi,”Le Monde, December 16, 1998, p. lo), confirmed angry young residents in their convictionthat police violencewould always be judged more lenientlythan their own. At a demonstration in memory of Habib, one banner proclaimed: “Tropde justice pour un vol de voiture, pas assez de justice pour la mort d’Habib”(“Too much j u s tice for a car theft, not enough justice for Habib’s death”)(Le Monde, December 17, 1998,p. lo). 56. Franqois Dubet and Didier Lapeyronnie, Les quartiers dexil (Paris: Le Seuil, 19921, p. 179. 57. See Dubet and Iapeyronnie, Les quartiers dexil, pp. 199-228. 58. So described (“the great affair of the presidential term”) by prime minister Pierre Mauroy in July 1981;Mauroy cited in Pierre Favier and Michel Martin-Roland,La de’cennie Mitterrand,vol. 1,bsruptures (1981-1984) (Paris: Le Seuil, 1990), p. 172. 59. Jean-Claude Thoenig, “Ladecentralisation, dix ans apres,”Pouvoirs, no. 60 (1992), p. 6. 60. Yves Meny, “La Republique des fiefs,”Pouvoirs, no. 60 (1992), p. 18. 61. Meny, “La Republique des fiefs,”p. 18. 62. Jean-Pierre Chevenement, March 9, 2002, in “M. Chevenement lance a la jeunesse un appel a ‘l’effort,”’Le Monde, March 12, 2002, p. 8.

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63. In February 2002,polling institutes estimated support for Chevenement’scandidacy at between 8 and 14 percent of the electorate. His support began to drop in early March, about seven weeks before the first-roundvote on April 21. 64.For a sense of how citizenship regimes have varied across time and place, see: Christian Joppke, Immigration and the Nation-State: The United States, Germany, and Great Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999),Rogers Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany (Cambridge, M A : Harvard University Press, 1992), and Patrick Weil, Qu’est-ce qu’un FranGais? Histoire de la nationalite‘ franGaise depuis la Re‘volution (Paris: Grasset, 2002). 65. See Yvan Gastaut,L’immigrationet l’opinion en France sous la Ve Re‘publique (Paris: Le Seuil, ZOOO), pp. 77-118. 66. Jacques Chirac, June 19,1991,statement made at a public dinner in Orleans, cited in “Le rnaire de Paris: ‘I1y a overdose,’”Le Monde,June 21, 1991,p. 40.Chirac’s remarks provoked a torrent of commentary from other political figures and journalists; see reporting in Le Monde,June 22, 1991. 67. See Valery Giscard d’Estaing, “Immigration ou Invasion?”Le Figaro Magazine, September 21,1991,pp. 48-57.The weekly Figaro Magazine was launched as a supplement to the daily Figaro in October 1978 under the editorial leadership of Louis Pauwels (born 1920),a prominent right-wing intellectual. The publication was virulently antisocialist and often lent its pages to the expression of views close to those of the National Front. 68. Chalandon in L’Ev2nement du jeudi, November 20,1986;see Yvan Gastaut, L’immigration et l’opinion en France sous la VeR6publique (Paris: Le Seuil, 2000), p. 548. 69. Pierre Chaunu, L’Express, October 24,1986,p. 20. 70. Under the constitution of the Fifth Republic, the president can send legislation back to parliament for reconsideration (Article 10). 71. Marceau Long et al., &re franGais aujourdhui et demain, vol. 2,Conclusions et propositions de la Commission de la Nationalite‘ (Paris: La Documentation franpise/Union generale des editions, 1988),pp. 235,234.In March 2001,Dominique Schnapper (born 1934)was named to the Conseil constitutionnel. 72.Jacques Julliard, “Lesmaisons d’intolkrance,”Le Nouvel Observateur, October 26,1989,p. 71. 73. Lionel Jospin, interviewed by Elisabeth Schemla, “Jospin: AccueiLlez les foulards!”Le Nouvel Obsewateur, October 26,1989,pp. 78-79. 74. Badinter’s works include Mother Love, Myth and Reality: Motherhood in Modm Histoly, trans. Roger DeGaris (New York Macmillan, 1981),&milie,&milie:l’ambitionfiminine au XWIIe sickle (Paris: Flammarion, 1983), The Unopposite Sex: The End of the Gender Battle, trans. Barbara Wright (New York Harper & Row, 1989),and XI: on MasculineIdentity,trans. Lydia Davis (New York Columbia University Press, 1995). 75. Debray’sautobiographical writings include Loub soient nos seigneurs: Une bducationpolitique (Paris: Gallimard, 1996).His political writings are cited below, in chapter 8. 76. Finkiekaut’s books include L a de‘fuite de lapensk (Paris: Gallimard, 1987) and La m6moire vaine (Paris: Gallimard, 1989), as well as two books written in collaboration with Pascal Bruckner: Le nouveau dbsordre amoureux (Paris: Le Seuil, 1977)and A u coin de la rue, l’aventure (Paris: Le Seuil, 1979).

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77. Elisabeth Badinter, Regis Debray, Alain Finkielkraut, Elisabeth de Fontenay, Catherine Kintzler, “Profs,ne capitulons pas!” Le Nouvel Observateur, November 2, 1989, pp. 58-59. 78. Jules Ferry, Senate, May 13, 1883, cited in Jean-Marie Mayeur, La question lai‘que, XIXe-XXe sickle (Paris: Fayard, 1997), p. 58. 79. Franqoise Gaspard, “Pensons a m musulmanes qui se battent!” Le Nouvel Observateur, October 26, 1989, p. 80. 80. Jean Daniel, “Le message code du ‘foulard,’” Le Nouvel Obsewateur, October 26, 1989,p. 70. Daniel, a menddsiste,was a central figure at L’Bpress in the 1950sand a prominent critic of French policy in Algeria. In 1964, he was a founding member of Le Nouvel Observateur.He became editor (“director”)of the weekly in 1978.Throughout his career, he sought to promote a better understanding of Arab issues among his readers. 81. Lionel Jospin, interviewed by Elisabeth Schemla, “Jospin: Accueillez les foulards!” Le Nouvel Observateur, October 26, 1989, p. 79. 82. Jean Daniel, “L’autrepari,”Le Nouvel Observateur, November 2, 1989,p. 60. 83. In Le Figaro, October 24, 1989, cited in Yvan Gastaut, L’immigration et l’opinion en France sous la Ve Rbpublique (Paris: Le Seuil, 2000), p. 586. Silvia Monfort was not just any actress. She was a veteran of the Resistance; her first husband, the philosopher and playwright Maurice Clavel(1920-1979), was one of its heroes. After the war, Monfort and Clavel were associated with director Jean Vilar (1912-1971) during the glory days of the Festival d’Avignonand the Thdhtre nationalpopulaire (T”), which tried to make quality theater accessible to ordinary people. In 1951, Monfort played Chimene to a r a r d Philipe’s Don Rodrigue in a TNP production of Corneille’s Le Cid. In the 1970s, she directed first the Gaite lyrique and then the Carre Silvia-Monfort in Paris. On Jean Vilar and the TNP, see Claude Roy,Jean Vilar (Paris: CalmannLkvy, 1987). 84. Lionel Jospin, interviewed by Elisabeth Schemla, “Jospin: Accueillez les foulards!”Le Nouvel Observateur, October 26, 1989, p. 79. 85. See analysis of s w e y data in Yvan Gastaut, L’immigration et l’opinion en France sous la Ve Rdpublique (Paris: Le Seuil, 2000), pp. 572-575. 86. Gastaut, L’immigration et l’opinion en France sous la Ve Rkpublique, pp. 591-592. 87. See Elisabeth Guigou, Unefemme a u coeur de l’dtat:Entretiens avec Pierre Favre et Micbel Martin-Roland(Paris: Fayard, 2000). 88. hsabeth Guigou, Pour les europdens (Paris: Flammarion, 1994), p. 50. 89. Jean Daniel, “L’autrepari,”LeNouvel Observateur, November 2, 1989, p. 60. 90. Lionel Jospin, cited in “Tous les responsables expriment leur ‘indignation,’” Le Monde, February 8-9, 1998, p. 5. 91. Jacques Chirac, in a eulogy for Claude Erignac, February 9, 1998, text in Le Monde, February 11, 1998, p. 7. 92. The law was named for Pierre Joxe, who was minister of the interior when it was passed. 93. On April 19,1999,police agents torched an illegal beachfront restaurant. Bonnet was implicated in the operation. 94. Lionel Jospin, “Mon pari pour la Corse,”Le Nouvel Observateur, August 17, 2000, p. 26.

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95. Two of the principals have given their accounts of what happened: seeJeanPierre Chevenement, Le courage de decider (Paris: Robert Laffont, 2002), pp. 91-106 and Olivier Schrameck, Matignon rive gauche, 2997-2001 (Paris: Le Seuil, 2001), pp. 143-163. Schrameck was a close advisor to Jospin; along with Alain Christnacht, he played a key role in shaping Corsican policy. For less partisan accounts, see Cecile Amar and Ariane Chemin,Jospin et Cie: Histoire de la gauche plurielle, 1993-2002 (Paris: Le Seuil, 2002), pp. 204-217 and Gerard Leclerc and Florence Muracciole,Jospin: Z‘enigme du conquerant (Paris: J. C. Lattes, 2001), pp. 121-124 and 142-150. 96.Alain Madelin (born 1946)created Demomutie liberale out of the ashes of the Parti republicain (one of the parties that had existed under the UDF umbrella) inJune 1997, after the right’s defeat in the parliamentary elections. Madelin had begun his political career on the extreme right, before becoming a free-marketeer and holding economic portfolios in the conservative governmentsof the late 1980s and 1990s. In 2002, he ran for president and won 3.9 percent of the vote. He later placed DL at the disposal of Chirac’snewly formed Unionpour la majoritdpr6sidentielle. 97. Jean-MichelRossi and Francois Santoni, Pour solde de tout compte, entretiens avec Guy Benhamou: les nationalistes corsesparlent (Paris: Denoel, 2000). 98. The prime minister’s official website provided a dossier on “l’avenirde la Corse,”and the dossier in turn offered a set of “Questionsreponsessur la politique du Gouvernement en Corse.” 99. See text of proposals in Le Monde, August 6-7,2000, p. 9. 100. See for exampleAdrien Gouteyron, “Corse:LionelJospin en apprenti sorcier,” Le Monde, August 10,2000, p. 6. 101. This was true of JeanClaude Casanova, editor of the influential periodicalCommentaire. Alain Madelin and Franqois Lkotard (UDF) also supported the Matignon process. 102. Conseil constitutionnel, Decision 2001-454 DC, January 17, 2002. 103. Jean-PierreChevenement,Le couruge de decider(Paris:Robert Laffont, 2002), pp. 100f. 104. Chevenement,Le courage de decider, pp. 96-106. Chevknement borrowed the expression “Munichinterieur” (p. 105) from Nicolas Alfonsi. 105. JacquesJulliard, “La loi de la peur,”Le Nouvel Observateur,August 31,2000, p. 55. lob. In its decision no. 91-290 DC of May 19, 1991, the Conseil constitutionnel struck down the first article of the Joxe law, which stipulated The French Republic guarantees to the living historical and culrural community that constitutes the Corsican people [lepeuple come],one element of the French people, the right to preserve its cultural identity and to defend its particular social and economic interests. These rights, tied to the insular nature of Corsica, are to be exercised in accordance with the principle of national unity and within the framework of the COnStitutiOn, the laws of the Republic, and the present Statute.

A number of other clauseswere also struck the rest of the law was allowed to stand. The Court’s argument on Article 1 is captured in paragraphs 12 and 13 of its decision:

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12. Consideringthat by the terms of the first paragraph of the preamble to the Constitution of 1958 “the French people solemnly proclaims its attachment to the rights of man and to the principles of national sovereigntyas defined by the Declarationof 1789, confirmed and developed by the preamble to the Constitution of 1946“; that the Declarationof the Rights of Man and of the Citizen thus invoked emanated from the representatives of “the French people”; that the preamble to the Constitution of 1946, reafhned by the preamble to the Constitution of 1958, affirms that “the French people proclaims again that every human being, without distinction of race, religion, or faith, is possessed of inalienable and sacred rights”;that the Constitution of 1958 distinguishesbetween the French people and foreign peoples, whose right of self-determinationis recognized that the reference to “the French people” has figured for two centuries in numerous constitutional texts; that therefore the juridical concept of “the French people” has constitutional standing. 13. Considering that France is, by Article 2 of the Constitution of 1958, une Rbpublique indivksible, laique, dhocrutique et sociule that guarantees equality before the law to all citizens regardless of their origin; that therefore the reference made by the legislature to ”the Corsican people, one element of the French people” is contrary to the Constitution, which recognizes only the French people, composed of all French citizens without dis tinction of origin, race, or religion.

107. Angelo Rinaldi, “11sne le lkheront pas!”Le Nouuel Observuteur,August 10, 2000, p. 34. 108. Rinaldi, “Ilsne le lacheront pas!”p. 34. 109. Jacques Julliard, “La paix oui, le chantage non!” Le Nouuel Observuteur, August 10,2000, p. 36. In the opening paragraphs of his article (pp. 35-36), Julliard emphasized the connection between the recent decisions on parity (examined later in this chapter) and the proposed solution for Corsica: Yesterday, by securing political parity between men and women, [the government] broke with the republican principle of remaining blind to race, gender, and religion. Thus it replaced the philosophical presumption of equality between individuals with the sociclogical affirmation of their differences. The “Republic”does not take note of persons or of groups. In contrast, “democracy”introduces forms of discrimination that, while positive, are nevertheless forms of discrimination. We were promised that the distinction between the sexes would remain an exception, because it is somehow generic. Dreams! No sooner had the principle of parity been voted than a petition demanded, not without foundation, that blacks be better represented on television. The republic of quotas had been born,and was displacing, under the approving eyes of an incontestable republican uospin], the universal republic of yesteryear. The same thing is happening with Corsica. . . . Lionel Jospin had made the restoration of order and compliance with the law the condition of reform. . . . Jospin was succeeding, with Chevhement’s help: confidence returned, attacks grew less frequent. Only the impetuous zeal of an excessively zealous and authoritarian prefect [Bonnet] allowed the nationalists to get back in the game. Something had to be done and, since past policies of secret negotiations had gone nowhere, the only solution was public negotiations. With a heavy price: the nationalists were assigned a legitimacy that the ballot box had always denied them. . . . The cowardly relief [Mcbe soulugement-a reference to Blum’s 1938 remark] that followed the ambiguous agreement, prompted by the idea of a prolongation of the truce, signifies that Lionel Jospin has won a battle. But I fear that he may have lost the war. The semiofficial recognition of the nationalists was not accompanied by any substantial reciprocal concession,other than the renewal of the truce, which can be broken at any moment.

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110. Julliard, “La paix oui, le chantage non!” p. 36. 1 1 1. Julliard, “La loi de la peur,” Le Nouvel Obseruateur,August 31, 2000, p. 55. 112. For a particularly interesting account, see Michele Tribalat, Faire France: Une a Decouverte, 1995). enqugte sur les immigre‘s et leurs enfants (Paris: L 113. The first article, “Alsace: quand les associations portent le flambeau de l’autonomisme,”appeared in the August 22, 2000 issue of the newspaper (p. 10). The implied argument of the series’ title notwithstanding, the editorial position of Le Monde was supportive of the “Matignonprocess.” 114. Statistics in Gisele Halimi, et al., La parite‘ duns la viepolitique:Rapport de

la commission pour la parite‘ entre les femmes et les hommes duns la viepolitique (Paris: La documentation franqaise, 1999), pp. 59-62. 115. Alain Juppe, interview in L’Express,June 6, 1996, p. 37. 116. Athens Declaration, November 3, 1992, at the conclusion of the conference “Femmesau pouvoir,” cited in Janine Mossuz-Lavau,Femmes/Hommes,Pour laparit6 (Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1998), p. 36. 117. Conseil constitutionnel, decision no. 82-146 DC, November 18, 1982. Article 3 of the Constitution read as follows: National sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercise it through their representatives and by means of referenda. No section of the people, nor any individual, can arrogate to itself (or him/herself), the exercise of sovereignty. Suffrage may be direct or indirect, according to rules stipulated by the Constitution. Suffrage is always universal, equal, and secret.

Article 6 of the Declaration of Rights reads: The law is the expression of the general will. AU citizens have the right to participate, directly or through their representatives, in its elaboration. The law must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally admissible to all honors, functions,and public positions, according to their capacities, without any distinction other than that based on their virtues and talents.

118. “Manifestedes 577 pour une democratie paritaire,” Le Monde, November 10, 1993, p. 6. 119. For a precampaign statement of Chirac’sposition, seeJacques Chirac, “Le combat des femmes,”LeMonde,April 22, 1994,pp. 1 and 2. Chirac’sarticle was occasioned by the fiftieth anniversary of the enfranchisement of women. The same issue of Le Monde carried an article by Gisele Halimi in favor of parity (“Egalite = parite,” p. 2). Simone Veil, speaking at a commemorative meeting organized by Charles Pasqua, argued for a constitutional amendment and quotas (see “MmeVeil se prononce pour un quota de representation politique des femmes,”Le Monde, April 23, 1994, p. 11). 120. “Le Manifeste des dix pour la parite,” L’Express,June 6, 1996, pp. 32-33. 121. The Ten were: Michele Barzach (born 1943, RPR, a doctor by training, deputy minister for health from 1986 to 19881, Frederique Bredin (born1956, PS, minister for youth and sports in Edith Cresson’sgovernment), Edith Cresson (born 1934, PS, prime minister from 1991 to 1992), Helene Gisserot (born1936, a high-level civil servant and advisor to conservative governments on women’s issues), Catherine Lalumiere (born 1935, PS, successivelyminister for consumer affairs and European affairs between 1981

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and l986),Veronique Neiertz (PS, in charge of consumer affairs in the Rocard government), Monique Pelletier (born 1926,UDF, a deputy minister under Giscard from 1978 to 1981,appointed to the Conseil constitutionnelin 2000),Yvette Roudy (born1929, PS, deputy minister for women’s rights from 1981 to 1986), Catherine Tasca (born 1937,PS, minister of communications in the Rocard government and later minister of culture in Jospin’s government), and Shone Veil (born 1927,UDF, minister of health under Giscard and minister for social and urban affairs in Balladur’s government). 122. LionelJospin, ‘Dix ans pour y parvenir,’” interview in L’hpress,June 6,1996,

p. 36. 123. See Jean-Michel Apathie, “Sylviane Agacinski, de la philosophie avant toute chose,” Le Monde, December 15, 1998,p. 12;Sylviane Agacinski, “Contre l’effacement des sexes,’’Le Monde, February 6,1999, pp. 1 and 14;see also Agacinski’sbook, Politique des sexes (Paris: Le Seuil, 1998). 124. Lionel Jospin, June 19,1997;a ddclaration depolitique gdnkale is normally given at the beginning of a governmental term; translated into American terms, it is something like a cross between an inaugural address and the president’sannual “State of the Union” address. 125. For more on electoral systems, see appendix C. 126. In other words, a party may put a woman at the head of its list, then put three men in spots 2,3,and 4,and two women in spots 5 and 6,or it may put three men fmt and three women second, or it may alternate men and women, and so on. It can use one pattern for the first six spots on a list and another pattern for the next six spots. 127. See for example the floor debate in the National Assembly that followed the government’s presentation of the proposed amendments, Journal oficiel, Ddbats parlementaires, Assemblde nationale, December 15,1998,pp. 10496-10510.In February 1999,dilatory moves in the Senate nearly forced the government to switch to a referendum strategy. 128. “Saisine du Conseil constitutionnel par plus de soixante Senateurs,” May 5, 2000,paragraph A-3, reproduced in the documentation accompanying the Court’s decision, no. 2000-429DC, May 30,2000. 129. Both terms were used to heckle parliamentary speakers. Ringard is slang for “outmoded,old-fashioned.” 130. NathaIie Heinrich, “Les contradictions actuelles du feminisme,”Esprit, no. 273 (March-April ZOOl), p. 213. 131. OlivierDuhamel,“Guerirlemile park mal,”L’Express,June 6,1996, p. 39.The pun disappears in the translation: le mdle refers to the male gender; le ma1 means bad, evil. The expression translates roughly as “remedyingwhat is male by what is wrong.” 132. See for example Dominique Schnapper, “La transcendance par le politique” (March 20,1999), in Micheline Amar, ed., LepiBge de laparitd: Argumentspour un ddbat (Faris: Hachette, 1999),p. 112. 133. asabeth Badinter, “La parite est une regression,” interview in L’EvBnement dujeudi, February 4,1999,in Amar, ed., LepiBge de laparitd, p. 43. 134. Schnapper, “La transcendance par le politique,”in Amar, ed., LepiBge de la paritd, p. 1 15. 135. Mona Ozouf, “Unebienheureuse abstraction,”March 24,1999,in Amar, ed., LepiBge de laparitd, p. 154. 136. Dominique Schnapper, “La transcendance par le politique,”in Amar, ed., Le piBge de la paritd, pp. 1 12f.

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137. Catherine Kintzler, “La parite, ou le retour de la ‘nature,”’in Amar, ed., Le pikge de la parit&,p. 90. 138. Robert Badinter, in testimony to the Senat,January 26,1999, in Amar, ed., Le pikge de la parit&,p. 35. 139. Olivier Duhamel, “Paritesans principes,”L’Bpress,July 11, 1996, p. 29. The article concludes: “One should not employ the methods of apartheid to achieve a just goal.”Duhamel was an editor of the influential revue Pouvoirs, which he helped found in 1977, and coeditor of SOFRES’s annual Opinion publique. His works include La gauche et la Ve Rbpublique (Paris: Quadrige/Presses universitaires de France), 1993. 140. Elisabeth Badinter, “La parite est une regression,”interview in L’Evknement du jeudi, February 4, 1999, in Micheline Amar,ed., LepiBge de laparit&:Arguments pour un d&bat(Paris: Hachette, 1999), p. 41. 141. Badinter, “La parite est une regression,” p. 42. 142. Badinter, ”La parite est une regression,” pp. 42-43. This was indeed the type of argument that conservatives like Alain Madelin used to justify Corsican autonomy. 143. Daniele Sallenave, “Le piege de la parite,” Marianne, May 1997, in Amar, ed., Lepikge de laparit&,p. 23. 144. Sallenave, “Le piege de la parite,” p. 24. 145. Elisabeth Badinter, “La parite est une regression,”interview in L’EvBnement dujeudi, February 4, 1999,in Amar, ed., LepiBge de laparit&(Paris:Hachette, 1999), p. 44. 146. Jacques Julliard, “Les femmes ne sont pas des produits laitiers,”Le Nouvel Observateur, February 18, 1999, in Amar, ed., LepiBge de laparitt!, p. 61. 147. Olivier Duhamel, “Parite sans principes,” L’Express,July 11, 1996, p. 29. 148. hisabeth Badinter, “La parite est une regression,” interview in L’EvBnement dujeudi, February 4, 1999, in Micheline Amar, ed., Lepikge de Iaparit&:Arguments pour un d&bat(Paris: Hachette, 1999), p. 47. 149. Daniele Sallenave, “Le piege de la parite,”Marianne, May 1997, in Amar, ed., Le pikge de la paritk, p. 24. 150. See “L‘UMP,I’UDF et le PS mauvais eleves de la parite” and “La parite ridiculisee,”both in Le Monde,July 13, 2002, pp. 7 and 13. 151. Civil Code, Art. 515-1, as it now reads. 152. Interestingly,in the three cases brought, the higher courts reversed lower court decisions in favor of gay plaintiffs. See Daniel Borrillo and Pierre Lascoumes, Amours &gales?Le P m ,les homosexuels et la gauche (Paris: La Decouverte, 2002), pp. 25-30. The decisions themselves (quoted here) are excerpted in the Conseil constitutionnel‘s decision upholding the PACS bill, Decision no. 99-419 DC, November 9, 1999. 153. Bzicher means stake (as in where heretics were burned), so “Pedesau bQcher” can be rendered in all its ugltness as “Fry the fags.”“Pasde neveux pour les tantouzes” translates literally as “no nephews for the aunties,” meaning in this context “no kids for the fairies”(tante, aunt, is a vulgar word for a gay man). 154. Frederic Martel, The Pink and the Black: Homosexuals in France since 1968, trans. Jane Marie Todd (Stanford,Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999), preface to the Enghsh-language edition, p. xix. This book, written by a gay journalist and activist, tracks gay activism before, during, and after the transformative period defined by the onset of the AIDS epidemic. It also analyzes and criticizes communitarianism within the gay community. Its publication in April 1996 (by Le Seuil) sparked a public debate.

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155. See Jean-Marcel Bouguereau, “Histoired’un outing avorte,”Le Nouvel Observateur, April 8, 1999,pp. 11-12. For an explanatiorVjustificationof forced outing, see Act UpParis, “Votrevie privee contre la n8tre,” Le Monde,June 26, 1999, p. 16. The pro-PACS RPR politician and AIDS activistJean-Luc Romero (born 1959)was outed by a gay journal in October 2000; see Romero, On m’a vole‘ ma ve‘rite‘:Histoire dupremier outing d u n hommepolitique franGais (Paris: Le Seuil, 2001). 156. Irene Thery, “Differencedes sexes et differencesdes generations:l’institution familiale en desherence,”Esprit, no. 227 (December 1996), pp. 68,65. See also Irene Thery, Le de‘mariage (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1993). 157. Thery, “Difference des sexes et differences des generations, p. 83. See also Thery, ed., Recomposer unefamille, des r6les et des sentiments (Paris: Textuel, 1995). 158. Elisabeth Guigou, National Assembly, Journal oflciel, De‘bats parlementaires, Assemble‘e nationale, December 15, 1998, p. 10499. 159. Evelyne Pisier, “Sexes et sexualites: bonnes et mauvaises differences,” Les Temps Modernes, no. 609 (June-July-August 2000), p. 157. 160. Pisier, “Sexeset sexualites,”p. 162. 161. Pisier, “Sexeset sexualites,”p. 166. 162. Pisier, “Sexeset sexualites,”p. 164. 163. Pisier, “Sexeset sexualites,”p. 164. 164. Privacy policies forbid the tabulation of different types of PACS couples. The statistics are an extrapolation based on patterns in other European countries. See Patrick Bloche and Jean-Pierre Michel, Assemblee nationale, Rapport d’infomzation sur l’application de la loi no. 99-944 du 15 novembre 1999 relative aupacte civil de solidarite‘,Document no. 3383, November 13, 2001. 165. Survey data from Frederic Martel, “La revolution du pacs,” in Olivier Duhamel and Philippe Mechet, eds., L’e‘tat de l’opinion 2001 (Paris: Le Seuil, 2001), pp. 199-208. The September 2000 poll was conducted by SOFRES for the gay journal Tetu. 166. Deviers-Joncour published her account of the affaufs) under the title La putain de la re‘publique (Paris: Calmann-Gvy, 1998). 167. For an analysis, see Yves Meny, La corruption de la Rt‘publique (Paris: Fayard, 1992). 168. Main Minc in an interview with Marcel Gauchet, “Leselites, le peuple, l’opinion,” Le De‘bat, no. 85 (May-August 1995), p. 66. Minc’s books include La machine e‘galitaire (Paris: Grasset, 1983, La grande illusion (Paris: Grasset, 1988), Le nouveau moyen age (Paris: Gallimard, 1993), Dew France? (with Philippe Seguin; Paris: Plon, 1994), L’ivresse dt‘mocratique (Paris: Gallimard, 1995), La mondialisation heureuse (Paris: Plon, 1993,Lefracas du monde,journal de l’annt‘e 2001 (Paris: Le Seuil, 2002), and two influential state commission reports: Rapport sur l’infomzatisation de la socit‘tt’ (with Simon Nora; Paris: La Documentation franqaise/Le Seuil, 1978) and L a France de l‘an 2000 (Paris: Odile Jacob/La Documentation franpise, 1994). 169. Two conservative candidates, Main Madelin (DL, born in 1946) and Franqois Bayrou (UDF, born in 1951) were younger, as were the communist candidate, Robert Hue (born in 1946) and the Green contender, Noel MamPre (born in 1948). 170. See “LAMux des candidatures pourrait favoriser l’extr6medroite,”Le Monde, June 9-10, 2002, p. 5.

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Getting Past Sovereignty: An Impossible Task? Sovereignty, the central organizing principle of modem French political life, seemed to be slipping from reach as the twentieth century drew to a close. In France, sovereignty is understood in two different ways, captured respectively by the expressions indpendance and indivisible. Zndbpendunce defines a relationship to the outside world, and de Gaulle helped make it a key word in France’spolitical vocabulary. It suggests not just the successful defense of the country’sborders, but also the ability to project power beyond them. Indivisible (the noun of course exists, but the adjective appears more frequently, as in the expression la Rkpublique une et indivisible) is a key domestic attribute of the republic. It is linked to the universalist values discussed in the previous chapter: it was the principle constantly at issue in the debates about headscarves, Corsica, and parity, and it was what made talk about la fracture sociale so charged. Together, indpendunce and indivisibility ensure state autonomy. Autonomy guarantees that the state will not serve as the hired gun of any particular interest: indkpendunce insulates the state against interference from external events and influences, and indivisibility prevents the cannibalization or tribalization of the state by domestic groups. The norms of independence and indivisibility are enshrined in constitutional law; more importantly, as should by now be clear, they are central elements of French political culture, with roots extending deep into the prerevolutionary period. The Constitution of the Fifth Republic makes the president “le garant de l’independancenationale” (Article 5 ) and authorizes him to assume emergency powers should national independence be in immediate jeopardy (Article 16). The first article of the constitution states that “La France est une Republique indivisible, laique, dkmocratique et sociale” and makes all citizens equal in the eyes of the law. The third article (cited in chap ter 7) locates sovereignty in the people as a whole and affirms that “No sec261

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tion of the people and no individual can arrogate to itself the exercise of sovereignty.”Article 27 forbids binding instructions on members of parliament, since such mandates would establish deputies as the agents of some subsection of the people rather than as representatives of the sovereign people as a whole; for the same reason, parliamentarians cannot be required to observe party discipline. At the end of the twentieth century, no hostile army stood poised on France’s borders and no domestic group (except a handful of Corsican extremists) denied the authority of the Republic. Yet sovereignty was not what it used to be: group politics had made important inroads, globalization was limiting the autonomy of states in and beyond the economic arena, and France’s ability to project power was clearly circumscribed. As we saw in the last chapter, relatively few people in France welcomed the new conditions created by social change and globalization. Responses ranged from the more or less intransigent defense of traditional republican principles to improvised, pragmatic solutions to specific problems. These alternatives reappeared as the French sought to come to terms with the end of indkpendunce. Nationalist claims and positions squared off against arguments that accommodated multilateralism and supranationality. The debates about ind6pendunce were not simply debates about the institutional framework of public life (more European integration vs. less)-important though that issue obviously was. Once again, these were debates about identity. Frequently, this meant that they were about the Franco-American relationship. “Theworld is changing,”Hubert Vedrine said, “but the changes are happening in English.”’Vedrine (born 1943, Mitterrand’s advisor and chief of staff before becoming foreign minister under Lionel Jospin, was a key figure in France’s foreign policy establishment during the 1980s and 1990s. The United States, Vedrine argued, had become a “hyperpower,”hegemonic not just militarily or regionally, but across the board and globally.2 France could not pretend to the same status, but it also differed from the few secondtier powers-Germany and the United Kingdom, Russia, China, Japan, and India-that could and did aspire to exercise influence and project power (not necessarily military power) beyond their own region. Albert du Roy, one of France’s best-known reporters, sought to account for the constant clash of words and wills between Paris and Washington and for the latent anti-Americanism common to the left and the right in France. “Franceis not the world’s number two nation by virtue of its power,” du Roy wrote, “but it is that by virtue of its ambitions.”3Like the United States, du Roy argued, France is a country imbued with a universalist ideology. Other potentially rival powers were inhibited from pursuing global ambitions: “GreatBritain by its long habit of transatlantic complicity,Russia by its domestic disorder, China by its underdevelopment, Germany by its past,”*but France was always ready to go headto-head with the United States. “Twouniversal vocations are in competition,”

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du Roy suggested, “withdifferent . . . means and objectives, but sustained by equivalent ambitions.”5In 1885,Jules Ferry had put the French logic this way: To light up the stage without acting, without intervening in the affairs of the world . . . , is tantamount to abdication. For a great power, it would mean slipping,faster than you might think, from the highest rank to the third or fourth. . . . One cannot propose to France a political ideal analogous to the ideal that animates nations like the free land of Belgium or republican Switzerland.France has other needs. She cannot be simply a free country. She must also be a great country,exercising over the destinies of Europe all the influence that is hers. She must spread this influence throughout the world, and take wherever she can her language, her customs, her flag, her arms, her unique character.6

But how, in an age of globalization, could France continue to be a “great country”?Franqois Mitterrand called the situation created by the end of the Cold War and the continuing process of globalization “un bonheur dangerew,”a great opportunity fraught with danger.’ He was confident that the multiple dangers of the new world could be tamed through a combination of multilateralism and supranationalintegration and that French identity would survive. More pessimistic compatriots retorted that twenty-first-centuryEuropeans would eat fast food, live in socially segregated societies,and fight America’swars-and worse yet, soon find all this normal. The most consistent and articulate exponent of this position was Regis Debray.8 Again and again, the acceleratingprocess of European integration triggered overarching debates about the meaning and relative advantages of independence, multilateralism, and supranationality. General arguments were then put to the test as the government and public opinion confronted specific policy challenges-notably the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the ongoing problem of providing social protection in a globalizing economy. Like many of the debates we considered in the last chapter, Franco-French arguments over Europe, Yugoslavia, and social protection disrupted normal patterns of partisan allegiance. The vehemence of the debates sometimes seemed to reflect the confusion and frustration of the actors, rather than a conflict between clearly defined and deeply contradictory views. The confusion was evident in the indeterminacy of positions: in the out-ofcontrol environment of a “runawayworld,”9few people seemed definitively immune to the appeal of defensive nationalism.The frustration was illustrated in a peculiar and recurrent mix of anger and apathy, as debates flared up and then died away. It was an important factor in explaining the electoral patterns of 2002: the fragmentation of the electorate, the high abstention rates, the support for Le Pen. Beyond recounting major developments in French foreign and European policy, this chapter seeks both to explain why defensive nationalism was such a temptation to broad segments of the political mainstream (that is, to people who rejected the National Front and would have been appalled to hear their

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attitudes described as bonapartist) and to explore the alternatives that were proposed. The reader must decide whether the stories told here suggest, on balance, democratic invention or, as the disappointed defenders of sovereignty would assert, a fuite en avant, a blind, reckless dash to get ahead of events. This is not simply an intellectual question: given the uncertainty of the situation, it is for citizens to act in ways that make democratic renewal more likely than decline. If this chapter makes both outcomes seem plausible, and if it helps readers-many of whom may hear their own hopes and hesitations about a changing world echoed in the debates analyzed here-understand the aspirations and pressures pushing in each direction, it will have served its purpose. The future is our common puzzle-and our common project.

RETHINKING THE MEANS OF FRENCH FOREIGN POLICY: SOVEREIGNTY, SUPRANATIONALITY, AND M U L T E A T F i ~ S M De Gaulle, as we have seen, put sovereignty first. He had no use for supranational institutions, and he viewed all multilateral arrangements with suspicion. In moments of generosity, he treated the partisans of European integration with biting contempt; in harsher moments (as during the debates over the European Defense Community), he suggested that their positions bordered on treason. He derided the “so-calledUnited Nations,” declaring in 1961 that France “doesnot wish to lend either its men or its money to any of the undertakings that this organization, or disorganization, might undertake, now or in the future.”lOHe pulled French forces out of NATO’s integrated military command (see chapter 4). By the late 1980s, putting sovereignty first had become much more difficult. Broadly speaking, two positions emerged. We will call the one most reminiscent of de Gaulle’sstance the Jacobin or souverainiste position.’’ We will call the other the Europeanist or multilateralist position. Both positions made the preservation of French identity a central goal. On the eve of the twenty-first century, Jacobins were inclined to experience change as decline, not because they were inflexible or conservative by nature or conviction, but because in a globalizing world, change often meant an erosion of state autonomy. Jacobins warned against assertions of group rights; they criticized European integration and French participation in NATO operations, contending that France’s cultural and political identity would quickly be lost in supranational organizations dominated by larger powers (the United States or Germany); and they criticized neoliberal economic policies and globalization. It was as though they had chosen their level of solidarity, once and for all, and it coincided with, and was institutionally dependent upon, the nation-state and the unitary republic.

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People who urged the construction of a more statelike European Unionone endowed, for example, with the authority and resources to carry out a common foreign policy-suggested that the souverainistes were clinging to habits of mind that would have the unintended effect of making the maintenance of French identity and values more, not less, problematic. Europeanists associated “tribalism”not with diversity or even group politics at home, but with resurgent nationalism, ethnic politics, and religious fundamentalism elsewhere in Europe and in the wider world. Tribalism beyond the borders of the Hexagon would, the Europeanists argued, prove doubly threatening unless effectively disciplined by new and more robustly institutionalized forms of international cooperation and action. Tribalism would make the international environment violent, unstable, and dangerous; worse, it would foster precisely the kinds of ideologies (religious fimdamentalism, to name the obvious example) that might then spread to France’sminority communities, making diversity untenable at home. Public opinion on these questions was canvassed in the Maastricht referendum (September 1992) and every five years at elections for the European Parliament (1994, 1999). The verdict was always ambiguous. People seemed perceptive enough to understand that there was no attractive alternative to more European integration, suspicious enough to deny the European Union (EXJ) the new powers its mounting responsibilities demanded, and then inconsistent enough to blame the EU for the impotence their own choices helped create.’* The public’s ambivalence did not reflect an automatic application of longstanding nationalist attitudes. Rather, it was a political response to the particular manner in which European integration had been pursued and to the policy results produced (or precluded) by the process adopted.

Europe: An Emerging Reality and a Debate Deferred For nearly four decades-from the rejection of the European Defense Community (EDC) in 1954 to the Maastricht referendum of 1992-French political elites deliberately kept Europe off the agenda of public debate. This was because both the mainstream political parties and the proponents of European integration stood to lose in any such debate, and together, they controlled the agenda. From the two-year controversy over the EDC-a debate that in many ways prefigured the later one about Maastricht-the mainstream parties concluded that discussions of Europe were too divisive to risk. The EDC project would have made political integration an instant (if still incomplete) reality for member countries. In addition to an all-European army, it would have created allEuropean political institutions: a bicameral parliament, an executive council,

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and a European court. The proposal did not threaten the internal unity of the political extremes: both the extreme right and the PCF were opposed to integration, although for different reasons. In contrast, the mainstream parties were internally fractured-and the bitterness of the splits reflected the importance assigned to issues touching on sovereignty. Only Christian democratic opinion was united in its support of the EDC, and French Christian democracy was too weak to drive European integration: by 1954, the MRP was in decline, and under the Fifth Republic, Christian democracy was no more than a loosely organized strand of centrist opinion. The decisive parliamentary vote on the EDC split the socialists, the radical socialists, and Mitterrand’s UDSR almost exactly in half, and the conservative parties were also divided.13 In the years that followed, the mainstream parties had little interest in reopening a debate in which passions ran high and which might well provoke intraparty splits. Within the mainstream parties, intraparty disputes over Europe pitted “federalists”against moreJacobin “intergovernmentalists.”Federalistsfavored the construction of a supranational political entity; intergovernmentalistsadvocated the development of intergovernmentalcooperation.In the EDC debate, the federalists made the case for the supranationaloption before the court of public opinion. They lost. French governments,first under the Fourth Republic and then under de Gaulle, subsequently resisted-and thereby effectively blocked-the construction of a supranational Europe. Intergovernmentalist versions of European integration, however, remained broadly popular with the French public. Economic cooperation in particular was seen as contributing to postwar reconciliation and peace and promoting the uncontested goals of reconstruction and prosperity. The treaty creating the European Coal and Steel Community was signed in 1951, and six years later, the treaties creating the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and the European Economic Community (EEC) were adopted. With the EEC treaty in place, federalists focused their energies on the seemingly technical economic issues and policies related to the construction of a common market. The most important budgetary item of the EEC was the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The CAP was a complex system of price supports intended to increase agricultural productivity and production. In 1970, it absorbed almost 85 percent of the Community’sbudget;’* despite major reforms adopted in 1992, it continued through the next decade to account for almost half of all EU expenditures. During the 1960s, dozens of bureaucrats from EEC member states worked long hours in annual marathons to determineproduction levels and price supports for cereals, dairy products, and other agricultural goods. The results of these laborious negotiationswere of direct concern to France’s dwindling agricultural population, but they were hardly the stuff of which national debates are made. With the onset of the economic crisis at the beginning of the 1970s,the EEC

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focused on containing the disruptive effects of unstable exchange rates and in fact began moving toward monetary union. An early result of these efforts was the elaboration of the European Monetary System (EMS, 1979) and within it, of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). The ECU (short for European Currency Unit) made its appearance: its value was determined by a “basket”of European national currencies, and EEC countries participating in the ERM were to limit fluctuations in the value of their national currencies (the band within which currencies were allowed to fluctuate was known as the snake). As the future would show, the EMS was an important step toward European monetary union (EMU), but the objective importance of a policy does not necessarily make it interesting to the public. French elite education still emphasized classical languages and the humanities; its products were particularly unlikely to elevate discussions of exchange rate stability into a national debate. The Community’smain project in the late 1980s was the Single Eurupean Act of 1986, creating the Single Market (January 1, 1993). The project, which was developed before but implemented after the end of the Cold War, included political provisions, but it was presented to European publics primarily in economic terms, as a partial answer to the economic crisis: it would make Europe the biggest market in the world and so make possible a return to growth and rising standards of living. The implicationsfor state sovereignty were deliberately downplayed, except by England’s Margaret Thatcher, and she used such chauvinistic and conservative tones to make her argument that few people outside her own Tory circles were inclined to listen. Thus, step by step, European integration advanced significantly between the late 1960s and the late 1980s,but its progress was achieved by stealth. No group or public figure forced a reconsideration of the basic belief in the fundamental value of independence. The affirmation of independence remained the cultural bedrock of French foreign policy, irrespective of who was in power in Paris and despite all the changes underway in the international system.15 Just as importantly, no one proposed a set of values that European integration would express and serve. Peace had been a compelling motive in the 1950s, but by the 1970s, Franco-German reconciliation was a fact of life. Democratic consolidation in Spain, Greece, and Portugal served important values, but it was not a Communityproject. Prosperity-the reward promised by the Single Market-encouraged people to think instrumentally about the EC; it did not encourage people to see in the EC an authority structure legitimated by a common mission. The emphasis on the technical-and technocratic-aspects of European integration and the relative opacity of European institutions and policy-making procedures did more than merely defer a debate about the possible political purposes of a unified Europe; they also contributed to the increasing alienation of a number of key constituencies while deepening the general impression that the EC suffered from a “democratic deficit.” Workers sus-

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pected the EC of pushing a neoliberal agenda. In the business community and among economic liberals, in contrast, the Community was viewed as simply one more costly, counterproductivebureaucracy, out to gum up the free market. Examples of bureaucratic meddling (alleged or real) were widely cited: stories about directives regulating everything from bullfights to cheese made the rounds. European bureaucrats obliged their critics by relying on jargon that made the broader logic and utility of Community policies especially hard to grasp. Even groups that had clearly benefited from the EEC turned against it. French farmers,for whom the Community had done so much, were a good example. Thanks in part to the subsidies and protectionist measures of the CAP, European farmers increased productivity to the point where huge surpluses were piling up, while European consumers continued to pay food prices above world market prices. By the 1990s, when the EC moved to reform the CAP, the situation was no longer tenable. During the rural rev@ lution of the 1950s and I960s, farmers had been told to modernize; now, it seemed, they were being told simply to quit. They vented their anger against the Maastricht Treaty, which they associated with the free market capitalism that was doing them in. In democratic systems, power is supposed to be responsive and accountable; Community institutions, Europe’s critics argued (and Europe’s defenders generally conceded), were neither. The Community’sdemocratic deficit was a joint intergovernmentalist and federalist creation. The intergovernmentalists had no interest in vesting Community institutions and procedures with democratic legitimacy, since institutions with democratic legitimacy would be far more likely to usurp powers that the Jacobin intergovernmentalists thought properly belonged to sovereign states. The federalists did not seek to correct the democratic deficit, for fear of drawing attention to the growing de facto powers of the Community.They had consciously embraced the stealth strategy: by creating openings for EEC activity and seizing opportunities in policy areas that appeared technical, they hoped to set in motion an unstoppable dynamic. Beyond a certain level of economic cooperation, they reasoned, political cooperationwould become a necessity. At that point, institutional reforms could rectlfy the democratic deficit. The federalists did not figure on the anger that people often feel when they find themselves faced with a fait accompli; instead, they assumed that economic integration would create new, less Jacobin cultural reflexes and expectations and so develop incrementally the conditions for an eventual nonincremental move toward political integration. As a result of these diverse calculations,the would-be European superstate of the 1990s bore only superficial resemblance to normal democratic states. It had no constitution. Executive authority was parceled out among several bodies (the European Commission, the Council of Ministers, and the European Council), none of which was accountable either to the European Par-

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liament or to the European electorate. Beginning in 1979, the European Parliament could claim some measure of democratic legitimacy, since it was directly elected by voters in the Community’smember countries, but it had limited power over the budget and less power over the executive body, so its own enhanced legitimacy did not extend to the system as a whole.

The Maastricht Treaty The Maastricht Treaty, although itself an elitedriven initiative,was intended to redirect the dynamic of European integration in ways that would allow the Community, now rebaptized as the European Union, both to assume more of the tasks previously assigned to sovereign states and to correct its democratic deficit. Mitterrand sought to make European integration “a national undertaking” and he emphasized the historic character of the Maastricht Treaty: This international agreement commits France as a whole-State, nation, citizens. . . .After this treaty is ratified, France’s history will be different from what it was. This is therefore a decisive moment . . . even if we intend, as is of course the case, to preserve for France her history, the essence of what makes her herself, her message, and her institutions. . . . Nonetheless, a certain number of transfers of sovereignty will be added to those we have already consented to make.16

The world was changing anyway; Maastricht offered people a chance to take control. Mitterrand urged “a mobilization of consciousnessand will” on a scale commensurate with the tremendous challenge of redefining the institutional foundations of political life.17 The Treaty created three policy “pillars,”each with its own decision-making regime. Decision-makingprocedures had to accommodate multiple goals that were not always easy to reconcile, especially as the Union continued to expand. The goals included enhanced democratic accountability,efficiency, and guarantees that major national interests would not be violated by EU decisions. To achieve these ends, the Treaty assigned different policy areas to different EU institutions and made some policies subject to unanimous consent. Unanimous consent was a legacy of the intergovernmentalist tradition. Decision making by qualified majority vote (a vote that requires what Americans call a supermajority,i.e., more than a simple majority) represented a move in the federalist direction. The first pillar retained the old Community title (but in the plural, since various policy domains, like the European Coal and Steel Community and Euratom, were considered “communities”)and embraced most of the economic and infrastructural concerns that had gradually accrued first to the EEC and then to the EC: the CAP, the single market and monetary union, the development of Europe’s transportation network, and so on. In these “communitized” areas, qualified majority voting would be the rule. Policy proposals

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would be generated by the European Commission. Decisions would be made by the European Council and the European Parliament and could be appealed to the European Court of Justice. The second pillar showcased the federalist thrust of the Treaty. It created the mechanism for the development of a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Despite longstanding intergovernmental mechanisms for foreign policy coordination, known as European Political Cooperation (EPC), the EEC as such had no foreign policy. In the new post-Cold War world of the 1990s, the CFSP seemed to many key leaders, and especially to Franqois Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl, like an idea whose time had come. But a common foreign policy approach could not be created overnight and by decree. Uncertainty and disagreement among member states over how the foreign policy posture of the EU could and should relate to NATO and the United States, along with the expectation that different national governments would continue to diverge in their assessments of international conflicts, led to the adoption of intergovernmentalist decision-making rules that emphasized state actors and gave the governments of member states veto power. Decisions were left to the Council of Ministers (that is, to the foreign ministers of member states, meeting as a body) and required a unanimous vote. No immediate action was undertaken to reduce the enormous disparity between the kind of military might the United States commanded (personnel, hardware, intelligence) and the military forces at the disposal of European governments. All of these complications would come into play during the Yugoslav crisis and again in the aftermath of the September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. The third pillar acknowledged the increasingly international character of criminal activity and broadened the responsibilities and authority of the Union in matters of law enforcement and justice. While decision making on third pillar policy issues generally obeyed an intergovernmentalist logic, the expectation was that, as European integration deepened and European institutions gained legitimacy, more and more policy areas would be “communitized,” that is, transferred from the third to the first pillar. The drive to broaden the political competence of the European Union, symbolized by but not limited to the Maastricht Treaty, was Franqois Mitterrand’s most creative response to the momentous events of the 1980s and 1990s. The referendum of 1992 produced the public debate on Europe that had been so long deferred. It was seen by many as a debate about the survival of a French national identity. The questions it raised could only be answered by a future that was by definition still unknown, and so once begun, the debate could not be closed. De Gaulle had sought to make European cooperation a multiplier of French power by excluding Britain from the equation and by instrumentalizingGermany’s subordinate position. For him,the border that mattered was the one

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that separated France from the rest of the world. This approach was inconceivable in the changed circumstances of the 1990s. Mitterrand construed a unified Europe as a multiplier of French power; his strategy required him to blur the lines between France and its European partners. He constantly portrayed Germany as France’s indispensable partner, using language, encouraging symbols, and promoting agreements that challenged the relevance of the political border separating the two countries: he joined hands with Helmut Kohl to commemorate the dead of Verdun; he sponsored the Single Market, the Schengen agreements (dismantling border controls), and the Maastricht Treaty; he supported the Eurocorps, which was originally a FrancGerman brigade. For Mitterrand, France and Germany formed a “communautede destin” (a “communitybased on fate”) in the heart of a continent that likewise represented a community. De Gaulle had portrayed French unity as a victory of the French over themselves and their long record of fratricidal strife; Mitterrand portrayed European unity, anchored by FrancGerman reconciliation, as a victory of Europe over itself.18 European unity, Mitterrand argued, would provide Europeans with more physical and cultural security than any single European state would ever be able to command in the future. The world had never been a terribly reassuring place, and now it again seemed menacing: it meant organized crime, drugs, AIDS, civil conflicts, a succession of political and economic threats. “A common threat,” Mitterrand asserted, “callsfor a common response. The Maastricht Treaty. . . protects against this threat.”19The Treaty would provide physical security by offering an institutional structure broad enough and strong enough to check the reemerging “logic of fragmentation and division,”20born of both the disintegration of the Soviet empire and the ongoing economic crisis.At the same time, the size and dynamism of Europe’s internal market would make the European economy competitive with its American and Japanese rivals and would open up possibilities for social policies no longer feasible within national boundaries. The internal market would also contribute to the preservation of European culture: as Hubert Vedrine put it, Europeans would not be forced “to watch lousy American soap operas on Japanese television sets.”21 The choice,Vedrine suggested, was not between globalization and no globalization, but rather between “a controlled and fruitful globalization”and “an uncontrolled and destructive globalization.” The fight for the former, he argued, would be “the great struggle of our time.”22Europe would be a necessary element in that fight, and the French should strive to create “thegreatest possible degree of French influence in a Europe as strong as possible.”*3 The Europeanist arguments were powerful, but they were about possibilities, not achievements. The European Union was very much a work in progress, with member states tugging and pulling in different directions, and this in an environment that was, as the events of September 11, 2001 and

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their aftermath demonstrated, constantly changing. The proponents of deeper integration repeatedly asked their compatriots to make a leap of faith-or, alternatively, to bow to constraints that they conceded France was powerless to change. Intellectually, people seemed to understand that by itself, France could no longer hope to weigh in decisively on international questions. Gilles de Robien, a center-right politician, put the point brutally to an interviewer who asked if he thought that EU decisions about defense should continue to require unanimous consent or should be made by majority vote: “At the moment,” he replied, “defense policy is not made by either majority or unanimous votes. It is made in the United States.”2* Viscerally, however, people responded to headlines and events, and both seemed to suggest that the European solution to France’sproblems might be at best a false promise. Economic crises, especially when they are accompanied by international disorder, do not encourage optimism. “Our societies lack confidence in their future,” the Europeanist and socialist minister Elisabeth Guigou noted; “And Europe is nothing but future.”25The evidence seemed to bear out pessimistic assessments. Early efforts to use the European Community to reconstruct welfare state safeguards no longer viable at the national level foundered on opposition from the Conservative governments in power in Britain until 1997;we will return to the problems this posed for Europeanists in France later in this chapter. But it was the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s that grabbed headlines and made Europe seem, even to its supporters, like a bad joke.

”G

THE POSSIBILITIES OF FRENCH POWER

THE YUGOSLAV DISASTER In the 1990s,five wars were fought in what had been Yugoslavia: over Slovenian independence in the summer of 1991, over Croatian independence (1991- 1992), over the status of the Serbian area of Croatia known as the Krajina (off and on until 1995), in Bosnia-Herzegovina(1992-1995), and finally in Kosovo (1999). Hundreds of thousands of people died; millions were displaced. While television cameras rolled, Adriatic towns in which Europeans had vacationed were reduced to rubble. Women were raped; unarmed civilians were massacred; men and boys were herded into concentration camps. Governments deliberated and conferred; international bodies-the EU, the Western European Union (WEU), the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE, the group of countries that negotiated the east-west Helsinki accords of 1975,i.e., all European countries except Albania,plus the United States and Canada; renamed the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, in 1994), the United Nations-engaged in multiple peace missions, passed resolutions, and sent “peacekeeping”forces.

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France played a deliberately conspicuous role in all these efforts, often initiating the policies that were adopted. But the violence continued. Peacekeepers were deployed under conditions that often made them the unwilling accomplices of the very kinds of violence they were supposed to prevent. Serbia, to which France, England, Russia, and even the faraway United States had historical ties, was the most murderous of the parties and the one no other power seemed willing or able to bring to heel.

A “Problemfrom Hell” French policy toward the Yugoslav crisis showed remarkable continuity, even as elections over the course of the decade produced diverse power configurations in Paris: a socialist president and governments of the left until 1993, a socialist president and a conservativegovernment from 1993 to 1995, a Gaullist president and a conservative government from 1995 to 1997, and a Gaullist president and a government of the left from 1997 through the NATO campaign of 1999. The constant goal (though of course not the only goal) of French policy was to make France “seem greater than is actually the case.”26 The continuities of French policy need to be understood against the context of a very unattractive choice set. Domestic critics of French policy continually cited the “inconsistencies,the hypocrisy, the cowardly behavior”27 of western governments in general and of the French government in particular. The critics may, however, have mistaken confusion for cowardice. By 1991, when Europe and the United States began to focus on events in Yugoslavia, easy solutions-ones that neither challenged accepted rules of international conduct nor demanded the massive commitment of ground troops-were no longer available. Massive economic aid in the 1980s might have prevented the eventual recourse to nationalist politics in Serbia and Croatia, but European and American attention was directed elsewhere in the 1980s (to events in the Soviet Union, then to German unification, and finally, at the beginning of the 1990s, to the Gulf War), and in any event, the economic crisis did not encourage generosity. After 1991, the political, normative, and material barriers to effective action were prohibitively high. The many inconsistencies displayed by external parties in the unfolding tragedy did not reflect a simple failure of will, analogous to the capitulation of the western democracies at the Munich summit of 1938. In 1938, the democratic powers had ignored treaty obligations and allowed an independent state to be swallowed up by a hostile neighbor. The violent disintegration of Yugoslavia,in contrast, highlighted the absence of norms and institutionstailored to meet the problems of a new world. The inconsistenciesof western policy reflected the lack of attractive options and the simultaneous need to take action. Absent some sudden and dramatic change in interests, capabilities,and patterns of international cooperation,no

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external power could impose peace, much less a just peace (usually understood to mean a multiethnic, democratic confederation), in Yugoslavia. Given media coverage of the conflict, the often shocking character of the violence, and its proximity to the peaceful, prosperous, democratic world of Western Europe, however, European governments in particular could not afford to ignore a situation that was broadly viewed as morally unacceptable. Caught between the need to act and the inability to do so effectively, western governments waffled as they tried to deal with what American Secretary of State Warren Christopher called a “problemfrom he11.”28

French Policy In this unpromising environment, French policy was shaped by priorities that transcended the Yugoslav situation-thus the continuities across changes in the composition of governments in Paris and in conditions on the ground in the former Yugoslavia. French leaders remained faithful to the vision of greatness propounded by statesmen from Ferry to de Gaulle. The aim of French statecraft was to create at least the impression, and if possible the reality, that France was a great power at work in the world. Unilateral action was immediately excluded as both unrealistic (given France’s limited means) and illegitimate (since only the United Nations could authorizeintervention in the internal affairs of another country, and then only under special conditions). France therefore promoted supranationalor multilateral bodies, or both, in which its initiatives and policy preferences (rather than American ones) would visibly shape the approach adopted and in which American power would be disciplined by a coalition that included a pivotal French role. The policies France proposed and supported appeared forcefid, but always stopped well short of full-scaleintervention. No purpose would be served, Mitterrand never tired of saying, by “addingwar to war.”Yugoslavia needed peace and a political settlement, Mitterrand argued; it did not need yet another belligerent force. In accordance with this strategy, France tried in 1991 and 1992 to mobilize international organizations that could be instrumentalized as extensions of French power: the EC and the WEU. Within each, it advocated a two-pronged approach to the Yugoslav crisis. Diplomatic initiatives sought to bring the Yugoslav parties to the bargaining table and to obtain from them a consensual settlement. Except when they ratified “solutions”acceptable to the most powerful force on the ground (usually the Serbs), the cease-firesproduced were at best short-lived. Military deployments were also part of almost every French policy proposal, but in the absence of viable cease-fireagreements,the purpose of such deploymentswas never fully clear: no country was prepared to impose a cessation of hostilities (partly because of the anticipated high human and financial costs to the intervening powers and partly out of fear that intervention would cause the conflict to escalate and spread throughout and perhaps

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even beyond the Balkans) and “peacekeepers”could not “keep”a peace that had not been made. France could not secure unanimous EC support for either its diplomatic or its military proposals-and it could not afford to let intra-EC disagreements over Yugoslavia derail all-important final preparations for the Maastricht Treaty. To French statesmen,the success of the MaastrichtTreaty was far more critical to France’s long-term interests than any obtainable outcome in Yugoslavia. Yet the disagreements that emerged over Yugoslavia cast the viability of any future CFSP into doubt. The divergent approaches to the Yugoslav situation adopted by France, Germany, and the United Kingdom were not just random responses to a unique problem; rather, they indicated longstanding differences of interest. On the diplomatic front, France and Germany immediately split. In the summer of 1991, Germany’s Christian democratic-led government, under pressure from the Catholic Church and from the sizable Croat community within Germany, wanted to recognize the breakaway governments in Croatia and Slovenia,on the argument that swift recognition would discourage Serbia from attacking the new republics. France, supported by all EC members except Germany, argued that the integrity of the Yugoslav Federation should be preserved (this was also the position of the American administration).The French government understood that if the Croats and Slovenes left the Federation, the Bosnians would follow-and so would war, since Serbia, especially Serbia under SlobodanMilosevic, could not be expected to relinquish without a fight claims to territories where large numbers of Serbs lived. At the Maas tricht summit in December 1991, EC leaders agreed to make recognition of Croatia and Slovenia conditional on good behavior (respect for democratic rules, protection of minority populations, and the renunciation of force in border disputes). Germany, however, broke ranks and announced that it would recognize the new governments. Rather than appear divided (!), the other EC countries (including France) extended recognition to Croatia and Slovenia on January 15, 1992. Six weeks later, the Bosnians voted for independence; war promptly followed. While Germany resisted French diplomatic initiatives, Britain blocked any move to impose a solution by force. In September 1991, Serbian forces laid siege first to the Sloveniantown of Vukovar in eastern Croatia and then to the coastal city of Dubrovnik. France proposed the creation of a buffer zone to be patrolled by troops from the WEU. Britain refused. British policy, like French policy, was guided both by broad objectives that transcended the Yugoslav situation and by a specific reading of the Yugoslav disaster. The British were as eager to seek out American leadership and involvement as the French were determined to keep the United States at arm’slength. The British therefore rejected the institutional framework the French were proposing: the French favored the EC and the WEU, the British wanted to work through

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NATO. The British were also reluctant to send their forces into what looked to them like another Northern Ireland, only bigger, bloodier, and further away (just as Colin Powell, who had done two tours of duty in Vietnam, looked at the mountains of Bosnia-Herzegovinaand saw in his mind’s eye the jungles of Southeast Asia). France, frustrated in its efforts to unite its EC partners around a common position but still determined to demonstrate its own leadership capabilities, turned to the United Nations. Already in September 1991, France had moved in the Security Council for a UN-imposed anns embargo against Yugoslavia (adopted as Resolution 713). France could not expect to exploit the United Nations as an extension of its own power, but it could hope to use the organization to showcase its own powers of initiative and execution. It could take credit when its proposals bore fruit and shift blame to the United Nations when and if policies did not achieve their goals. French leaders never tired of reminding their audiences that France-unlike Germany-was a permanent member of the Security Council. At the same time, French commentators often joined the chorus of criticism that faulted the United Nations for its indecisiveness and its lack of means.

International Enorts United Nations diplomacy soon encountered the same fatal difficulties that had plagued European efforts to devise a solution to Yugoslavia’sproblems. Diplomatic moves had to accommodate diverse views on the Security Council (where Russia and China both opposed coercive intervention against Serbia) as well as the fact that the parties to the fighting were in no rush to settle their differences through a permanent settlement. Decisive military intervention was also impossible: the United Nations charter did not offer a clear mandate for such a mission, and in any event, member nations were not prepared to commit the necessary military resources. Yet the horrors of ethnic cleansing demanded some response. The United Nations created a limited force with an illdefined mission. At its inception in late February 1992, the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) was intended for deployment in Croatia, where a settlement had left Serb forces in control of areas they had occupied (and “cleansed”).As fighting intensified in Bosnia, however, UNPROFORs mandate was extended to Bosnia. Officially, it was not supposed to take sides. It became a spectator to atrocities it could not stop, and ensuring the safety of its personnel, rather than of the civilians its presence was supposed to protect became a major headache for political decision makers. Worse still, UNPROFOR forces were easy targets for Serb forces, and fear that UNPROFOR troops would be injured or taken hostage became an argument against more forceful intervention to defend civilian populations.

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Unable to keep a peace that had not been made, incapable of creating a peace that the Serb leadership in particular did not want, UNPROFOR was increasingly reduced to humanitarian intervention-and not very effective humanitarian intervention at that. Its forces escorted convoys of food and medicine to besieged cities, but as the grisly debacle at Srebenica in July 1995 demonstrated, United Nations forces could not even protect the “safeareas” designated in April and May of 1993. The deployment to Bosnia of a 10,000man Franco-BritishRapid Reaction Force in July 1995 still failed to address the problem of rules of engagement that precluded proactive moves to stop Serb outrages and advances. In the end, the French supported what they least wanted American-led intervention outside the authority of the United Nations. In 1994, NATO began to take the initiative. In May 1995, the Serbs responded to air strikes by taking UNPROFOR troops hostage and using them as human shields. Another round of fruitless negotiations followed, while at the same time, the external parties considered their military options. On August 30,1995, NATO finally launched Operation Deliberate Force. There was no NATO ground campaign, but there was a ground war: Bosnian forces went on the offensive, and the Croats also moved against the Serbs, both in the Krajina and in Bosnia. The air strikes lasted for two weeks. In midOctober, a cease-fire took effect. On December 14,1995, the Dayton Accords were signed in Paris, and as the year ended, a NATO-led Implementation Force (IFOR) deployed to Bosnia. The Dayton Accords reproduced the main elements of a plan proposed by Alain Juppe and Klaus Kinkel (respectively the foreign ministers of France and Germany) and endorsed by the EU in November 1993, but no results had been achieved until the United States made the proposal its own and brought its might to bear on Serbia. The Dayton Accords did not provide a particularly honorable solution to the Bosnian war, and they did not end the Yugoslav crisis. Conditions in the onceautonomousSerb province of Kosovo, a place the British journalist H. N. Brails ford had memorably called “themost miserable corner of Europe,”*9had been deterioratingfor years. In the Titoist period, Serbs had represented a shrinking minority in the impoverished province; by 1981, Serbs made up 13.2 percent of the population, while Albanians accounted for 77.4 percent. Kosovo, however, occupied a privileged spot in Serb nationalist mythology: in 1389, Serb forces had been defeated there by advancing Turkish armies. Slobodan Milosevic (born 1941), a former communist apparatcik, had ridden ethno-nationalist rhetoric to power in the late 1980s, fabricating fear and hate to serve his own interests. He had staked his claim to legitimacy on the construction of a greater Serbia. In 1989,he stripped Kosovo of its autonomy and began reinforcing Serb control over the provincial police and government. Over the course of the 1990s, faced with a local population in Kosovo that wanted either independence or incorporation into Albania, Milosevic stepped up the level of intimi-

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dation and repression. The de facto leader of the Albanian Kosovars, Ibrahim Rugova, pressed unsuccessfully for international support and a political solution. In the absence of a political settlement,the Kosovo LiberationArmy (KU) emerged in 1998as an effective guerilla force. The Serb response grew increasingly brutal and was seemingly calibrated to induce the fight of as many Albanians as possible. Western governments were opposed on principle to Kosovar independence and remained unwilling to intervene massively on the ground to force an end to Serb policies. As in earlier episodes of the Yugoslav tragedy, no western government individually had a viable strategy, and western governments collectively were intellectually; institutionally, and politically ill-prepared to deal with the crisis. The United Nations could not intervene because of Russian and Chinese opposition. The EU countries, France now included, recognizing their own ineffectiveness, were eager to involve the United States. Immediately placed in a leadership position, the U.S. administration “never decided what it was prepared to do, except incrementally and reactively”; western governments generally “proved unwilling or unable to set political objectives and to consider how far they were prepared to go to achieve them militarily.”30A report prepared for the British House of Commons a year after the military campaign concluded that “NATOwas not itself clear about what it was trying to do.”31 On January 15, 1999, Serb forces massacred civilians at Racak, virtually under the noses of OSCE observers. A peace conference at Rambouillet (France) in February 1999 dragged into March and failed to produce a diplomatic resolution to the conflict. A proposed settlement would have granted de facto autonomy to Kosovo and guaranteed NATO forces access to Serbia. The Serbs refused to sign. On March 24,1999, Operation Allied Force began. The seventy4ghtday campaign was conducted largely on American terms, and by most accounts, it was “atextbook case of how not to wage war.”32The Allies expected Milosevic to yield as soon as the bombs began to fall. Instead, he stepped up repression on the ground, provoking a mass exodus of Albanian civilians, who headed for the mountains or the borders. Some 90 percent of the Albanian Kosovar population was affected-well over a million people.33 A campaign intended to end a humanitarian crisis had unexpectedly compounded it. The American administrationwas deeply divided on the issue of a possible ground war, but since Bill Clinton was on record as opposed to the commitment of ground troops, NATO in effect had no back-up strategy. For all its mistakes, NATO achieved a victory of sorts in Kosovo, and the French had some reason to be satisfied with the shape of the settlement. Public support in NATO countries for the operation was reinforced by Serb persistence in an apparently preplanned campaign of ethnic cleansing. As military and civilian leaders in western capitals began to evoke the possibility of a ground war, diplomatic efforts to force Milosevic to capitulate intensified.

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France wanted a resolution that Russia could accept and that would recast the NATO operation as an action undertaken on behalf of the international community. The United States was more inclined to use Operation Allied Force, which coincided with the fiftieth anniversaryof NATO’s birth, as a demonstration of NATO’s new mission in the post-Cold War world. At the NATO summit in late April, the French argued successfully for a declaration acknowledging the authority of the United Nations. A German initiative in the context of a G8 summit meeting in May brought the major powers together in uneasy agreement around a common peace proposal. The Serbs accepted the G-8 proposal in early June. The peace plan provided for the withdrawal of Serb military forces and the safe return of refugees, with both to be guaranteed by the presence of internationalforces. Formally, Kosovo would remain part of Serbia,but it would enjoy autonomy on a scale that suggested independence. On June 10, NATO suspended its operations; the same day, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1244, creating the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). The United Nations assumed direct responsibility for civil administration and humanitarian relief in the province; it delegated responsibility for reconstruction to the EU, for institution building to the OSCE, and for security to NATO. From the long, sorry, and painfully visible Yugoslav tale of European impotence and American intervention, Europeanists concluded that a CFSP was an urgent necessity, but one still far removed from reality. The EU’s main powers-France, Germany, and the United Kingdom-had failed to maintain a common front, instead serving different national interests and harboring conflicting perceptions of American power. Even if the EU had not been plagued by divisions, its material capabilities were dwarfed by the enormous American military establishment.Jacques Delors suggested that as the Yugoslav disaster had unfolded, Europe had been “like an adolescent faced with an adult crisis.”3*Presumably, the adolescent would grow up. “Itwill take time,”Elisabeth Guigou conceded; “Allthe more reason to get started.”35 The critics of European integration,however, drew a different lesson from Europe’s performance in the Yugoslav crisis. They concluded that the EU would never-could never-achieve political maturity. For some critics, the Yugoslav debacle seemed to confirm a preexisting skepticism, a kind of closet hostility to a supranational Europe. Already in September 1992, the public intellectual Bernard-HenriLevy (born 1948) had had to force himself to vote oui in the Maastricht referendum. He told himself stories about what France might look like in 2029 if Maastricht’s opponents ~ 0 n , 3 6he reminded himself of the unattractive company in which he would land if he voted non (“De Villiers is horrible. Le Pen is abject. Chevenement is unbearable. And the communists!”37),and in the end, he resigned himself to what seemed a futile gesture, voting in favor of a Europe he feared would never exist. He assumed that other Europeans shared the “contempt”he felt for Europe.

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How can it be mitigated in view of this spectacle?How can such a Europe aspire to respect, or even to consent?I’ll vote yes, of course. But without enthusiasm. Without fervor. Out of conformism, really. Or. . . because things would be still worse if the process [of integration]were to be interrupted.But at the same time, I know that a Europe unable to act in Bosnia and to defend its values is a Europe without a soul, whose worth has been corrupted-a Europe dead before it was ever properly born.38

All this was a far cry from the “mobilizationof will” that Mitterrand had hoped Maastrichtwould provoke. Instead, the Yugoslav crisis revealed a complex divorce in France between governmental actors and public opinion. Differently situated actors responded differently to the objective limits on French power. Political decision makers, regardless of their party affiliation, were unanimous in their cautious, pragmatic response to the Yugoslav crisis and uniformly caught in the contradictionscreated by their rhetorical emphasis on human rights and their practical understanding of France’s long-term interests and capabilities. The public at large did not like what it saw, either in Yugoslavia or in Paris. Left-wingintellectuals were particularly articulate in expressing their dissent, but there were significant divisions among the dissenters. Some attacked the government (whatever government happened to be in power) for failing to defend democratic values and human rights. Others criticized the country’s political elites for abandoning the imperatives of indkpendance and bowing to American leadership. Both positions, while substantivelyquite different (the former ostensibly more Europeanist;the latter more Jacobin), used the language of defensive nationalism to make their points. The argument about rights was most clearly illustrated in a debate occasioned by the European Parliament elections of 1994; the argument about indkpendance was made during the Kosovo campaign of 1999. Both lines of criticism later conditioned the French response to the events that followed the September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

The Public Response: Defining French Identity on the International Stage The lack of options available to external actors did not reduce the level of outrage that the violence in Yugoslavia provoked once it began. As television brought the wars in Croatia, Bosnia, and finally Kosovo into their living rooms, European publics were appalled not just by the sight of refugee columns and civilian casualties, but by the spectacle of their own diplomats repeatedlymeeting with (and making concessions to) people who seemed fairly described as murderers and war criminals. In part for historical reasons, cowardice seemed a more compelling explanation for this behavior than did confusion. “Theeye sees,” Andre Glucksman wrote, “and history provides the subtitles.”39Trials

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were one way that late-twentieth-centuryEuropean, and above aIl French, publics relived the traumas of World War II; Yugoslavia was another. Indignation was especially deep in France, where survey data suggested overwhelming and informed public support for “the politics of rescue,” or what the French call le droit ding6rence (the right to interfere).@A poll conducted in the middle of the Kosovo campaign indicated far greater support (78 percent in favor, 15 percent opposed) for intervention to alleviate the effects of civil war than for intervention in fulfillment of treaty obligations(56 percent in favor, 34 percent opposed). The support was not limited to empty affirmations of principle: of those polled, a narrow majority believed that a ground war would be necessary in Kosovo, and 60 percent of the total sample supported sending French ground forces into combat should air power fail to halt Serb repression in the province.41

The Politics of Humanitarian Intervention The consensus around the principle of humanitarian intervention initially included both the political class and the public and was the product of a confluence of diverse factors linked to the end of the Cold War and to more permanent traditions within French political and legal culture. In the 1980s, the declining appeal of the communist model and the erosion of Soviet power depoliticized the way foreign conflicts were understood: wars (civil or otherwise) were more readily viewed as human catastrophes than as political contests. During the Cold War, the superpowers had often turned local conflicts into proxy fights in their own confrontation. As the Cold War ended, that interpretive lens was replaced by a new one, which showed oppressive, corrupt, and/or incompetent power structures inflicting senseless suffering on innocent populations. The new interpretation invited disinterested, “humanitarian” intervention, while the end of the Cold War lowered the risks, since intervening in the domestic affairs of another state would no longer trigger a superpower confrontation. In standard accounts of international relations, humanitarian intervention is both unlikely and problematic. It is unlikely because it requires states to place the protection of human rights among their vital interests-comparable in importance to the security of their borders or their energy supplies. It is problematic because it conflicts with the principle of state sovereignty.To its critics, humanitarian intervention looks like imperialism or power politics in disguise: an alleged violation of human rights within country x (usually poor and militarily weak) becomes a pretext for country y (usually rich and militarily powerful) to intervene, ostensibly to protect the rights of a civilian population, but in fact to further its own material or ideological interests. Even when humanitarian intervention does not provide an excuse for imperialism, the critics argue, it introduces instability, unpredictability, and disor-

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der into an international system already dangerous enough-and it does so even as it opens the door to foreign policy conducted on the basis of media coverage and public emotion. For whatever reasons (quite possibly different from case to case), some humanitarian disasters go virtually unnoticed, while others capture media attention. In the latter case, indignant audiences demand governmental action. When the disaster is a flood or an earthquake, the dangers associated with relatively uninformed and unplanned operations may be limited. When the disaster is a civil war (or is compounded by a civil war), however, the potential for complications and untoward consequences increases significantly. Whatever their intellectual merits, these arguments, familiar to anyone who has taken a course in international relations, were politically weak in France, and never more so than in the final years of the twentieth century. From the French Revolution to the Dreyfus Affair to the “Touchepas a mon pote” buttons of SOS-Rucismein the 1980s, the language of universal rights had been the language of the republic. The domestic use of that language was becoming contentious: it collided with new ways of thinking about cultural diversity and the assertion of group rights. Humanitarian intervention involved taking the familiar language of universal rights abroad, to situations where it seemed less problematic: in countries most likely to witness manmade humanitarian emergencies,the violation of individual rights often coincided with the violation of the rights of minority communities.As the century ended, defending human rights abroad was consensual in France the way promoting open markets abroad was consensual in the United States. The ideological consensus around humanitarian action was reinforced by considerationsgrounded in power politics. De Gaulle had exercised a kind of power by criticizing or inconveniencing countries with which France was not otherwise in a position to compete, and he had looked to maintain or expand French influence in countries that the superpowersignored or where they were unwelcome. For de Gaulle’ssuccessors,humanitarian intervention opened up possibilities for both strategies. France could criticize the United States for sacrificing human rights to more classic calculations of political interest (for example in the Persian Gulf), and it could establish itself as a player in places the United States was happy to neglect. Finally, embracing k droit ding&ence offered the French intelligentsia an opportunity to reestablish its authority on the left, after a brief and relative absence from the public scene in the early 1980s.42 The victory of the socialist-communist coalition in 1981 and the economic policies of the government between 1981 and 1983 were the last acts in a finishing left-wing drama: by 1984, the policies would change and the communists would leave the government. During the linal scenes of the play, however, the coalition reminded French intellectualsof a past they retrospectivelyfound uncomfortable. From the early 1930s through the 1970s, left-wing intellectualsin France

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had by and large declined to denounce communism in general or the Soviet Union in particular. Many distinguished intellectuals, artists, and performers belonged at some point and for some period of time to the PCF. For some, the commitment was enduring: the philosopher Louis Althusser (19 18- 1990), lionized by generations of normuliens, joined in 1948 and never left. The poet Louis Aragon’s commitment was similarly permanent. For others, PCF membership was more ephemeral: in June 2001, while discussing Lionel Jospin’s extended involvement with a TrotskyM party, Le Monde referred to excommunists as France’slargest party.43 Those who joined and left included the filmmaker Alain Resnais (night and Fog, Hiroshima mon amour) and academics like Edgar Morin, Maurice Agulhon, Annie Kriegel, and Frangois Furet.44 Many intellectuals who never joined the PCF were sympathetic “fellow travelers.” Prominent among them were the philosopher and editor of Les Temps Modemes, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), the actress Shone Signoret (1921-1985) and her singer-actorhusband, Yves Montand (1921-19!91), and scores of other artists and intellectuals. Even among the deserters and the recalcitrant, few were willing to condemn communism unequivocally. To most Americans and to many French people who came of age during or after the 1980s, the magnetic pull that brought intellectually brilliant, artistically creative men and women into the orbit of Western Europe’s most Stalinist communist party remains a puzzle.45 Viewed in historical context, however, the seductive power of an objectively ugly party seems less odd. France’s pattern of political development made its cultural elites vulnerable to communism. Tocqueville had described French intellectuals as “addicted to general ideas and systems, . . . contemptuous of the wisdom of the ages”;& Marx and/or communism satisfied the addiction. In a country whose educational system gave pride of place to philosophical argument, Marx was bound to occupy a place of honor. In the first decades of the twentieth century, the greatest historians of the French Revolution (e.g., Georges Lefebvre) were Marxists; they portrayed the French Revolution as a precursor to the Russian Revolution, thus contributing to the image of the latter as part of a broader story about progress and the affirmation of human rights. More immediate political experiences and priorities reinforced a predis position to view communism favorably. For many intellectuals whose lives had been shaped by the struggle against fascism,the PCF and the Soviet Union retained the aura they had acquired in the fight against Hitler. The PCF seemed to represent the political best chance of France’s disempowered workers, making support for it a temptation for anyone critical of capitalism and interested in social justice. PCF membership offered a way of dissenting from colonial entanglements and wars, both French and American. Finally, French anticommunistsdid not make for attractivecompany in the 1950s and 1960s. Liberal anticommunism, so common in the United States, was relatively rare in France-despite the articulate and well-publicized positions of

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men like the philosopher Raymond Aron and the Catholic writer Franqois Mauriac, both of whom wrote influential columns for important journals.47 Anticommunism had driven countless French conservatives (and some former leftists) into Vichy’s arms, and after the war, those conservatives continued to set the tone of anticommunist discourse. Anticommunism, in other words, often went hand-in-handwith latent or overt hostility to republican values and institutions. The antidemocratic proclivities of communism’s opponents in turn reinforced the “antifascist”credentials of the communist movement. The sea change came in the late 1970s. Quite suddenly, communism ceased to be intellectually or politically fashionable. The new orientation was the product of generational change, new intellectual fashions (Foucault or Tocqueville rather than Mam49, and the declining numerical and political importance of the working class. The catalyst for the change was the publication in French, in 1974, of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’saccount of the Soviet prison camp system, m e Gulag Archipelago. As if overnight, the French intelligentsia “discovered”the repressive character of the Soviet regime. Anticommunism became the new orthodoxy, preached in particular by the “new philosophers” (among them Bernard-Henri Levy and Andre Glucksman), some of whom (in particular Levy) proved especially talented at gaining and using the attention of the media. The new orthodoxy conflicted with the electoral strategy and rhetoric of the left, which emphasized unity despite all the obvious tensions between the PS and the PCF. The left that won in 1981 was thus a left with which many otherwise left-wing intellectuals preferred not to identrfy; the intellectuals were uncomfortable with the government’s predominantly “first-left’’orientation. Their alienation was particularly patent on December 14, 1981, when Claude Cheysson, the foreign minister, rejected any possibility of interfering in the domestic affairs of Poland, where General WojciechJaruzelski had just declared martial law in an effort to shore up communist rule against the rising tide of reform led by the trade union S0lidarity.~9 During the two weeks that followed, the French government groped for a morally tenable position that would neither jeopardize the PS-PCF coalition in Paris nor further enflame the situation in Poland. Meanwhile, intellectuals mobilized to express their support for Solidarity and their disgust with the cautious response of their government. On December 2 1, an extraordinarily long and distinguished list of intellectuals-many of them former communists or fellow travelers-put their names on a statement that specifically evoked the right to interfere in the domestic affairs of a repressive state: The principle of nonintervention must not lead to non-assistance.. . . We must stop conceptualizing the Polish situation solely in terms of geostrategic constraints, state-testate or bloc-tebloc relations. This way of thinking minimizes

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the rights of man, the rights of people, the influence of public opinion, international solidarity. We cannot accept a permanent division of Europe that would deny a democratic future to Poland and to the other countries under Soviet domination.50

By the late 1980s, changes in the international system and in the partisan landscape had attenuated the tensions between the left in power and the intellectual left. The “first left” was in disarray, governments were emphasizing the need for ouverture, and politicians followed academics in hoping that civil society might produce possibilities for democratic renewal. The PS no longer had any reason to resist the new appeal of humanitarian intervention, for which intellectualsand organizations like Mbdecins sansfronti6res (Doctors without Borders) became the advocates. Bipartisan elite support for humanitarian action was symbolized by the joint attendance of President Mitterrand and Prime MinisterJacques Chirac in January 1987 at a conference sponsored jointly by Mbdecins du Monde and the law school of the University of Paris-Sud and led by Bernard Kouchner and Mario Bettati, dean of the Paris-Sud law school and a specialist in international law. Kouchner (born 1939) was a politicallypopular figure in France, where he was well known as founder of both Mbdecins sans fronti6res and Mbdecins du Monde and as a prominent advocate of humanitarian intervention.51 Between 1988 and 1993, he would serve first as minister of state for humanitarian action and then as minister of health and humanitarian action, frequentlyusing his position to draw attention to the plight of civilian victims in Yugoslavia. Kouchner later served as minister of health in Lionel Jospin’s government before being appointed on July 2, 1999 by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan as the first head of UNMIK. The conference, entitled “Droitet morale humanitaire”(“Lawand Humanitarian Morality”),adopted a resolution calling for the French government to seek international recognition for “the right of victims to humanitarian assistance and the obligation of States to contribute to that assistance.”52The key assertion of the organizers was that (to use the words of an American protest song) “everybody’sgot a right to live.” Intervention across state borders to protect lives is therefore both a right and a duty, the conference organizers asserted, and the right to intervene should be included in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 1988 and 1990, France did in fact move in the United Nations to secure resolutionsin favor, not of military intervention to resolve domestic disputes, but of humanitarian aid. Some souverainistes (Regis Debray among them) protested the implied disdain for politics and states embedded in arguments for Ze droit dingkrence. They argued that “the rights of man happen only where there are citizens” and that citizenship only happens in the context of sovereign states. “Towant the man without the citizen,”Debray asserted, “islike want-

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ing a city in the countryside because the air there is so much cleaner.”53But on this issue, the souveruinistes did not find the kind of support they had been able to mobilize around either their opposition to European integration or their defense of Zuiii’t6. Even before Yugoslavia, the pictures were not on their side.

The Lkbate over French Policy in Yugosluvia Within a few short years, critics of government policy in Yugoslavia turned the earlier consensus on humanitarian intervention into a political weapon. While events in Yugoslavia quickly demonstrated how difficult and risky it could be to put the principles of humanitarian intervention into practice, for many people, the ”politicsof rescue”now seemed central to French identity.54 In a political atmosphere marked by anxiety and the fear of decline, failure to defend human rights was equated with a betrayal of the national interest and considered indicative of a deeper and more general democratic failure. In the spring and summer of 1994, angry intellectuals, most of them normally sympathetic to the left, mobilized to call attention to the continuing conflicts in the Balkans. They made it sound as if Franqois Mitterrand in person was responsible for the catastrophe in the former Yugoslavia; more importantly,they made the fiasco in Yugoslavia out to be the sign of a broader crisis. Jacques Julliard warned against “rising fascism” and denounced “the lack of resolve among democracies facing the arrogance of dictatorships.”55 “A new red and brown fascism is haunting our lands,”the philosopher Andre Glucksman (born 1936) wrote in an open letter to Mitterrand, adding: “You will go down as the French president who, disoriented by the end of the Cold War, helped open the doors of the temple of Janus, allowing the plague of shooting wars to spread and prosper.”56 Julliard criticized everyone: Mitterrand and Roland Dumas (foreign minister from December 1984 to 1986 and again from 1988 to 1993) for failing to grasp a reality that defied their normal categories of thought, the right for being bellicose in opposition and pusillanimous in power, the diplomatic and military establishments for supposedly telling the politicians opposed to intervention only what they wanted to hear (i.e., that intervention on the ground would be prohibitively costly), and public opinion for its escapist tendencies. He ridiculed the self-absorptionof a country seemingly more preoccupied by the wreaths Mitterrand had had placed yearly on Petain’s grave on November 11 (commemorating the end of World War I) than by the bloodshed in Bosnia. “In France, we don’t fool around with symbols, and we are right,”Julliard wrote; “Toobad we aren’t so sensitive about realities.”57 Julliard sometimes made his positions sound lonely, but in fact his indignation about events in Bosnia was widely shared-and so were his accusatory tones. On May 11,1994,Le Mom%?ran a story describing grassroots responses

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to the Yugoslav tragedy. Hundreds of initiativeshad been undertaken. Most had been prompted by visceral horror, and almost all were critical of public policy. A high school student captured the mood: “I’msick of seeing peoples, brothers one day, kill each other the next day, sick of wordy politicians who can’t act, sick of seeing unemployment,pollution, and the reign of dirty money.”5* On May 13,1994,three intellectualspublished an article in Le Monde. They linked the legitimacy of European integration to a forceful European response to events in Yugoslavia. “One cannot build an identity on a moral abdication [une h i s s i o n ] , “the intellectualswrote. They would, they declared, reserve their votes in the upcoming EP elections for lists whose leaders supported a policy proposal known in the United States as “lift and strike.”59The policy would have lifted the U.N.-imposedembargo on arms sales to any party in the former Yugoslavia, while at the same time providing NATO air support (strikes) for Bosnian/Muslim forces.@Two days later, Bernard-Henri Uvy announced plans to field a list motivated solely by the Yugoslav issue. The list was soon constituted under the name “Europe begins at Sarajevo.”Its s u p porters summoned the leaders of the mainstream parties to a rally at La Mutualite, a historic meeting hall in Paris, on May 17.Jean-Pierre Cot (parliamentary leader of the socialists in the EP) represented the PS, Bernard Stasi (CDS) r e p resented the conservativelist led by Dominique Baudis, Philippe Henog r e p resented the PCF, Brice Lalonde represented G6n&ation 6cologie, and Yves Cochet attended for the Greens. Michel Rocard arrived at 10:30p.m. By then, one of the organizers, the writer Pascal Bruckner, had set the tone by indis criminately denouncing all politicians as “obscene.”The organizers were for the most part disappointed socialists, but the tumultuous, emotional atmos phere of the meeting was bonapartist (“touspourris”). Dialogue was impossible at the Mutualit6 meeting. In other venues, Mitterrand had sharp words for his critics61 and Main Juppe defended the government’sopposition to the “lift-and-strike”option, arguing that “onlyideologues can believe that this conflict is solely a conflict between democracy and fascism.”6*Responsible government officials thus viewed the intellectualsas ideologically driven idealists, while to their critics, the people in power looked like callous cowards. The more illuminating and principled debate occurred between two intellectuals: it pitted Regis Debray against Bernard-Henri Uvy, and it took place (as such debates often do) in the pages of Le Monae.63 Debray, representing a Jacobin standpoint, saw in the confrontation between “thepolitical class” and “themedia class” over Yugoslavia a host of indicators suggesting democratic decline.The organizersof the “Sarajevolist” and the politicians they attacked were, Debray claimed, opponents in appearance only. Debray was struck by what he viewed as an “identity of convictions”between the two camps. Both had collaborated in undermining French sovereignty. Both were Europeanist, and now one group was finding itself hoisted on its own petard.

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Prosecutors and accused [in the debate over Yugoslavia] have always been united in their support for “European integration” and “Atlantic solidarity.” When the Maastricht Treaty was on the table, they voted in favor of a commercialized Europe because France is my little country and Brussels is our great future. They supported following Washington’s line during the Gulf War, because the Free World can have only one head. After the triumph of the rights of oil users, political leaders and opinion makers celebrated in unison the coming of a new world order of peace and justice under the guidance of the United Nations, returned at last to its original role as the uncontested defender of right. They all applauded when France put its military forces under U.N. command, without discerning that what de Gaulle called an “organizationor a disorganization” would become the legal alibi for a political abdication. . . . They organized and gave their blessing to the replacement of a strategic commitment by a humanitarian show, pulling back only when it was too late. In Bosnia and elsewhere, we are reaping the unattractive fruits of these conformist positions, once so nice and so easy to sell.

Debray also detected an “identity of methods” between intellectuals and politicians, all of whom did their “work”on television when in fact their proper workplaces were elsewhere. Such methods, he charged, had debased both intellectual and political life. He accused intellectuals and politicians of “navigat[ing]by image and opinion”;both groups, he said, relied on public relations techniques to sell their respective “products.”Political life and intellectual activity require independence and creativity; in Debray’s view, intellectuals and politicians no longer displayed or valued either quality, The result, Debray argued, was a process that would further cripple the capacity of the state to make and act on tough decisions, inside or outside its borders. As the state’s independence and autonomy declined, so would its legitimacy. Squeezed from without by globalization and from within by the importance of the media, the State . . . becomes an impossible task. The historically unprecedented, instantaneous, and repeated retransmission of wars, scandals,abuse, and genocide from every corner of the globe increases the social demand for efficacious intervention at just the moment when the ability of States to affect trends (monetary trends and armed attacks, the world economy and local wars) is declining. This gap between a heightened emotional involvement and a shrinking margin of decision, between what we see and what we can do, makes all authorities appear incompetent and in the end despicable.

The gap between desires and capacities was a recipe, Debray warned, that would produce a self-perpetuating combination of bonapartist invective (illustrated by Bruckner’soutburst at the May 17 Mutualite meeting) and governmental impotence. It was not likely to promote a better French policy in Yugoslavia-or anywhere else.

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“Governingmeans accepting the consequencesof what one wants,”Debray admonished, but the intellectuals seemed oblivious to the lessons of Max Weber’sethical categories.&Debray reminded his opponents that the actions they were demanding were not within France’spower and might well not p r o duce the results they anticipated. The arms embargo was a U.N. policy, and Russia would veto changing it: did the advocates of “lift-and-strike” want to set a precedent for unilateral action in violation of U.N. resolutions?Did they want to risk alienating a state like Russia, capable of far worse mischief than Mile sevic’s Serbia? Even if the arms embargo were lifted and air strikes were ordered, it was not clear the Bosnians would benefit from the intensification of the conflict that would almost certainly result. And what if the Serbs respbnded by extending the war to Kosovo, an eventuality western diplomacy was desperately trying to prevent? Levy retorted that he and his friends were worried about consequences, which he identified with “rising fascism,” “ethnic cleansing and the reappearance of [concentration]camps in Europe.”65The whole argument turned on whether the analogy insistently drawn by Levy and his allies between Europe in the 1930s and Europe in the 1990s could be made to stick. IKvy did not argue that Milosevic was a latter-day Hitler or that Serbia was another Nazi Germany. The argument was rather that the ethno-nationalist movements on the loose in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union were the equivalent of fascism: they were obsessed by race, unconstrained in their use of violence, and insatiable in their pursuit of power. “Youare banking on the goodwill of killers,’’Glucksman warned Mitterrand.66 Fascism does not nege tiate limits to its own expansion; it does not stop unless it is stopped. That was the lesson that Munich should have taught all democrats. Unless met by resolute opposition and superior force, fascism conquers-and it spreads even where it does not conquer. The leader of the Sarajevo list was E o n Schwamenberg,by training an oncologist. He described Europe as “sickwith the cancer of Bosnia.”67IKvy evoked “the possible European metastases of the Bosnian cancer”&and Julliard, changing the medical metaphor but developing the theme, warned that “the Serb gangrene can spread.”@ The Sarajevo list’s proponents deliberately used rhetoric that raised the stakes of the debate. They did not see the issue as a discrete policy dispute. Intellectuals had stepped into the breach, IKvy argued, because “senility, cowardice, [and] amnesia” were in power.70 Democratic governments, it seemed, never knew how to draw a line in the sand on a point of honor (like the assertion that all politicians are “obscene,”this argument was a page taken straight from the bonapartist book). “If you knew,” Glucksman lectured Mitterrand, “howit hurts to see the reiterated imprudence of democracies.”71 For days, the Sarajevo list captured the headlines, prompting Le Monde to deplore “the hijacking of the European campaign”72 by people too selfabsorbed to anticipate the political consequences of their actions. It did even-

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tually dawn on Bernard-HenriL&y and his friends that people might actually vote for their list and that the probable effect of such behavior would be to damage Michel Rocard,the leader of the socialist list and the candidate whose positions were closest to those of the Sarajevo list’s organizers.73 The organizers then split over whether or not to withdraw from the election-capturing more headlines. “What a waste!” Main Minc remarked.74 Olivier Duhamel denounced the proliferation of “monomaniacallists.”75 Twenty lists were contending for public support, among them the list led by Bernard Tapie.76 Elections that allow voters to vote their pet issues do not function as effective mechanisms of public choice. “Politicsdemands,”Duhamel wrote, “that people join together and propose general solutions across different domains, relating those solutions to specified values and means. . . . The division between right and left responds to a reasonable degree to this imperative. The intellectuals could fulfiU a civic mission by classrfying themselves accordingly, and then by sustaining the contest with their talents.”77 Instead, Minc commented, the intellectuals had “unintentionally contributed to the populist atmosphere”by treating the political class with contempt, by turning a single issue into a litmus test for political support, and above all by acting as if complex issues were simple. Like other participants in the debate, Minc detected a general threat to democratic politics-but one embedded in the behavior of the Sarajevo list’sintellectual supporters, not in east European ethno-nationalism or the alleged tendency of democratic governments to capitulate to killers: By hammering on two simple ideas-the reestablishment of the territorial integrity of Bosnia and the lifting of the embargo-[the intellectuals] lend credence to the conviction that in this area as in others, clear cut and absolute solutions exist. As a proposed solution, lifting the embargo is on the same level as declaring youth unemployment illegal:’* it involves betting on the visceral reaction of public opinion and choosing to mobilize emotion at a time when em@ tion already threatens to overrun reason.79

No one likes to watch ethnic cleansing on television. The people who mobilized around the “Sarajevo list” found impotence in the face of such atrocities simply unacceptable. Their sentiments are understandable. The problem lay in their account of the indecision and doubletalk they deplored. Their attribution of policy shortcomingsto the moral failings of a diminished old man whom many had come to despise was shallow, but relatively harmless. Their generic attacks on democracies (as inherently inclined to capitulate) and democratic politics (through the single-issue protest strategy adopted in June 1994) and their professed disillusionwith the cause of European integration were more disturbing, especially given the unintended connections to a longer bonapartist tradition. But however disappointed they may have felt and however impetuous their finger pointing may have been,

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the advocates of le droit dingkrence were not closet bonapartists, and by 1999, they seemed to have gotten over the worst of their disappointment. This may have been because most were Europeanists at heart, and therefore not fundamentallyalienated from the general direction of French foreign policy. In 1999, criticism of the government would come instead from the souverainistes, whose quarrels with contemporary trends were more basic.

The Kosouo Campaign In 1999, the critics of French policy in 1994 supported French participation in the NATO action over Kosovo, even though most of them thought the campaign was too little (they favored the immediate introduction of ground forces) and too late (in their view, Milosevic’s “fascist”tendencies had been clear from the beginning of the troubles in 1991). While public opinion overwhelmingly supported the NATO campaign, the political class and the intelligentsia split.80 From the end of March through the beginning of June 1999, Le Monde published articles representing different viewpoints; other periodicals also sustained the debate. The supporters of the NATO action argued that overwhelming force wasat long last-being deployed in defense of the battered rights of a persecuted civilian population. Pierre Hassner, a prominent professor of international relations, called the aerial campaign “an enormous misstep in the right direction,”necessary to the achievementof “theleast bad transitory solution to the Balkan conflicts.”81The conservative politician Alain Madelin supported intervention; so did the Green leader (and former May 1968 student leader) Daniel Cohn-Bendit. “We have a duty to engage in humanitarian intervention,”Cohn-Benditargued,82and Madelin concurred: “Notinterveningwould have meant accepting ethnic cleansing, the destruction of whole villages, the perpetration of atrocities . . . It would have meant being guilty of failing to assist Europeans in danger.”83 Whatever the strategic or tactical errors of the campaign and however regrettable Europe’s abdication of leadership to the United States might be, Alain Joxe argued, “themain point” lay elsewhere: ‘‘Thisis the political act of a coalition raised against a massacring regime that has organized major violations of human rights, war crimes, and crimes against humanity on a big scale and for ten years.”84 In the columns of Le Nouvel Observateur, Jean Daniel and Jacques Julliard supported the recourse to arms while deploring the form the campaign had taken: “A bad war, a just fight,” Daniel remarked.85 Later, Daniel called the war a “disaster,”but continued to defend it, “aboveall because I do not want to find myself in the camp of those who rejected this war well before it failed, and simply because it was fought under American command and against the Serbs.”86

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The critics of the NATO operation argued that it was compounding the humanitarian disaster on the ground, that it was unlikely to produce a durable and just settlement to the Balkan crisis, and most importantly, that it was contrary to French interests. The Gaullist Marie-FranceGaraud, former advisor to Georges Pompidou and Jacques Chirac, denounced “France’s sheeplike behavior [suivisme bdut].”87 The historian and chevhementiste Max Gallo joined forces with the conservative Gaullist Charles Pasqua to denounce both the NATO campaign and supranational interpretations of European integration.@It was Regis Debray, however, who offered the most penetrating critique of American leadership and European suivisme. The United States, Debray argued, no longer needed to force its power, policies, or point of view on Europe. Old-styledomination was no longer necessary because the United States had “deprogrammed”Europe, imposing its cultural grid so successfully on European policy makers and publics that Europeans could be counted on to follow without being coerced. Americans, Debray suggested, are guided by a moral Machaeanism and a faith in technology; they are consistently inattentive to the constraints of politics, history, and sociology. The two mobilizing myths of the American odyssey have been the escape from politics through technology and the avoidance of the complications and complexities of the past through the conquest of space, from one frontier to the other. . . . History and geography were never a problem for this promised land, which from the start had a destiny, but no past.89

The language of humanitarian intervention was perfectly suited to this culture, Debray thought, especially if power could be exercised from the air. Debray’s problem with the discourse of human rights was not its universalism, but its willful ignorance of political and historical complexities, its corresponding tendency to reduce people with complex goals and interests to mere victims or villains, and its inclination to deal with their conflicts from an altitude of fifteen thousand feet. The transmission belts of Europe’s quite different culture-its schools, its cinema, its literature-were, Debray argued, in crisis, facilitating the penetration of “the aseptic grammar of the posthistorical era” with which Americans were so comfortable. Europeans were increasingly inclined to see the world the way Americans do: “A mind has been Americanized when it has replaced time by space, history by technology, and politics by Scripture.”* Debray had no alternative to propose: he simply lamented the absence of a figure like de Gaulle, “able to get in front of the future because willing to concede the depth of time behind the present. . . . daring to conceive of European affairs in terms set by a European grammar.”91Debray exemplified one version of what Le Nouvel Obsemuteur dubbed the “reac de gauche,” nostalgically attached to values that could not be recovered.92 Six weeks after his

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article appeared in Le Monde and having made a week-long visit to Serbia, Debray damaged his own cause by minimizing Serb atrocities in Kosovo. Debray’s second article93 unleashed a torrent of hostile commentary,%but his argument was vulnerable on grounds independent of his alleged gullibility. Jacques Julliard captured the fatal political flaw in Debray’s positions: “The great weakness of souverainiste thinking,”Julliard wrote, “is that it rejects both Yankee domination and European integration.”95 Debray’s France was a dream. If Debray’s arguments were flawed, competing arguments were not especially reassuring. The Europeanists argued that a fuite en avant toward an unknown but potentially positive future was preferable to a dead-end flight into nostalgia; only the already convinced were likely to be persuaded. The supporters of the NATO operation-politicians and intellectuals alikewere virtually unanimous in their criticism of the strategy the Alliance adopted. All deplored the absence of a Europe organized and strong enough to act on its own. Most concluded in favor of accelerated European integration, even though no one could predict the precise form a unified Europe would take. Small wonder that anxiety and disappointment were such widespread sentiments.

TESTING THE m s s m m s OF SUPRANATIONAL ACTION SOCIAL PROTECTION Capitalism, as we have seen, never acquired a broad and devoted following in France. It did not fare much better in other Continental countries, or even in England. In the postwar period, the United States had adopted Keynesian policies, but had resisted the construction of a robust welfare state; the Western European democracies, in contrast, had combined Keynesianism with significant forms of state intervention to promote some combination of economic growth and social equity. A common critique of the EC in the 1990s was that it was exactly what Mrs. Thatcher had wanted it to be: a pretext for demolishing remaining welfare state guarantees. Mrs. Thatcher often used procedural fights to further substantive goals. She preferred enlarging the Community to deepening it, and with the end of the Cold War, enlargement became politically difficult to resist, since it was widely viewed as providing new democracies with compelling incentives for remaining faithful to their democratic commitments. Enlargement necessarily led to the entry of states whose economies were less developed than those of the ori@ Six (France, Germany, Italy, and the Benelux countries), Nine (the original Six, plus Britain, Denmark, and Ireland), or even the Twelve (the Nine, plus Greece, Portugal, and Spain). In the new member states, workers were paid less and enjoyed fewer rights. Enlargement made deepening more difficult,since it increased the

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number and diversity of interests that would have to be reconciled every time the EC sought to reach a common decision. In the absence of deepening, the critics argued, competition within the EC, shaped and compounded by competition from global markets, would pull wages and benefits down in the more developed member states. Mitterrand had no use for what he disparagingly called “a vague free trade zone,”%“an immense commercial Europe, stripped of a soul, of horizons, of its own pride and its own European identity.”97A decade later, Elisabeth Guigou argued that Europe’s enduring dedication to the goal of social progress was what made it historically and culturally unique. “A European project can only be based on what Europeans have in common,”she wrote, “andon what distinguishes them from non-Europeans:their social model and their particular form of civilization.”9*“Action against social fractures has become the crucial choice, within each country in Europe and at a global level,” she argued; if the EU could not prevent social exclusion (“today’s social cancer”),it would never find popular legitimacy.99 As long as the Conservative Party was in power in Britain (and it was in power for nearly twenty years, from 1979 to 1997), Community resolutions on social policy remained toothless-and French critics of la pensbe unique remained skeptical of the European enterprise. The Social Charter, adopted in December 1989 during the run-up to the Single Market, seemed to have all the characteristics of an empty promise, and so energized critics instead of reassuring them. The Charter created no new powers for the EC and was very general about the principles it sought to promote. Mrs. Thatcher objected even to empty promises-she called the Social Charter a “socialistcharter”*C@-and Conservativegovernments refused to sign the document. The changing of the guard in London in 1997 (confirmed in 2001, after an election the Conservatives had fought on a rabidly anti-European program) and consistent signals from European publics clearly concerned by unemployment and other social issues opened the way for more meaningfulprogress. The Amsterdam Treaty committed EU members to the development of a “coordinated strategy” designed to achieve “ahigh level of employment”without compromising the competitiveness of European firms. Europe’scompetitive advantage would lie in the skills, adaptability, and motivation of a well-educated, well-paid labor force that saw itself as a fully empowered partner in the economy. States would retain primary responsibilityfor social policy within their borders, but the Treaty gave the EU important powers of oversight and suggestion.National plans would have to be consistent with the goals and guidelines (regarding social protection, workers’ rights in the workplace, gender equality, and so on) set forth in the Treaty. Even between 1998 and 2002, with a Labour government in London, a Social Democratic-Green coalition in power in Berlin, and a Socialist-ledgovernment in Paris, French views on social policy did not automaticallyprevail. That there

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were differences among as well as within left-wing parties in Europe regarding how best to address questions of social justice was demonstrated by the mixed reception that greeted the socalled Blair-Schroderpaper of June 1999. Europe was in the midst of a campaign for the European Parliament. Lionel Jospin immediately took exception to the “Third Way” proposed by Blair and Schrder, which seemed to make too many concessions to neoliberal arguments. Throughout his tenure in office,Jospin proved notably reluctant to stir the cauldron of social discontent. But fhsabeth Guigou reminded her compatriots that a “Europe of Europeans cannot be simply a big France.”lO1French acton would have to listen and learn. On their ability to shape new coalitions and new institutions would depend the long-term fate of their essentialvalues. Hubert Vedrine likened the task to getting a decision out of “a sort of gigantic owners’meeting.”It would require,he argued, “negotiation,compromise,trading back and forth, incredible patience, technical concentration,ingenuity,and a willingness to stay in for the duration.”102 Institutional innovation is a constant preoccupation of European political elites. It appears regularly on the agenda of summit meetings and is a frequent topic of debate among intellectuals. Changing circumstances (national elections, for example, or dramatic internationaldevelopments,or economic performance) often reshape reforms in progress or alter the politics of measures under consideration. The enduring pattern, however, is that the economic and market-friendlyaspects of the European project meet with less resistance than do institutional innovations aimed at deepening political integration. In 2002, the national currencies of several EU countries, including France, went out of circulation; people who still quoted prices in “old”(pre-1958) francs found themselves making change in euros.103 The CFSP, however, remained more than an aspiration than an achievement.

Nongovernmental Organizations: Harbingers of Change? Political participation and mechanisms of political accountability remain largely national, but civil society has become increasingly transnational.Economic actors operate transnationally, but so do nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) whose agendas are primarily political. NGOs are private groups (though some receive public funding) that seek to provide collective goods and/or to influence private behavior (usually by other organizations, for example multinational firms) and public policy, either within a state or in the international arena.104 NGOs are different from other kinds of “transmissionbelts”that help ensure interest articulation in democratic societies: political parties, interest groups, and social movements. Like parties and in contrast to interest groups, NGOs claim to advance goals that transcend sectoral or corporatist concerns, but

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unlike parties, they do not nominate candidates for electoral office. Unlike more ephemeral social movements, NGOs have an ongoing organizational existence. Doctors without Borders, Oxfam, Amnesty International, and Greenpeace are all examples of well-known and influential NGOs. All NGOs are embedded in civil society, and precisely because individualsand groups in civil society are increasingly connected across borders (through the Internet and other forms of communicationand mobility), NGOs are “portable”across borders in ways that political parties are not. NGO activity cannot by itself remedy the democratic deficits of organizations like the EU. From a democratic standpoint, the problem with NGOs is that their claims to represent people beyond their members cannot be verified (since the organizationsdo not stand in elections). NGOs can expose the undemocratic or otherwise undesirable character of policies and organizations and they can offer people a way of influencing policies and institutions, but institutions that make concessions to NGOs do not thereby become “accountable.”In this regard, NGOs recall the virtues and vices of bonapartist movements, firing salvos at governments that deserved criticism, but doing so in a manner that can undermine democraticpolitics. Many NGOs do in fact attack institutionalized politics (including democratic parties and governments) as hopelessly beholden to special interests and out of touch with the needs and aspirations of real people. While NGOs are no substitute for political parties, they may be important learning tools as citizens seek to define political transmission belts suitable for transnational democratic societies. The emergence, evolution, and popularity of two French antiglobalizationgroups-the Confbd6ration paysanne and Attac-are indicative of new efforts to develop avenues of political participation that do not stop at national borders. Founded in 1987, the Confbdbrationpaysanne is best known through the actions of one of its leaders, Jose Bove (born 1953), whose activist credentials include roots in both the FNSEA and the second left. Bove captured headlines in August 1999 by dismantling a half-built MacDonald’sto protest junk food, or what he called “la malbouffe”: culturally undifferentiated, ecologically suspect food.105 Several months, a few court actions, and a great deal of publicity later, Bovk and his Confbdbration paysanne colleague, Francois Dufour, took their organization’scommitment to sustainable rural communities, environmental responsibility, and quality produce to the United States, which they toured before participating in the November 1999 protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle. Attac, short for Association pour la taxation des transactionsfinanciiWes et Z’aide au citoyen, “aimsto produce and communicate information, and to promote and lead all sorts of action in order to enable citizens to reconquer the power that the financial world now exercises over all aspects of political, economic,social, and cultural life everywhere in the world.”l&It was founded

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in June 1998; in November 2001, it could claim twenty4ght thousand paidup members in France and sister organizationsin thirty-ninecountries. Unlike the Confbdbrutionpuysunne, Attuc has no roots in more traditional interest groups or political activity. Instead, its organizers use the Internet to create and connect to new networks. By 2002, the group could attract as much attention as the employers’association, MEDEF. On January 19, 2002, Attac called a meeting in Paris to announce positions it wished to see debated during the upcoming presidential and legislative campaigns. The organizers anticipated three thousand participants; six thousand people came.107 Political parties more typically worried about the opposite scenario: too many chairs and too few people. The Confkdkrution puysunne and Attac share ideological, organizational, and operational traits. Ideologically,they are committed to reasserting the primacy of politics over economics, to defending human rights, and to promoting the democratic values of participation, accountability, and solidarity. Like Ulrich Beck (and Karl Polanyi before him), they view the “the liberal determination to access the planet as a vast, completely unregulated, unsupervised commercial domain”l@3as a form of utopianism, “a revival of the metaphysics of history, a social revolution from above passing itself off as nonpolitical.”l09 They reject all forms of utopianism and all grand social designs,preferring pragmatic, case-by-casesolutions to specific problems. The Confbdbrutionpuysunne and Attac are particularly emphatic in their insistence on the need for North-South solidarity.Both groups see neoliberal economic globalizationas a process that is widening inequalities both within societies and between the developed and the less developed world. Both advocate a significant redistribution of resources from the developed to the less developed world, with Attuc, for example, proposing to use the proceeds from the Tobin tax on speculative financial transactions to fund local development programs in less developed countries. Organizationally, both groups are flexible, nonhierarchical, and decentralized, and both make extensive use of the Internet. Both are active all over the political, institutional, and geographical map. Attuc calls itself “a network without a head.”llOThe Confbdbrutionpuysunne has ties to Attuc, but also to Via Cumpesinu,an international umbrella group of peasant organizations created by Central American peasant leaders in 1992. Bove notes the emergence of “an informal planetary network of movements,”111adding that “the strength of this planetary movement is precisely its ability to assume different forms in different places, while generating trust among people.”112 Jacobinism is not a plausible ideological position for organizations that define themselves as do the Confbdbrution puysunne and Attuc. Thus, despite his opposition to WTO policies and his preference for Roquefort cheese over hamburgers, Bove is not a souveruiniste: “we must devise checks that operate on the same level as globalization, that is, that are plane-

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tary,” he argues; “we can’t just cling to our narrow Napoleonic nationstate.”113Attuc echoes: “liberal globalization is . . . global [sic]. If they are to be effective, resistance against and alternatives to liberal globalization must place themselves at the same leveL”’14While professing no common position on the future of European integration,Attuc is quick to point out that the policies of international organizations like the EU and the WTO do not fall from the sky: they are the work of state governments, and those governments can be held accountablethrough existing political mechanisms. The group’smessage to citizens tired of “the ill effects of liberal globalization”was an imperative as old as politics: organize! Attuc hoped to use the elections of 2002 to “provoke a debate about France’s policies, and more specifically the policies pursued within international organizations by the ministry of the economy”and to “demandthat the positions defended by representatives of the French government be publicly monitored in real time by Parliament.”The result, the organization claimed, would be democratic renewal on a new scale: There is a gigantic field open for the exercise of both representative and participatory democracy. It has been left fallow by existing structures and practices.It is an international field. To appropriate it, elected officials and citizens will have to leave the territory of politicsas-spectacleand the shadow games of the Hexagon and penetrate the sanctuary where real power lies. The democratic requirements of the nation, like the requirement of solidarity with the rest of the world, have no frontiers other than those of the planet itself.ll5

Attuc’s challenge went unmet in 2002, but the presidential and legislative campaigns were criticized for failing precisely the tests that the organization suggested, and NGOs, unlike parties, do not depend on elections to mobilize energies. The Confd&’rution puysunne and Attuc go where the action isand they take the media with them. Again, unlike French parties, which spend a fortune on public relations and are still greeted with a mixture of boredom and hostility, both NGOs discussed here have been extraordinarily savvy in using the media and new communications technologies to convey their message to the public and to generate support for their actions. From January 31 to February 5,2002, politicians trooped to the World Social Forum in Port0 Alegre. Presidential candidates Jean-Pierre Chevenement (P6Ze rdpublicuin)and Noel Mamere (Greens) were there, as were six cabinet ministers and representativesof both Prime MinisterJospin and President Chirac. Franqois Hollande, the leader of the PS, was also there, and so was the (socialist) mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe. We are accustomed to thinking of democracy as being institutionally framed by parties, elections, and nation-states. That scaffolding is no longer reliable or adequate, since sovereignty is not what it was. The interesting question to ask about organizations like the Confd&rution puysunne and

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Attuc has to do not with the substance of their proposals-after all, partisans of representative democracy believe in the necessity of parties other than their own and applaud elections even when the side they personally prefer loses-but with their efforts to move beyond the Jacobin Eramework to chart new fields and forms of democratic action. “We’rein for a long scrap,”Jose Bove conceded.116 His attitude and actions suggested an example of the “mobilizationof will” that Mitterrand had warned democratic renewal would require. Long struggles and acts of will can of course go in unexpected directions, and we have noted evidence of bonapartist temptations in unexpected quarters (not to mention bonapartist activity in more predictable places). By attacking parties and parliaments, bonapartist movements tend to detool democraticpolities. What about NGOs like the Conf&d&utionpuysunne and Attuc? Institutionallyspeaking, were the forms of political participation Bove advocated retooling democracy or leading people in afuite en avant? What were the alternatives?

CONCLUSION In June 1995,Jacques Chirac announced that France would conduct a final series of nuclear tests. Mitterrand had suspended such testing in April 1992. Anticipating domestic and especially foreign criticism, the new president claimed that his decision was dictated by “thehigher interests of our nation” and was “naturally irrevocable.”117Many observers criticized the move as motivated by Chirac’s need to appear decisive, presidential, and (above all) Gaullist. Pierre Mauroy, while reaffirming his support for France’s nuclear forces, called the resumption of testing an ill-timed, ill-conceived decision, “unedecision a contretemps, a contre-courant, a contresens”:it would compromise France’s moral credibility; it demonstrated an inability to rethink priorities in light of a changing world and new threats; and, by dint of its unilateral character and the Gaullist rhetoric in which it had been wrapped, it would complicate the construction of a European foreign policy.118 Survey data indicated that two out of three of his compatriots shared Mauroy’s opposition to Chirac’s decision.119 Interestingly, Chirac felt compelled to suggest, however vaguely, that France’s nuclear forces might eventually be placed at the disposal of the European Union. The nuclear tests were an atavistic expression of France’s abiding ambition to be a great power; French critiques of American actions often seemed to obey the same motives. Throughout the postwar period, many Americans viewed French foreign policy as gratuitously obstructionist. In this account, the French opposed American policies and proposals simply because they were American. The same Americans often seemed to assume that American policies were enlightened simply by virtue of being American, but their inter-

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pretation of French motives was not entirely wrong. The French resisted American power because American power was hegemonic and the French valued independence as a good in itself. But the French, shaped by their own history, politics, and culture as well as by their more limited power, also read the world differently from the way Americans did. They were correspondingly inclined to develop different policy orientations-toward institutions (like the United Nations), specific conflicts (like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict), or issues (like Third World debt relief and free trade). As French independence became increasingly subsumed under a European identity of uncertain definition, questions often asked about French power resurfaced in a new form: what substantive purposes would European power serve? Did Europe have a distinctive project, or did it simply want to maximize its power?If Europe did have a project, was it one that the French could embrace while remaining “French”? We do not yet know the answers to these questions; they will be decided by Europeans in the course of political debates and decisions over the next several decades, and they will, as always, be subject to the vicissitudes of international events. French Europeanists promote the further development of the welfare state and the defense of universal rights as Europe’sspecial mission. Both goals have clear roots in France’spast, and both have been adopted by French NGOs whose audience and influence seem to be expanding. Yet both require the construction of coalitions that do not as yet exist and of institutions whose shape still defies our imagination. Reflecting on the course of European integration and the concept of sovereignty in 1995, Antoine Winckler wondered whether ongoing discussions were best thought of as the “description of a crisis or the crisis of a description.”120As in the case of immigrants and integration, the sometimes shrill debates in France about indkpendunce, multilateralism, and supranationality and the dismal foreign policy record of the EU in such high-profile cases as Yugoslavia may have masked modest but significant progress. The Maastricht Treaty, even as it created new areas of EU competence, enshrined the principle of subsidiarity.The superposition of European, national, regional, and local political structures raised problems of jurisdiction. The principle of subsidiarity dictated that decisions be made at the lowest level practical. Critics worried that local concerns would squeeze out greater ambitions. But the purpose of the principle was to encourage efficiency and flexibility while increasing democratic legitimacy (by enhancing transparency and responsiveness). The principle also served Europeanist ambitions in more indirect ways. It offered a means of settling sovereignty disputes without discussing them in grand ideological terms and it suggested the possibility of a “Europe a geometrie variable,”a European Union in which different configurations of states would agree to different levels of cooperation. This reduced the risk that enlargement would sabotage efforts to deepen integration.

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The Maastricht and Amsterdam reforms came into force as France was still adjusting to and building upon the decentralizationreforms of the 1980s.Here again, the process of adjustment was often bumpy, and in some instances the new institutions appeared to encourage dysfunctional behavioral responses. But gradually, more promising patterns began to emerge, as subnational units started to grasp the range of possibilities created by the multiple changes taking place. Successive governments promised further reforms. In the debates about Corsica, Jean Daniel (who cautiously supported the Matignon “process”)had made repeated reference to what he called Z’espace rbpublicain, as in: “It must be possible . . . thanks to a broad, open, daring decentralization . . . to keep Corsica in Z’espace rbpublicain.”121Clearly, Daniel intended Z’espace rbpublicain to mean something different from la Rbpublique. What exactly the new term meant was unclear. In the face of such uncertainty, Jacobins like Jean-Pierre Chevenement remained inconsolable. Roger Fauroux, however, reminded his compatriots that not all human stories end badly and that happy endings are sometimes hard to anticipate precisely because they involve departures from apparently permanent patterns: It is not absurd-it is even reasonable-to think that humanity will invent radically new forms of organization, even if today we cannot yet discern the contours of those forms. . . . Who among Bossuet’s audience in the chapel at Versailles could have imagined the advent of a secular democracy just over two centuries after the Sermons?122

Plantu, the longtime cartoonist for Le Monde, responded simultaneously to the Corsican debates and the presidential ambitions of Jospin, Chevenement, and Chirac with a wonderfully ambiguous cartoon. In the foreground, Chevenement is addressingthe public. Early in the 2002 campaign, Chevknement was considered the “thirdman” in the race, behind the two anticipated frontrunners,Jospin and Chirac. In the cartoon, the former minister is reading from a long scroll of paper on which one word appears, repeated over and over: “Republique.”Just behind him, Chirac and Jospin listen, their arms crossed and their expressionsangry. Above the two men is their reaction: “Et pourquoi il a un texte et pas nous?”(“So why does he have a text and we don’t?”)lz3Chevenement had a text, but did he have a strategy? Chirac and Jospin, for all their differences, were both improvisers. They had neither a text nor a strategy. None of the men featured in Plantu’scartoon did well in the 2002 elections. Chevenement won a disappointing5.3 percent of the presidential vote on April 24. On June 16, he lost the parliamentary seat he had held since 1973, and he subsequently announced his intention to withdraw from public life. Apparently, his Jacobin text appealed, but as a strategy it no longer persuaded. But

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the improvisers were also penalized, even if one ended up president of the republic. Improvisationis a fair-weatherstrategy;in situationsfraught with fear and anxiety,both withdrawal and ideologicalassertivenessare likely to be more attractive. Ideologies are attractive because they provide overarching explanations of events; no matter how faulty the explanationsmay be, they offer those who subscribe to them a renewed sense of control and certainty. Bossuet (1627-1704) was a major figure in the French Church and at Louis X I V ’ s court. Between his sermons on behalf of divine right monarchy and the consolidationof the “Republiqueindivisible, laique, dkmocratique et sociale,” France survived a long procession of political experiments. Fauroux’s ostensibly optimistic judgment about France’s unknown future was as ambiguous as Plantu’scartoon.Among French democrats, the Jacobins have an outmoded text; their critics, from the partisans ofparit6 to Jose Bovk, reject “abstractions” and grand schemes. Yet democracy in our time requires a fundamental renewal of political institutions, actors, and culture. Improvisation may not suffice to hold antidemocratic trends at bay. In the course of its long and eventful democraticeducation, France flunked a number of important tests. Our common and continuing democratic education may be taking place under less permissive circumstances; we may not have the same chance to remedy our failures.AU the more reason to mind our lessons.

RECOMMENDEDREADING

Frencb Foreign Policy, European Integration, and Yugoslavia Boniface, Pascal. L a France estelce encore une grande puissance? Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1999. Cohen, Hie. La tentation hexagonale. Paris: Fayard, 19%. Cohen, Samy, ed. Milterrand et la sortie de la Guerrefroide. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1998. Debray, Regis, as “Xavierde C**’.” L’ddit de Caracalla, ouplaidoyerpour les &tatsUnis dOccident. Paris: Fayard, 2002. Debray, Regis. Tous azimuts. Paris:Odile Jacob/Fondationpour les etudes de defense nationale, 1989. Delors, Jacques. L’Unitd d u n homme: Entretiens avec Dominique Wolton. Paris: Odile Jacob, 1994. du Roy, Albert. Domaine rdservk: les coulisses de la diplomatiefranFaise. Paris: Le Seuil, 2000. Duhamel, Alain. Une ambition fraqaise. Paris: Plon, 1998. Dumas, Roland. Le Fil et lapelote: Mdmoires. Paris: Plon, 19%. Gordon, Philip H. A Certain Idea of France: French Security Policy and the Gaullist Legacy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993.

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-. France, Germany, and the WesternAlliance. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1994. Gordon, Philip H., and Sophie Meunier. The French Challenge:Adapting to Globalization. Washington,DC: Brookings, 2001. Guigou, J%sabeth. Pour les Europdens. Paris: Flammarion, 1994. Hoffmann, Stanley. The European Sisyphus:Essays on Europe, 1964-1994.Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995. Julliard,Jacques. Cefacisme qui vient. Paris: Le Seuil, 1994. -. Pour la Bosnie. Paris: Le Seuil, 1996. IKvy,Bernard-Henri.Le lys et la cendre:journal d u n ecrivain au temps de la guewe de Bosnie. Paris: Grasset, 1996. Liwe blanc sur la ddfense, 1994.Paris: Union gknkrale des editions; 10/18,1994. Mitterrand,Franqois. De la France, de I’Allemagne.Paris: Odile Jacob, 1996. -. Onze discours sur l’urope (1982-1995).Naples, Italy: Vivarium, 1996. -. Rdjlexionssur lapolitique extdrieurede la France: Introduction a vingtcinq discours, 1981-1985.Paris: Fayard, 1986. NahoumGrappe, Veronique, ed. Vukovar, Sarajevo . . . : La guewe en exYougoslavie.Paris: Editions Esprit, 1993. Percheron, Annick. “LesFranpis et 1’Europe:Acquiescement de faqade ou adhesion veritable?”RevuefranGaise de sciencepolitique,vol. XLI, no. 3 (June 1991),pp. 382-406. Ross, George. Jacques Delors and European Integration. New York Oxford University Press, 1995. Tardy, Thierry.La France et la gestion des conjlitsyougoslaves (1991-1995).Brus sels, Belgium: hnile Bruylant, 1999. Tiersky, Ronald. FranGois Mittewand: The Last French President. New York: St. Martin’s, 2000. Vedrine, Hubert (with Dominique Moisi). France in an Age of Globalization. Trans. Philip H. Gordon. Washington, DC: Brookings, 2001. Vkdrine, Hubert. Les mondes de FranGois Mittewand: A I’Elysde, 1981-1995.Paris: Fayard, 1996. Vernet, Daniel, and Jean-Marc Gonin. Le r&e sum$&: Chronique des guerres yougoslaves. Paris: Odile Jacob, 1994. Humanitarian Interuention-TBe

F r m b Debate

Bettati, Mario, and Bernard Kouchner, eds. Le devoir dingbence: Peut-on les hisser mourir? Paris: Denoel, 1987. Bettati, Mario. Le droit dingbence: Mutation de I’ordre international. Paris: Odile Jacob, 1996. Cohen, Samy, ed. L’opinion, I’humanitaire et la guerre: une perspective comparative. Paris: Fondation pour les etudes de defense nationale, 1996. Deptal, Marie€hristine. Politique ext&eure et diplomutiemorale: le droit ding&ence en question. Paris: Fondation pour les etudes de defense nationale, 1993. Floquet, Michel, and Bertrand Coq. Les tribulations de Bernard K.en Yougoslavie. Paris: Albin Michel, 1993. Kouchner, Bernard. Ce queje oois. Paris: Grasset, 1995.

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-. Le malheur des autres. Paris: Odile Jacob, 1991. Le ddbat, “Des usages de l’humanitaire,”no. 84 (March-April 1995): articles by Rony Brauman, Jean-Claude Guillebaud, Pierre Lellouche, Jean-Christophe Rufin, and Luc de Heusch. Le ddbat, “Ingkrence:vers un nouveau droit international?”no. 67 (November-December 1991): articles by Mario Bettati, Pierre Hassner, and Jean-Christophe Rufin; interview with Bernard Kouchner. Rufin,Jean-Christophe. “Les humanitaires et la guerre du Kosovo.”Le ddbat, no. 106 (September-October 1999), pp. 3-26. -. “Pour l’humanitaire: dCpasser le sentiment d’echec.” Le ddbat, no. 105 (May-August 1999), pp. 4-21.

UsefulJournals Esprit Le ddbat Politique 6trang8re Relations internationales et stratdgiques

To Understand Yugoslavia Anzulovic, Branimir. Heavenly Serbia:From Myth to Genocide.New York: New York University Press, 1999. Daalder, Ivo H., and Michael E. O’Hanlon. Winning Ugly: NATO’s War to Save Kosovo. Washington, DC: Brookings, 2000. Daalder, Ivo H. Getting to Dayton: The Making of America’s Bosnia Policy. Washington, DC: Brookings, 2000. Djilas, Aleksa. The Contested Country: Yugoslav Unity and Communist Revolution, 1917-1753.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991. Glenny, Misha. The Balkans: Nationalism, War, and the Great Powers, 1804-1999. New York: Penguin, 1999. Halberstam, David. War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals. New York: Scribner, 2001. Holbrooke, Richard. To End a War. New York: Random House, 1998. Independent International Commission on Kosovo. The Kosovo Report: Conflict, International Response, Lessons Learned. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Judah, Tim. Kosovo: Warand Reuenge.New Haven, Corn.: Yale University Press, 2000. -. The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia. New Haven, Corn.: Yale University Press, 1997. Malcolm, Noel. Bosnia:A Short History. New York: New York University Press, 1996. -. Kosovo:A Short History. New York Harperperennial, 1999. Owen, David. Balkan Odyssey. San Diego, Calif.: Harcourt Brace, 1995. Rieff, David. Slaughterhouse:Bosnia and the Failure of the West.New York: Touchstone, 1996. Ullman, Richard H., ed. The World and Yugoslavia’s Wars. New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1996.

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Woodward, Susan L. Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution afer the Cold War. Washington, DC: Brookings, 1995. Zimmerman, Warren. Origins of a Catastrophe: Yugoslavia and Its DestroyersAmerica’s Last Ambassador Telk What Happened and why.New York Times Books/Random House, 1996.

NOTES 1. See Hubert Vedrine, interview with Jean Daniel, “L‘autregrandeur,”Le Nouvel Observateur, May 28, 1998,p. 108. 2. See Vedrine, “L‘autregrandeur,”p. 108. In contrast, “superpowers”are characterized by their superior military capacities and “great powers” concede a rough equality among themselves. 3. Albert du Roy, Domaine r6serv6: les coulisses de la diplomatie franGaise (Paris: Le Seuil, 2000), p. 282. 4. Du Roy, Domaine r6sew6, pp. 281-282. 5. Du Roy, Domaine r6sew6, p. 9. 6. Jules Ferry, speaking in parliament in defense of France’sexpanding colonial commitments, July 28, 1885, text in Raoul Girardet, ed., Le nationalisme franGais: Anthologie, 1871-1914 (Paris: Le Seuil, 1983), pp. 106-107. 7. Franqois Mitterrand, “Colloque‘Les tribus ou I’Europe,’” Paris, February 29, 1992,in Franqois Mitterrand, Onze discouts sur Z’Europe (1982-1995) (Naples,Italy: Vivarium, 1996), p. 84. 8. See for example Debray’s pseudonymously published book, Xavier de C***, L’6dit de CaracaUu, oupluidqerpour les L?tats-Unisd0ccMent (Paris: Fayard, 2002). 9. Anthony Giddens uses the term “runaway world” to capture the high-risk character of the modern world. See Anthony Giddens, Runaway World:How Globalization Is Reshaping Our Lives (New York: Routledge, 2000). For a more academic treatment, see Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-dentity:Selfand Society in the Late Modern Age (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1991). 10. Charles de Gaulle, September 5, 1960 and April 11, 1961, Discours et messages, vol. 3: Avec le renouveau, 1958-1962 (Paris: Plon, 1970),pp. 256 and 318. De Gaulle also famously, although possibly apocryphally, referred to the United Nations as a “machin”(a thing). In French, the United Nations is called the Organisation des Nations unies, thus inviting de Gaulle’s sarcasm. 11. The termsJacobin and souverainiste are preferable here to “Gaullist”to avoid confusion with the RPR: not all members of the RPR were equally Jacobin, and many people who did not support the RPR had souverainiste views. 12. For analyses of public opinion, see Annick Percheron, “LesFranqais et 1’Europe: Acquiescement de facade ou adhesion veritable?”Revue franGaise de science politique, vol. XLI, no. 3 (June 1991), pp. 382-406 and Bruno Cautres and Bernard Denni, “Les attitudes des Franqais h I’egard de 1’Union europeenne: les logiques du refus,” in Pierre Brechon et al., eds., Les cultures politiques des FranGais (Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 2000), pp. 323-354. 13. Properly speaking, there was no parliamentary vote on the EDC, nor was there even a parliamentary debate. Anticipating defeat, proponents of the treaty

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sought to postpone debate, whereupon opponents used a procedural maneuver to kill the treaty. The vote was 319 in favor of the questionprkalable (i.e., against any consideration of the treaty) to 264 opposed, with 12 abstentions and 31 deputies (23 of whom were members of the government) not voting. The socialist group split 53 to 50; the radical socialists 34 to 33; the UDSR 10 to 8; a dissident Gaullist group split 16 to 14. All 95 communistsvoted against the treaty, as did 67 out of 73 Gaullists. The MRP voted overwhelminglyin favor of the treaty (2 votes for the questionprkalable, 80 opposed, 4 abstentions). Throughout the summer of 1954, public opinion appeared to be evenly divided. See Raymond Aron and Daniel Lerner, eds., La querelle de la CED:Essais d’analysesociologique (Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1956). The parliamentaryvote, broken down by party affiliation, is on p. 58; survey data on the EDC are cited and discussed on pp. 142-147. 14. John McCormick, Understanding the European Union: A Concise Introduction (New York St. Martin’s, 1999), p. 192. 15. In the 1970s, Giscard’sattempt to reorient Gaullist foreign and military policy in light of his own more Atlanticist and European convictions and of perceived changes in the patterns of American capability and policy helped lay the foundations for further progress in European integration, but met strong resistance at home. 16. Franqois Mitterrand, “Ouvermredes rencontres nationales pourl’Europe,”Paris, January 10, 1992, in Franqois Mitterrand, Onze discours sur I’Europe (1982-1995) (Naples, Italy: Vivarium, 1996), pp. 63,73. 17. Mitterrand, “Seancede clBture des assises de la Confederation europeenne,” June 14, 1991, in Mitterrand, Onze discours sur 1’Europe (1982-1995), p. 53. 18. Mitterrand used this image in his May 8,1995 Berlin speech to characterizethe victory being commemorated, but it is a theme that recurs in his speeches about Europe;for example, September 21,1991, again in Berlin, cited in Hubert Vedrine,Les mondes de FranGois Mitterrand: a L’Elyske, 1981-1995 (Paris: Fayard, 1996), p. 465. 19. Franqois Mitterrand, on “Aujourd’huiI’Europe,”in Le Monde, September 5, 1992, pp. 8-9. 20. Fmnqois Mitterrand, “Seance de clature des assises de la Confederation europeenne,” June 14, 1991, in Franqois Mitterrand, Onze discours sur I‘Europe (1982-1995) (Naples,Italy: Vivarium, 1996), p. 52. 21. Hubert Vedrine, Les mondes de FranGois Mitterrand: a l’Elyske, 1981-1995 (Paris: Fayard, 1996), p. 293. 22. Vedrine, Les mondes de FranGois Mittewand, p. 568. 23. Vedrine, interview with Jean Daniel, “L’autregrandeur,”Le Nouvel Observateur, May 28, 1998, p. 11 1. 24. Gilles de Robien,Plaidoyerpour une droite plurielle, rkpublicaine, libkrale, sociale, europkenne. . .:Entretien avec Pierre-LucSeguillon (Paris: Le Pre aux Clercs, 19991, p. 69. 25. Ibsabeth Guigou, Pour les europkeens (Paris: Flammarion, 1994), p. 45. 26. Thierry Tardy, La France et la gestion des conpitsyougoslaves (1991 - 1995): Enjeux et 1eGon.s de maintien de path de I’ONU (Brussels, Belgium: bile Bruylant, 19991, p. 62. 27. General Jean Cot, excommander of the UNPROFOR in ex-Yugoslavia, preface to Tardy, L a France et la gestion des conpits yougoslaves (1991-1995), p. x. 28. Warren Christopher,Secretary of State from 1993 to 1997,used this expression

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to describe the situation in Bosnia; see citation in Ivo H. Daalder, Getting to Dayton: The Making of America’sBosnia Policy (Washington,DC:Brookings, 2000), p. 36. 29. H. N. Brailsford, 1908, cited in Tim Judah, Kosovo: War and Revenge (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 11. 30. Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly:NATO’s War to Save Kosovo (Washington, DC: Brookings, 2000), p. 17. 31. House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs,Fourth Report, May 24, 2000, paragraph 77, cited in the Independent International Commission on Kosovo’s The Kosovo Report: Conflict, International Response, Lessons Learned (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 86. 32. Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O’Hanlon,Winning Ugly: NATO’s War to Save Kosovo (Washington: Brookings, 2000), p. 19. 33. See Independent International Commission on Kosovo’s The Kosovo Report: Conflict, International Response, Lessons Learned (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 90 and 304f. 34. Jacques Delors, cited in Daniel Vernet and Jean-Marc Gonin, Le r&vesacrtfkf: Cbronique des guerres yougoslaves (Paris: O d e Jacob, 1994), p. 58. 35. Elisabeth Guigou, Pour les europ6ens (Paris: Flammarion, 1994), p. 192. 36. Bernard-Henri IKvy,Le lys et la cendre:Journal d u n h i v a i n au temps de la guewe de Bosnie (Paris: Grasset, 1996), pp. 86ff. 37. Gvy, Le lys et la cendre, p. 90. 38. Gvy, Le lys et la cendre, p. 90. 39. Andre Glucksman, “Ceciest bien une guerre,” Le Monde, May 18, 1999,p. 15. 40. See Michael L. Walzer, “The Politics of Rescue,” Social Research, vol. 62, no. 1 (Spring 1995), pp. 53-66. The Yugoslav disaster provoked an avalanche of writing on humanitarian intervention. The issue of Social Research in which Walzer’s article appeared was devoted to ”Rescue: The Paradoxes of Virtue.” See also Stanley Hoffmann, “The Politics and Ethics of Military Intervention,” Survival, vol. 37, no. 4 (Winter 1995-1996), pp. 29-51 and Michael Ignatieff, Human Rigbts As Politics and Zdolatry (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001). For the French debate on humanitarian intervention, see recommended readings listed at the end of this chapter. 41. SOFRES poll commissioned by Libbration and conducted between April 27 and April 29, 1999, data reproduced and analyzed in Alain Joxe, “Limpact du conflit du Kosovo dans l’opinion publique franqaise,” in Olivier Duhamel and Philippe Mechet, L’opinionpublique 2000 (Paris: Le Seuil, 2000), pp. 207-222. 42. On the “silence of the intellectuals,”see the series of articles published in Le Monde during the summer of 1983, beginning with Philippe Boggio’s “Le silence des intellectuels de gauche,”Le Monde,July 27,1983, pp. 1 and 6, and ending on August 25, 1983. 43. Jean-Guillaume Lanuque and Claude Pennetier, “La France, Trotski, les trotskismes,”Le Monde, June 13, 2001, p. 16. The relevant sentence reads: “If ex-communists constitute France’s biggest party, ephemeral Trotskyites are a huge club.” 44. Morin and Furet both wrote influential memoirs of their involvement with the PCF. See Edgar Morin, Autocritique (Paris: Julliard, 1959) and Franqois Furet, Le pass6 d’une illusion:Essai sur l’id6e communiste au X X e sickle (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1995).

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45. For an unsympathetic account, see Tony Judt, Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals, 1944-1956(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). 46. Alexis de Tocqueville, B e Old Regime and the French Revolution, trans. Stuart Gilbert (Garden City, Ny: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1955), p. 141; see above, chapter 5. 47. Raymond Aron (1905-1983), a normalien, was a student of political philosophy, social theory, and international relations. He is widely credited with introducing a generation of students to Tocqueville’swork. Aron joined the Free French in London in 1940; after the war, he was a columnist first for Combat and then, beginning in 1947, for Le Figaro. In the late 1950s, he argued that decolonization was in France’s interest. He denounced intellectual connivance with the communist movement in L’opium des intellectuels (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1955). Dominique Schnapper, the sociologist who made such significant contributions to the discussions of citizenship in the 1980s and 1990s,was Aron’s daughter. Franqois Mauriac (1885-1970) was a well-known Catholic novelist and antifascistintellectual. He was a mendksiste in the 1950s and a Gaullist under the Fifth Republic. Beginning in 1953, his column (“Bloc-Notes”)appeared weekly in L’Express (until 1961) and then in Le Figaro. 48. Foucault himself was another former communist. A student of Althusser and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, he joined the Party in 1950, but lasted only a year. 49. “Of course,”Claude Cheysson said, “wewill do nothing”;cited in Le Monde, December 15,1981, p. 8. 50. Text and list of signers in “IaCFDT, FO, la CGC, la CFTC et la FEN demandent l’appui de M. Mitterrand,”Le Monde, December 24, 1981, p. 6. Those supporting the statement included Pierre Bourdieu, Jean-Marie Domenach, Franqois Dubet, Alain Finkielkraut, Michel Foucault, Franqois Furet, And& Glucksman, Jacques Julliard, Claude Lefort, Jacques Le Goff, Emmanuel Le Roy Iadurie, Yves Montand, Edgar Morin, Pierre Nora,Pierre Rosanvallon, Shone Signoret, Jorge Semprun, Paul Thibaud, Alain Touraine,Pierre Vidal-Naquet,and Michel Wieviorka. Several petitions circulated in the days that followed the declarationof martial law in Poland, and many people signed multiple petitions. See: “Plusieursintellectuels de gauche polemiquent avec le PS,”Le Monk, December 18,1981, p. 8; “Unappel d~crivains et de scientifiques de gauche,” Le Monde, December 23, 1981, p. 5 ; “Un hommage des artistes et des intellectuels a I’Opdra de Paris,’’Le Monde, December24,1981,p. 6;“Plusde quatre mille scientifiques et intellectuels franqais demandent de ‘suspendretoute relation susceptible daider les auteurs, polonais ou non, du coup de force,”’ Le Monk, December 25, 1981, p. 5. Meanwhile, the noncommunisttrade unions organized mass demonstrationsto protest the events in Poland. By December 23, prime minister Pierre Mauroy was stressingthe government’ssupport for democratic forces in Poland (see text of statement made in the National Assembly, in “ ‘Leprincipe de non-ingerencene consiste pas pour un Etat a ne rien voir, a ne rien entendre,”’Le Motuie, December 25,1981, p. 4): The principle of noninterventiondoes not require a state to see and hear nothing, to think and say nothing no matter what happens in the world. It is not acceptable that the rights of states should trump the rights of peoples and the rights of man. What I am saying here is the very message of the universalmoral conscience. It is the message of France.

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51. Kouchner was by training a gastroenterologist.He was also well connected in Parisian intellectual,journalistic, and political circles. See his autobiographical Ce queje crois (Paris: Grasset, 1995). 52. Mario Bettati and Bernard Kouchner, eds., Le droit dingkrence: Peut-on les hisser mourir? (Paris: Denoel, 1987), p. 292. 53. Regis Debray, “Lesdroits de I’homme: une fausse reponse,” in Mario Bettati and Bernard Kouchner,eds., Le droit dingkence: Peut-on les laisser mourir? (Paris: Denoel, 1987), p. 63. 54. “What is new,” Alain Joxe wrote in commenting on public opinion in 1999, “isthe advent of an ethical, as opposed to a juridicalor geographic, definition of obligations.”Main Joxe, “L‘impactdu conflit du Kosovo dans I’opinionpublique franqaise,“ in Olivier Duhamel and Philippe Mechet, L’opinionpublique 2000 (Paris: Le Seuil, 2000), p. 212. 55. JacquesJulliard, Cef i c h e qui vient. . . (Paris: Le Seuil, February 194), p. 11. 56. Andre Glucksman, “Merci,Monsieur le President,”Le Monde, May 26,1994, p. 2. 57. JacquesJulliard, Cef i c i s m e qui vient . . . (Paris: Le Seuil, February 1994),pp. 128f. 58. Cited in “Citoyenspour la Bosnie: La France compte au moins trois cents collectifs, associationset coordinationscontre la ‘purificationethnique,’ Le Monde, May 11, 1994, p. 4. 59. Alain Finkielkraut,Pierre Hassner, and VeroniqueNahourn-Grappe, “L‘Europe a-telle encore un sens?”Le Monde, May 13, 1994,p. 2. 60. The embargo was thought to penalize the Bosnian forces; Serbs had helped themselves to the assets of the well-armed former Yugoslav People’sArmy. 61. See interview in Le Nouvel Observateur, May 26,1994, pp. 56 and 58 and Le Monde, May 18,1994, pp. 1 and 8. 62. Alain Juppe, “Sarajevo:ce que je crois,” Le Monde, May 21,1994, pp. 1 and 5. See also the April 12, 1994 parliamentary debate on Yugoslavia Vournal oflciel, D6batsparlementaires, dance du 12 awill994,pp. 681-704), in which Juppk and defense minister Franqois IRotard represented the government. 63. Regis Debray, “Les frires ennemis,” Le Monde, May 25, 1994, pp. 1-2; Bernard-Henri IRvy, “Huit reponses a Regis Debray,”Le Monde, May 27, 1994,p. 2; see also Andre Glucksman, “Merci,Monsieur le President,”Le Monde, May 26, 1994, p. 2. 64. At the end of his 1918 essay on “Politicsas a Vocation,”the German sociologist Max Weber distinguished between what he called the ethics of responsibilityand the ethics of ultimate ends. The practitioner of the former accepts that he will be judged on the consequences of his actions; the practitioner of the latter justifies his actions on the basis of his own intentions. See Max Weber, “Politicsas a Vocation,”in H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds. and tr., From Mruc Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), pp. 118- 128. In his reply, Lkvy acknowledged the allusion, but rejected the accusation. 65. Bernard-HenriLevy, “Huit reponses a Regis Debray,”Le Monde, May 27,1994, p. 2, including the reference to Julliard’sbook. 66. Andre Glucksman, “Merci,Monsieur le President,”Le Monde, May 26, 1994, p. 2.

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67. Cited in “La ‘liste Sarajevo’s’est perdue en route,” Le Monde,June 14, 1994, p. 5. 68. Bernard-HenriLkvy,“Huitreponses 2 Regis Debray,”Le Monde, May 27,1994, p. 2. 69. Jacques Julliard, “Delit de fuite,” Le Nouvel Observateur, June 4, 1992, reprinted in Jacques Julliard, Pour la Bosnie (Paris: Le Seuil, 1996), p. 61. 70. Bernard-Henri Uvy, “Huitreponses a Regis Debray,”Le Monde, May 27,1994, p. 2. 71. Andre Glucksman, “Merci,Monsieur le President,”Le Monde, May 26, 1994, p. 2. 72. “La ‘liste Sarajevo’ oblige le gouvernement a justifier sa politique en Bosnie,” Le Monde, May 29-30,1994, p. 1. 73. On May 28, 1994, Le Monde reported (pp. 1 and 8) an IPSOS poll commissioned by Le Point. The poll suggested that 12 percent of the electorate might vote for the Sarajevo list. The list ate into support for all other lists except that of the National Front: thus its presence would reduce the UDF-RPR score from 30 to 27 percent and Rocard’s score from 20 to 18 percent. The list’s presence was nonetheless particularly damaging to Rocard, partly because he was already in trouble and partly because his effort to match the list’s positions on Yugoslavia had angered Mitterrand loyalists within the PS and struck others as a deplorable instance of pandering. 74. Alain Minc, “Ni Aron, ni Malraux, ni Zola,” Le Monde, June 1, 1994, p. 2. 75. Olivier Duhamel, “Arrcterle n’importe quoi,” Le Monde, June 1, 1994, p. 2. Duhamel was a candidate on the PS list led by Michel Rocard. 76. “Therearen’t lists,”Duhamel remarked, “justpetitions.”These were the elections that would effectivelyend Michel Rocard’sbid to lead the PS in the post-Mitterrand era (see chapter 5). 77. Duhamel, “Arreterle n’importe quoi,” Le Monde, June 1, 1994, p. 2. 78. Bernard Tapie had suggested that youth unemployment be declared “illegal,” a position he reiterated throughout the campaign; see for example “M. Tapie: ‘Etrede gauche, Fa se merite,”’ Le Monde, June 10, 1994, p. 15. Minc might also have cited Philippe Seguin’sproposal to conduct a referendum on employment policies, so as to get away from la pensee unique and adopt a national goal of “zero exclusion.” See “M. Seguin espkre surmonter les blocages de la societe face au chGmage,”Le Monde, May 4, 1994, p. 8. Seguin’sproposal was probably intended as the opening volley of his presidential campaign, but in 1995, it was Chirac who successfully exploited anxiety about la fracture sociale. 79. Main Minc, “NiAron, ni Malraux, ni Zola,”Le Monde, June 1, 1994, p. 2. 80. The same pattern had occurred during the Gulf War in 1991. 81. Pierre Hassner, “Kosovo:en cas dechec . . . ,”Le Monde, March 27,1999, p. 1. 82. Daniel Cohn-Bendit, “Pour un protectorat europeen,” Le Monde, April 3, 1999, p. 16. 83. Alain Madelin, “Sommesnouspr&s a nous battre?”Le Monde, April 1, 1999, p. 18. At the end of this passage, Madelin alludes to a well-known French legal principle. In French penal law (Article 223-6), an individual who fails to assist a person who is in clear and imminent physical danger (whether because of an accident or an assault) can be punished with imprisonment and fines. The legal principle is recognized in everyday speech, in which people commonly refer (sometimes ironically) to

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“non-assistancea personne en danger.”The duty to intervene in humanitarian crises is often presented as an extension of this legal principle. 84. Alain Joxe, “Rectifier une incoherence au Kosovo,”Le Monde, April 3, 1999, p. 16.Joxe’s stance is notable because of his previous association with souverainiste positions and Jean-PierreChevenement. 85. Jean Daniel, “Mauvaiseguerre, juste combat,”Le Nouvel Observateur, April 8, 1999, pp. 22-23. See also Jacques Julliard, “Prioriteabsolue,” Le Nouvel Observateur, April 8, 1999, p. 23. 86. Jean Daniel, “Kosovo:notre reponse . . . , n Le Nouvel Observateur, May 27, 1999,p. 23. Unlike most participants in the debate, Daniel defended a nuanced position throughout the Kosovo crisis. 87. Marie-France Garaud, “Kosovo:l’absurdite et le peril,”Le Monde, March 27, 1999, p. 18. 88. Max Gallo and Charles Pasqua, “Pas de paix sans independance de 1’Europe,” Le Monde, April 2, 1999, pp. 1 and 17. Chevenement himself was gagged by his status as a cabinet minister, but his opposition to the NATO campaign was well known. 89. Regis Debray, “L’Europesomnambule,”Le Monde, April 1, 1999,p. 19. 90. Debray, “L‘Europesomnambule,”p. 19. 91. Debray, “L‘Europesomnambule,”p. 19.Rkac is slang for reactionary.Rkac de gauche means “leftistreactionary. 92. See “Dossier:Faut-il &re ‘reacde gauche’?’’Le Nouvel Observateur, April 1, 1999, pp. 4-11; see also Jacques Julliard, “Adieu!”Le Nouvel Observateur, April 15, 1999, p. 21. 93. Regis Debray, “Lettre d’un voyageur au president de la Republique,” Le Monde, May 13,1999, pp. 1 and 15. 94. See for example, Bernard-HenriGvy, “Adieu,Regis Debray,”Le Monde, May 14, 1999, pp. 1 and 13, Alain Joxe, “Contrele ‘cretinismeinternational,’”Le Monde, May 14,1999,p. 13, and Andre Glucksman, “Vousn’avez pas vu ce que vous avez V U , ~ L’Eapress, May 20, 1999, p. 63; Regis Debray responded to his critics in “Ce que j’ai vraiment dit,”Le Nouvel Observateur, May 20, 1999, p. 38. 95. Jacques Julliard, “L’erreurhistorique des ‘souverainistes,’” Le Nouvel Observateur, May 20, 1999,p. 37. 96. Franqois Mitterrand, “Seance de cl6ture des assises de la Confederation europeenne,”June 14, 1991, in Franqois Mitterrand, Onze discours sur I’Europe (2982-1995)(Naples, Italy: Vivarium, 1996), p. 56. 97. Franqois Mitterrand,De Z’Allemagne,de la France (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1996), p. 225. 98. Elisabeth Guigou, Pour les europkens (Paris: Flammarion, 1994),p. 217. 99. Guigou, Pour les europkens, p. 130. 100. See Margaret Thatcher, Tbe Downing Street Years (New York: HarperCollins, 19931, p. 750. 101. hsabeth Guigou, Pour les europkens (Paris: Flammarion, 1994), p. 239. 102. Hubert Vedrine, interview with Jean Daniel, “L’autre grandeur,”Le Nouvel Observateur, May 28, 1998, p. 108. 103. In December 1958, de Gaulle devalued the franc and created the so-called franc lourd. One hundred old francs were the equivalent of one new franc, making

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one old franc the equivalent of one new centime. Most people stuck with the old system, simply quoting the new sums in centimes. 104. For a discussionof NGOs, see Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998). 105. Bove originally preferred the expression “bouffede merde,”but he reconsidered. See Jose Bove and Franqois Dufour, Le monde n’estpas une marcbandise:Des paysans contre la malbouffe, entretiens avec Gilles Luneau (Paris:La Dkcouverte, 2000), p. 77. lob. Attac, Constitution,Article 1. 107. See “6000 personnes au Zenith de Paris, Attac surprise par son succks,”Le Monde,January 22,2002, p. 8. 108. Jose Bove and Franqois Dufour, Le monde n’estpas une marcbandfse:Des paysans contre la malbouffe, entretiens avec Gilks Luneau (Paris: La Dkcouverte, 20001, p. 193. 109. Ulrich Beck, What Is Globalization?trans. Patrick Candler (Oxford: Polity Press, 2000), p. 117. For the classic analysis of the idea of a self-regulating market as a utopian project, see Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation:The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston: Beacon Press, 1944). 110. Attac, Manzyeste 2002 uanuary 20021. 111. Jose Bove and Franqois Dufour, Le mon& n’est pas une marcbandise: Des paysans contre la malbouffe, entretiens avec Gilles Luneau (Paris: La Dkcouverte, 2000), p. 214. 112. Bove and Dufour, Le monde n’estpas une marcbandise, p. 220. 113. Bove and Dufour, Le monde n’estpas une marcbandise, p. 209. 114. Attac, Manifeste 2002 LJanuary 20021. 115. Attac, Maniyeste 2002 uanuary 20021. 116. Jose Bove and Franqois Dufour, Le monde n’estpas une marcbandise: Des paysans contre la malbouffe, entretiens avec Gilles Luneau (Paris: La Dkcouverte, 2000), p. 218. 117. Chirac announced his decision at a press conference on June 13, 1995. Le Monde printed key excerpts in its editions of June 15,1995, p. 2. 118. Pierre Mauroy, “Le mauvais exemple,”Le Monde, September 3-4, 1995, pp. 1 and 9; citation at p. 1. The first test was held on September 5. Five others followed. 119. On September 2,1995, Le Monde reported @. 4) the results of a BVA pok 63 percent of the sample opposed the tests, while 29 percent approved Chirac’s decision. 120. Antoine Winckler, “Description d’une crise ou crise d’une description,” Le &%at, no. 87 (November-December 1995), pp. 59-73. 121. Jean Daniel, “Le divorce Jospin-chevenement: les faux proces,” Le Nouvel Obsmateur,August 31,2000, p. 51. 122. Roger Fauroux, Etats de service (Paris: Hachette, 1998), pp. 78-79. 123. This cartoon is reproduced in Plantu, Le troisisme bomme illustrk (Paris: Le Seuil, 2002), p. 33.

APPENDIX A

A Chronology of French Regimes prior to 1789 The “OldRegime”(divine right monarchy) 1598

Edict of Nantes (suggested a move toward religious toleration) 1610 Assassination of Henri IV, followed by a long period of unrest 1642 Death of Richelieu 1648-1653 “La Fronde”-diversely motivated, mostly noble, resistance to royal authority 1661-1715 Personal reign of Louis XIV (important figures: Colbert, Bossuet) 1685 Revocation of the Edict of Nantes 1776 Beginning of American War of Independence

1789-1799 Revolutionary period 1789- 1792 Attempt to build constitutional monarchy 1793- 1794 The “Terror” (Convention dominated by Robespierre, Jacobins), First Republic 1795-1799 The Directory 1799- 1814 First Empire (Napoleon) 1799- 1804 The Consulate 1804- 1814 The First Empire “HundredDays” Restoration eclipsed when Napoleon returns briefly (March-July 1815) 313

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1815-1830 Restoration Monarchy (“Legitimists”in power) 1815-1824 Louis XVIII 1824-1830 Charles X 1830-1848 July Monarchy (Louis Philippe, “Orleanists”in power) 1848-1852 Second Republic

June Days (1848) Worker unrest destabilizesthe young Republic December 2, 1851 Coup by Louis Napoleon, president of the Republic 1852-1870 Second Empire (Napoleon 110; collapses with French defeat in Franca-PrussianWar

March-May 1871 The Paris Commune 1875-1940 Third Republic 1877-1879

President Mac-Mahon tries to turn republic in authoritarian direction; fails

1940-1944 “Etatfranqais,” commonly known as the Vichy government @etain) 1944- 1946 Provisional Government of the Republic 1946-1958 Fourth Republic 1954-1962 Algerian War (critical in bringing about the demise of Fourth Republic) 1958-? Fifth Republic 1962 President made subject to direct election 2000 Presidential term shortened from seven to five years

APPENDIX B

The Fifth Republic: The Presidents and Their Prime Ministers Charles de Gaulle, 1958-April 1969 Michel Debre (Gaullist), January 1959-April 1962 Georges Pompidou (Gaullist), April 1962-July 1968 Maurice Couve de Murville (civil servant),July 1968-April 1969 Alain Poher (interim president after de Gaulle’s resignation) Georges Pompidou (Gaullist), June 1969-April 1974 Jacques Chaban-Delmas(Gaullist), June 1969-July 1972 Pierre Messmer (Gaullist), July 1972-April 1974 Alain Poher (interim president after Pompidou’sdeath) Valery Giscard d’Estaing0 , May 1974-May 1981 Jacques Chirac (UDR), May 1974-August 1976 Raymond Barre (independent conservative),August 1976-May 1981 Franqois Mitterrand (PS), May 1981- May 1995 Pierre Mauroy (PS), May 1981-July 1984 Laurent Fabius (PS), July 1984-March 1986 *JacquesChirac W R ) , March 1986-May 1988 Michel Rocard (PS), May 1988-May 1991 Edith Cresson (PS), May 1991-April 1992 Pierre Berkgovoy (PS), April 1992-March 1993 *EdouardBalladur (RPR), March 1993-May 1995 Jacques Chirac (RPR),May 1995Alain Juppe (RPR), May 1995-June 1997 *LionelJospin (PS), June 1997- May 2002 Jean-Pierre Raffarin (former PR, UDF, DL), May 2002‘Denotes “cohabitation”governments 315

APPENDIX C

Electoral Laws: An Introduction Democratic (and sometimes nondemocratic) countries have many elected officials (mayors, presidents, parliamentarians, and so on). Elected officials may be elected directly by voters or indirectly by an electoral college (typically composed of other elected officials). Different positions may have different terms (in France, for example, members of the National Assembly are elected directly and for five years, while members of the Senate are elected indirectly and for nine years). Elected officials may be subject to residency requirements.They may be limited in how many terms they may serve or how many offices they may hold concurrently, or both. Different kinds of rules can be used in conducting direct elections. When political scientists refer to “electorallaws” without other qualification, they usually mean the mode of election used to select members of the lower house of the national parliament. Thus references to “the electoral laws of the Fourth Republic”point attention to how the National Assembly was elected between1946and1958. There are two basic types of electoral laws. Theplurality system also goes by other names: winner-take-allorfirst-past-the-post.The other type of electoral system is called proportional representation (PR). In France, the plurality system used in elections for the National Assembly is called the scrutin uninominal a deux tours, or the scrutin majoritaire deux tours. PR-based elections are called scrutins de liste. In the former type of election, the voter specifies a preference for a single candidate(in the French case, there are two rounds, or tours, of voting); in the latter type, for a slate or list of candidates. History teaches us that rules affect outcomes, but that their impact, and especially their impact over time, is hard to predict. Real-lifeelectoral systems are often quite complicated,reflecting the complex motives of the politicians who designed them and the particular circumstances of the country involved. The basic logic of plurality and PR systems, however, can be introduced as follows.

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PLURALITY ELECTORAL LAWS How They Work The country is divided into electoral districts. Each district disposes of a single seat in the lower house (i.e., each district is a “single member constituency”). On election day, voters are presented with a list of candidates. Each voter votes for one candidate. The candidate who receives aplurulity of the valid votes wins the seat.

An Example In electoral district D, 50,000voters turn out to decide who will represent the district in the lower house. Five candidates (from left to right: V, W,X , Y, and Z)contest the election. Each voter casts his ballot for an individual candidate. The results are as follows: Candidate V, 20 percent of the valid votes; W, 30 percent; X , 20 percent; Y, 20 percent; Z , 10 percent. Candidate W is elected because he won more votes than any other single candidate. Note: No candidate came close to winning a majority of the vote, and 70 percent of the voters voted against the individual elected.

Hypothetical Impact of Plurality Electoral Laws Since plurality electoral laws left 70 percent of the voters of district Dunrepresented (and perhaps that pattern was repeated in districts across the country), such laws are clearly not intended to be ‘‘fair” in any obvious way. They are favored because they are thought to reduce both fragmentationand polarization at the electoral level, while producing a two-party (or two-bloc) system at the parliamentary level. To see why, look back at the example given above. Let us assume that: 1. The parties represented by candidates V and W lean to the left, while the parties represented by candidates X, Y, and 2 are more or less conservative. 2. None of the parties opposes the country’sconstitutional set-up.

Eventually, it will occur to the leaders of the conservative parties that together they command 50 percent of the vote and so could easily beat the liberal candidate W ; Parties X, Y , and Z therefore band together. To meet the new conservative challenge,liberal parties Vand W also unite.

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If this calculation occurs, fragmentation will be reduced. Instead of the original five parties, there will be only two parties (or coalitions). Polarization will also be reduced, because both the liberal and the conservative coalitions will be competing for the support of the centrist voters. A reluctant liberal may well vote conservative if the liberal party strays too far from the political center, whereas a convinced leftist will remain loyal for lack of a more appealing alternative. The liberal party will therefore cater to the opinions of the reluctant liberal, while taking the support of the left for granted. The same thing will happen on the conservative side. Malcontents of one description or another will occasionally organize third parties, but few voters will want to “waste” their votes on a candidate who stands little chance of winning, particularly since the most likely result of splitting a coalition would be the victory of the candidate of the opposing coalition.Consider the followingexample:The electorate is split 50-50. Restless right-wingersabandon the conservative party and propose their own candidate, who wins 5 percent of the vote. Result: The liberal candidate is elected. Thus while third parties may compete in elections, only the two major parties are likely to win parliamentary seats, and one of those two parties will get a majority of seats. In a parliamentary system, the presence of a clear, dependable parliamentary majority will ensure strong, stable, effective government. The classic example of a political system shaped for the better by plurality electoral laws is Great Britain. But as the example of the Third Republic (which used the scrutin uninominal Ci d e w tours) suggests, plurality electoral laws do not always produce the results outlined above. Plurality electoral laws will have a felicitous effect on democratic politics if and only if the following conditions are met:

Two major political parties or “families”must already be present, and preferably organized, when the laws are implemented. If, as in India during the first several decades after independence, there is only one party with strong national appeal, plurality electoral laws will hamper the formation of a broadly based opposition party. This may be less true in countries that use a two-round plurality system, but there was a partisan thrust to the electoralreforms of 1958, and its purpose was to keep the left weak. The basic line of cleavage in the body politic must in fact be the one separatingpolitical left from political right. Other possible lines of cleavage include religious, ethnic, linguistic, and regional differences; in France, the clerical-anticlerical divide was particularly relevant. Antisystem parties or groups (groups opposed to the constitutional setup) must either be nonexistent or have only insignificant appeal. In France, such groups have been common.

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In countries where the above conditionsdo not obtain, the adoption of plurality electoral laws may have an adverse effect on political stability and consensus. Small parties, unable to obtain a plurality in any electoral district, would be excluded from parliamentary representation. Differences of principle (see conditions 2 and 3 above) would discourage them from building interparty alliances. Locked out of parliament and responsible governmental positions, such groups would have every reason to adopt increasingly extreme positions and to take their cause into the streets. Two-round systems help attenuate these dangers by offering the electorate a wide range of choices on the first round. However, as the French presidential elections of 2002 demonstrated, this remedy can create its own problems. In s u m , plurality electoral laws “produce”moderate, bipolar party systems only in countries where the initial patterns of cleavage were characterized by low polarization (moderation) and low fragmentation (bipolarity), or where such patterns are developing as a result of social, economic, and cultural change. Elsewhere, or in elections to bodies where a stable majority is not considered a necessity, another type of electoral system is often preferred: proportional representation.

PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION

How PR Works: 1. The country is divided in electoraldistricts. Each electoral district sends several representativesto the lower house. 2. As the electoral campaign begins, each party draws up a list of people it hopes to send to the lower house. 3. On election day, each voter votes for apurty (or a list of candidates). 4 . Seats are allocated to each party in proportion to the share of the vote its list received. If a party gets five seats, the first five people on the party’s electoral list will take office.

An Example In electoral district R, 500,000 voters turn out to decide how the district will be represented in the lower house. District R disposes of ten seats. Five parties (from left to right: A, B, C, D, and E ) compete in the election. Each voter casts his ballot for a party. He may base his choice on the party’s ideology, its program, and/or the composition of the party’s electoral list. The results are as follows: Party A, 20 percent of the valid votes; B, 30 percent; C, 20 percent; D, 20 percent; E, 10 percent.

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Party A gets two seats (20 percent of 10) in parliament; the fmt two people on its electoral list will occupy the seats. Party B gets three seats, Party C two seats, Party D two seats, and Party E one seat.

Hypothetical Impact of Proportional Representation PR is “fair” and “democratic”in that it produces a lower house whose composition accurately reflects the various elements of public opinion. PR is nevertheless frowned upon by political scientists because it is held to cause or compound fragmentation, polarization, ineffective government, and political instability. Small parties will be able to win seats on their own and so will have no incentive to form broad, “catch-all”coalitionswith other parties before elections. Since no single party is likely to win a parliamentary majority, postelection bargaining among party leaders will be necessary before a government (prime minister and cabinet) can be formed. Once formed,the governmentwill be reluctant to undertake strong measures lest its composite majority evaporate. Existing problems will not be solved, new challenges will not be met, and the regime’s critics will have a field day, further increasing polarization and locking the political system into a vicious circle fueled by governmental failure and popular discontent. Classic examples of the disastrous effects of PR include the Weimar Republic that preceded Hider’s rise to power in Germany and the French Fourth Republic. Most real-life PR systems are weighted (often in complicated ways) to reward the top vote-winningparties. The more the results are weighted, the less “proportional”the system becomes. Real-life PR systems also typically include “threshold”rules, which deny representation to (and may impose financial penalties on) parties that fail to win more than a certain percentage of the vote.

FRENCH ELECTIONS: A GLOSSARY OF TERMS klections anticipkes: elections held ahead of schedule (as, for example, in 1997,when Chirac dissolved the sitting National Assembly). 6lection partielle: by-election. A by-election is held if a seat (or an elected body) becomes vacant through death, resignation, or the legal nullification of a prior election. By-elections sometimes provide clues about the evolution of public opinion during the periods between elections and may therefore be carefully watched. The September 1983 by-election in Dreux, which catapulted the National Front to national prominence, was held after a court nullified the results of the regularly scheduled municipal elections that had been held in March. premier tour: first round of a two-round election. Although the second round is decisive in determining the results of an election (the composition of the National

ELECTORAL LAWS

321

Assembly, for example, or the identity of the president of the republic), firstround statistics provide a more accurate picture of public opinion, and so they are typically the statistics that are cited in evaluations of party strength. deuxi&ne tour: second round of a two-round election (also called the run-off election). dksistement:to dksister is to step aside in favor of a better-placed candidate during the interval between the two rounds of a two-round election. Thus a center-right candidate who won 15 percent of the first-roundvote might step aside in favor of the conservative candidate who won 25 percent, or a communist candidate might defer to a better-placed socialist. Dksistements are often negotiated at the national level by the parties. On the left, the habit of dksistement is traditionally referred to as “disciplinerepublicaine”(republican discipline), since it was originally used to inhibit the election of antirepublicanconservatives. circonsdption:electoral district. inscrits:registered voters. The discrepancy between the number of eligible voters and the number of registered voters is much less significant in France than it is in the United States. Since 1997, all documented eighteen-year-olds have been automatically registered. suflrages expimks: votes cast, whether valid or invalid. Unless otherwise specified, electoral results are given as a percentage of votes cast. The higher the abstention rate, the more important it becomes to report the results as a percentage of registered voters and not just of votes cast. t a w dabstention:abstention rate. Calculated by subtractingthe number of votes cast from the number of registered voters, and then converting the difference into a percentage of registered voters. Theparticipation rate indicates the percentage of registered voters who cast votes. bkancs et nuk: blank, spoiled, or otherwise invalid ballots (sometimes “mutilated”is included as a descriptivepossibility). Casting a blank or invalid vote is part of the repertoire of protest in France, and so these votes are tabulated and typically given as a percentage of votes cast. The existence of this category means that the percentages of votes cast for candidates (or, in PR elections, lists) may not total up to 100 percent. sondage “sortiedes umes”:exit poll cumul des mandatss:act of holding two or more offices (e.g., mayor and deputy) concurrently.

IMPORTANT ELECTED BODIES President of the Republic:seven-year term through Chirac’selection in 1995;five-year term beginning with Chirac’sre-election in 2002; two-round direct election; twoweek interval between the two rounds. National Assembly (577 seats in 2002; 550 deputies represent districts in metropolitan France; the remaining 27 represent overseas dkpartements and territories): elected every five years or immediately following its dissolution; two-round plurality elections; one-week interval between the two rounds. Senate (321 seats in 2002): nine-year term; one-third of the body is elected every three years. Elections are organized at the departmentallevel; they are indirect and the

322

APPENDIX C

method used depends on the size of the d6partement. The Senate cannot be dissolved. Conseils r6gionau.x (26 regions in 2002): the regions were a creation of the decentralization laws of 1982. The first regional elections were held in 1986. Regional councils were initially elected every six years, but beginning in 2004, the term will be five years. Elections are two-round PR elections, and are held simultaneously across the country. Each regional council elects a regional president, who serves for six years. Municipal councils (one for each commune): elected every six years; elections are held simultaneouslyacross the country. Towns with fewer than 3,500 inhabitants use a modified two-round plurality system. Towns with more than 3,500 inhabitants use a two-round PR system. Paris, Lyon, and Marseille elect both municipal councils and precinct councils (conseilsdawondissement).In all cases, mayors are elected by the members of the municipal council. Departmental councils (conseils gdn6rau.x):six-year term; one-half of the body is elected every three years. Each county (canton) sends one councilor to the council; elections are two-round plurality elections. European Parliament (France elects 87 deputies to the 62Gmember body): five-year term; single-round,PR election with national lists.

APPENDIX D

Who’s Who in French Politics Aubry, Martine (born1950): Socialist;important figure in Jospin’s 1997-2002 government; as minister of labor, she was a driving force behind the legislation to shorten the workweek to thmy-fivehours. Balladur, Edouard (born 1929): Minister (economy, finance, privatization) in Chirac’s 1986-1988 government;prime minister from 1993to 1995;ran unsuccessfully for president in 1995. Barre, Raymond (born 1924): Economist; prime minister from 1976 to 1981; unsuccessful presidential candidate in 1988. Mayor of Lyon. Relatively independent political figure on the moderate right. Blum, L6on (1872-1950): Influential socialist leader under the Third and Fourth Republics. Prime minister under the Popular Front, and again briefly in 1946-1947. Advocated a humanist, democratic form of socialism. Was among the republican leaders put on trial at Riom by the Vichy government; was later deported to Germany. Bove, Jose (born 1953): Antiglobalization activist, with a background in the FNSEA, the peace movement, and a succession of second-left causes. Chaban-Delmas,Jacques (1915-2000): Gaullist; worked for Vichy before going over to the Resistance. Prime minister from 1969 to 1972; sought to implement a center-right reformist program (la nouvelle socidte?. Longtime mayor of Bordeaux. Ran unsuccessfully for president in 1974. Chevenement, Jean-Pierre (born 1939): Longtime leader of the leftist CERES faction within the PS. During the 1970s and 1980s, favored closer ties with the PCF. Then and later, advocated economic protectionism and opposed further European integration. Left the PS in 1992 to found the Mouvernent des citoyens; later created the Pdle rbpublicain. Held repeated ministerial appointments: under Fabius (July 1984-March 1986, education), Rocard (May 1988-January 1991, defense), and Jospin (June 1997-August 2000, interior). Ran unsuccessfully for president in 2002. Throughout the 1990s, a key defender of “Jacobin”positions.

323

324

APPENDIX D

Chirac, Jacques (born 1932): Prime minister from 1974 to 1976; mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995; first “cohabitation”prime minister from 1986 to 1988; elected president in 1995; reelected in 2002. Founder (1976) and leader of the Gaullist RPR.

Cohn-Bendit,Daniel (born 1945):Student leader in the events of May 1968. Later active in Green politics in Germany. Returned to France to lead the Green list in the European elections of 1999. Darnard, Joseph (1 897- 1945): Right-wing activist under the Third Repub lic; member of the veterans’ organization Crozk de Feu in the 1930s, then of the protofascist Cagoule and the PPF. Founder and leader of the Service dordre Zkgionnaire (February 1942), which sent French volunteers to fight alongside the Germans on the Eastern front, and of the Milice (1943). Tried and executed at the Liberation. Debr6, Michel(1912- 1996): Founded the National School of Administration (ENA) in October 1945.Aide to Charles de Gaulle and one of the architects of the Constitution of 1958;prime minister from 1959 to 1962 and key figure during de Gaulle’stenure in power. de Gaulle, Charles (1890- 1970):originally a career officer; wartime leader of Free France; head of the government from the Liberation until his resignation in January 1946;founder and leader of the RPF (April 1947);founder and president of the Fifth Republic from its inception in May 1958 until his resignation in April 1969. Defferre, Gaston (1912-1986): Socialist leader under the Fourth and Fifth Republics; longtime mayor of Marseilles. Attempted unsuccessfully to build a center-left coalition prior to the presidential election in 1965 (as an alternative to the socialist-communist alliance favored by Mitterrand). Architect of the decentralization laws adopted by the Socialist government in the 1980s. Delors, Jacques (born 1925):Former aide to Chaban; former CFDT activist; important figure on the “secondleft.”Minister of the economy in Mauroy’s 1981-1983 government. President of the European Commission, 1985-1995. Declined to run as a socialist candidate in 1995. Duclos, Jacques (1896-1975): Important communist leader from the incep tion of the party until his death. Candidate for president in 1969 (he won 21.5 percent of the vote). Fabius, Laurent (born 1946):Socialist leader during and after the Mitterrand era; prime minister from 1984 to 1986; minister of the economy under Jospin. Giscard dEstaing, Val- (born 1926): Minister of finance under de Gaulle, leader of the UDF (in several of its incarnations); president of the Republic from 1974 to 1981. Guigou, Elisabeth (born 1946): Socialist; advisor to Mitterrand; minister of justice under Jospin; articulate advocate of European integration.

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325

Hue, Robert (born 1946): Communist leader; ran unsuccessfully for president in 2002 and was subsequently defeated in the parliamentaryelections. Jospin, Lionel (born 1937): Socialist leader, minister during the Mitterrand era; ran an impressive though unsuccessful presidential campaign as the socialist candidate in 1995; prime minister and architect of the gauche plurielle from 1997 to 2002; unexpected loser in the first round of presidential balloting in 2002. Jupfi, A h i n (born 1945): RPR; prime minister from 1995 to 1997; key figure in the Unionpour la majoritdprdsidentielle (2002). Laval, Pierre (1883-1945): Third Republic politician; head of the government under Petain from June to December 1940 and again from April 1942 to August 1944. Tried and shot at the Liberation. Le Pen, Jean-Marie (born 1928): Extreme-right politician and leader of the National Front. Unexpectedly reached the run-off in the presidential elections of 2002. Maire, E d m o n d (born 1931): Leader of the CFDT from 1971 to 1988;important voice on the “second left.” Succeeded by Jean Kaspar (born 1941), who was in turn replaced in October 1992 by Nicole Notat (born 1947). Marchais, Georges (1920-1997): Succeeded Waldeck-Rochet in 1972 as leader of the PCF; remained at the head of the Party until 1994, when he was replaced by Robert Hue. Ran for president in 1981. Lacked the mobilizing talents of Duclos and Thorez. Presided over the Party during the Common Progradunion of the Left period and on into its years of decline. Mauroy, Pierre (born 1928): Socialist leader; prime minister from 1981 to 1984;longtime mayor of Lille. Maurras, Charles (1868-1952): Right-wing theoretician under the Third Republic and longtime editor of the influentialand reactionary newspaper, 1’ActionfrunGaise. Virulently antirepublican,antisocialist, and antisemitic. Tried and sentenced to life imprisonment at the Liberation. M-t, Bruno (born 1949): National Front politician who broke with Le Pen in December 1998 and subsequently created his own party. Mend& France, Pierre (1907-1982): Independent leftist politician and key moral reference during both the Fourth and Fifth Republics. Was widely respected by many (and deeply hated by others), but never developed a strong partisan base. Prime minister in 1954-1955; negotiated the Geneva Accords which brought the French Indochina War to a close. Skeptical about European political integration, he allowed the EDC to die. Opposed the institutional reforms of 1958. In the event of a regime change, was prepared to head an interim government in May 1968. Mitterrand, Francob (1916- 1996): Center-left, then socialist leader under the Fourth and Fifth Republics. SupportedMendes France in 1954-1955 and served as his minister of the interior. Held cabinet positions under several governments in the Fourth Republic. Opposed the institutional reforms of

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1958.From 1965through the early 1970s,recreated the Socialist Party, forging a conflictual alliance with the PCF. Unsuccessful candidatefor president in 1965 (against de Gaulle) and 1974 (against Giscard). Elected president in 1981; reelected in 1988. Mollet, Guy( 1905- 1975): Socialistleader under the Fourth Republic.As prime minister in 1956- 1957,made the decision to send the conscript army to Algeria. Sidelined in the Fifth Republic by Mitterrand. Monnet, J e a n (1888-1979): Head of the Plan from 1947 to 1952; key proponent of European integration. Moulin, Jean(1899-1943): Prefect under the Third Republic;Resistance hero. As head of the Conseil national de la Rbsistance, M o d served as a liaison between the Free French in London and the domestic Resistance. Captured and tortured to death in July 1943. Notat, N i c o l e (born 1947): Influential head of the CFDT from 1992 to 2002. Succeeded in May 2002 by Franqois Chereque. Pasqua, Charles (born 1927): Gaullist politician; served as Giscard’s “law and order” minister of the interior; held the same position in Chirac’s 1986 government. Vehemently opposed to further European integration: urged a no vote in the September 1992 referendum on the Maastricht Treaty and broke with the RPR in advance of the 1999 European elections. P e t a h , Philippe (1856-1951): “Victorof Verdun” in World War I; leader of the Vichy government from 1940to 1945.The death sentence pronounced against him at the Liberation was commuted, and he died in prison. Pinay, Antoine (1891-1994): Prime minister in 1952; his appointment signaled that the Fourth Republic had taken a conservativeturn; credited with controlling inflation. Poujade, Pierre (born 1920): Leader of a right-wingpopulist movement during mid-1950s. Rocard, Michel (born 1930): Longtime leader of the “second left” and Mitterrand’s perennial unhappy rival. Founder and leader of the PSU; opponent of the Algerian War.Joined Mitterrand’snew PS in 1974.Hoped to run for president in 1981,but stood down when Mitterrand announced his candidacy. Prime minister from 1988to 1991.Discredited as a potential socialist candidate for the presidency in 1995 by the poor showing he made as leader of the socialist list in the 1994 European elections. SCguin, Philippe (born 1943): Prominent but moody RPR politician; opponent of European integration. SCguy, Georges (born 1927): Deported in 1944 for his activities in the communist-led Resistance group Francs-tireurs et partisans franqais. Leader of the CGT from 1967 to 1982, succeeding Benoit Frachon (1892-1975). In turn, succeeded by Henri Krasucki, who was replaced by Louis Viannet (born 1933) in June 1992.As of 2002, the CGT was led by Bernard Thibault.

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327

Seilli&e, Ernest-Antoine (born 1937): Business leader; president of the CNPF (1997) and then of the CNPF’s successor organization, the MEDEF. Thorez, Maurice (1900-1964): Leader of the PCF from 1930 to 1964; deserted from the military and fled to Moscow in the wake of the NaziSoviet pact of 1939; spent the war years in Moscow. Minister in the governments of the Liberation (1945- 1947); succeeded by Waldeck-Rochet (1905- 1983). Veil, Shone (born 1927): Center-right politician (LJDF). Deported to Auschwitz in 1944. As minister of health under Giscard, she secured the liberalization of France’s abortion laws. Led the UDF list in the European elections of 1979 (27.8 percent). President of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1982. Minister in the Balladur government of 1993. Appointed to the Conseil constitutionnel in March 1998.

USEFUL REFERENCE WORKS Several easily accessible research instruments can provide useful biographical and chronologicalinformation.One such instrument is Galhard’s twevolume Journal de la France et des FranGais: chronologie politique, culturelle et religieuse de Clovis h 2000, 2 vols. (Paris: Gallimard, 2001); despite its title, it is a good source of biographical as well as chronologicalinformation.The Petit Robert 2: Dictionnaire universe1des nomspopres is, as its titles announces,a dictionary of proper nouns, including place names and literary figures. Several historical dictionaries provide some combination of interpretation and information: see, for example, Franqois Furet and Mona Ozouf, eds., A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989),Jean-Pierre Rioux and Jean-Franqois Sirinelli, eds., La France d u n si&clea l’autre: dictionnuire critique (Pats: Hachette, 1999), and Jacques Julliard and Michel Winock, eds., Dictionnaire des intellectuelsfranGais: lespersonnes,les lieux, les moments (Paris: Le Seuil, 1996). Since 1984,the Revue politique etparlementaire has published Les kvknements politiques, internationaux, kconomiques et sociaux, culturels et sportifs de l’annkeannually, under the authorship of Serge-MainRozenblum. For an older, similar instrument,see L’annkepolitique,kconomique et sociale en France (the title from 1945 to 1979 was L’annkepolitique, kconomique, sociale et diplomatique en France).

This Page Intentionally Left Blank

Index

Badinter, Robert, 222,236,238 Balladur, Jkiouard, 143, 148,179 banlieues rouges. See suburbs Barbie, Klaus. See trials Barre, Raymond, 58,141,145,243 Barrot, Jacques, 243 Bayrou, Franqois, 243 Beck, Ulrich, 9,297 Bergeron, Andre, 189 Berlin, Isaiah, 4 Bigeard, Marcel, 93 Bismarck, Otto von, 27 Blair, Tony, 295 Blum, E o n , 46,47, 114, 117, 120, 151,

Abbas, Ferhat, 84 Adenauer, Konrad, 104 Agacinski, Sylviane, 233,241 agriculture. See economic growth; peasantry Agulhon, Maurice, 283 Alain (pseud. m e Chartier), 80 Algeria, 26,49,78,83-84,223 Algerian War, 8,15,82-89; and demonstration of October 17, 1961, 67-68,75n36; and emergence of National Front, 79,89-93; use of torture by French Army in, 7 9 , 93-95; as watershed event, 78-79 Allegre, Claude, 210 Alsace and Lorraine, 16,28,29,49 Althusser, Louis, 283 Amsterdam Treaty, 294, 301. See also Mktricht Treaty anticlericalism. See luzciti anticommunism, 50,60,77-78,138,

168,227

283-85 antisemitism, 31-32, 47-48, 50, 52, 56-59,60,62,66. See also trials; Vichy government army, French, 2, 29-31, 78, 86-88, 103; and military service, 28, 33, 86, 207. See also Algerian War; Dreyfus Affair, nuclear strike force; World War I; World War I1 Aron, Raymond, 308n47 Attac, 296-99 Aubry, Martine, 153,215 Auroux, Jean, 208 Bachelot, Roselyne, 231-32 Badinter, Elisabeth, 221-22, 235, 236,

237,242

Bonaparte, Napoleon. See Napoleon bonapartism, 17,47, 125, 149,296; during 1930s, 47; compared to other traditions on right, 128-30; defmed, 29, 127; as response to globalization, 264, 287, 290-91, 299; and National Front, 91; and presidential institutions, 81. See also ligues Bonnet, Bernard, 225. See also Corsica Bossuet,Jacques-Benigne,302 Boulanger Affair, 28-31 Bousquet, Rene, 51-52,62,67,80 Boutin, Christine, 239, 243 Bove, Jose, 93,296-99,302 Brasillach, Robert, 63,168 Bretton Woods, 177-78 Britain. See United Kingdom Bruckner, Pascal, 199, 287, 288 bureaucracy. See centralization; dirigisme; &ole nationale d’administration Burrin, Philippe, 62

329

330

INDEX ~~

ca ira, 20 Camus, Albert, 64,94 Canard encbafnk,68,15 1 capitalism,French attitudes toward, 166,175-76, 187-90,205-7; and planning, 166 Catholic Church, 3, 19, 21, 25, 29, 92; and capitalism, 176; Catholics move to the left in the 1980s, 123, 128; decline of, 181,183-84; and Dreyfus Affair, 32; and legitimist tradition, 126, 128; and orleanist tradition, 127; and Revolution of 1789,21-22; and World War I, 35; and World War 11, 50,71,126; youth movements of, 126. See also laicitk Catroux, Georges, 85 CCline, Louis-Ferdinand, 63 center, political. See Christian democracy; ouverture centralization,4,21-23,132-33,165-69. See also decentralization;Jacobinism; political culture; state building Centre dktudes, de recbercbes et dkducation socialistes (CERES), 120, 121, 123. See also Chevenement, Jean-Pierre Ceyrac, FranGois, 189 Chaban-Delmas,Jacques, 85, 131-32, 138; defeated in 1974 elections, 138-39; and nouuelle sociktk, 136-38, 146,154-55,166;and UDR, 137-39. See also Gaullism; Pompidou, Georges Chalandon, Alain, 218 Chamberlain, Neville, 48,85 Charles X, 25, 126 Charter, 24 Cbartes d'Amiens (Charter of Amiens, CGT), 116 Chaunu, Pierre, 218 Cheniere, Ernest, 220. See also lai'citb Chevknement,Jean-Pierre, 120, 153, 154,211,216,224-27,245-46,298, 301. See also Jacobinism Chirac, Jacques, 58,64,139, 179,208, 285, 299; and Corsica, 22425,226; and immigrants, 218; and parity, 231; and presidential election of 2002, 90, 245-46,301-2; prime minister under Mitterrand, 145-46; and rhetoric of la fracture sociale, 148-49, 201;

rivalry with Giscard, 140-42; and scandals, 151,243 Christian democracy, French, 81,82, 104,118,126,129, 137. See also ouverture Christopher, Warren, 274 Churchill, Winston, 85 citizenship,9, 45, 79, 91-93, 215-20, 224,235. See also republicanism civil society, 126, 128,167-69,218-19, 245 Clemenceau,Georges, 32, 36-37,48,79 Clinton, Bill, 278 cohabitation, 113, 142-43, 145-46, 153 Cohn-Bendit, Daniel, 291 Colbert,Jean-Baptiste, 166-67 colbertisme. See dirigisme Cold War, 4,77-78, 102-3, 106, 152, 186,216,281 colonization, 29 Committee of Public Safety, 20 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). See European Economic Community Common Market. See European Economic Community Common Program. See Socialist Party Commune, Paris, 27-28,30,115 communism,French Communist Party (PCF), 37,47,64,69,70,71,113-15, 186,212; during interwar years, 172-73; in the 1950s,77; as countercommunity, 114-15, 186; decline of, 113, 122, 146,205; and intellectuals, 94, 282-85; organizational integrity as PCF's priority, 114; and socialists, 77, 89-90, 113-14,121,122; and other working class organizations, 114, 186, 188-89; and World War 11, 54. See also anticommunism communitarianism.See group politics Comte, Auguste, 167 Conan, h c , 69 Confkdkrationpaysanne, 296-99 Conseil constitutionnel (Constitutional Court), 215,226,231,233,234, 254n106 Conseil National de la Rksistance (CNR), 53,55. See also Resistance Conseil national du patronat franGais (CNPF), 188-89,208,297 conservatism, 5, 12n3, 130. See also

INDEX

331

Deat, Marcel, 52, 63 death penalty,25,73114 Debray, Rkgis, 221-22,285-86,287-89, 292-93 Debrk, Michel, 141, 144, 179 decentralization, 113,118,213-15,244, 301. See also left, "second decolonization,8, 15. See also Algerian War; Indochina War Deferre, Gaston, 118, 120 Delacroix, Eugkne, 25 Delanoe, Bertrand, 298 Delors, Jacques, 120, 121, 132, 147-48, 153,279 domano, Michel, 141 Descamps, Eugkne, 189 Daladier, fidouard, 46,81 Daniel, Jean, 223,224,2531180,291,301 dirigisme, 162-69, 177-81,208-15. See also Jacobinism; state building; Dannecker,Theodor, 57 Tocqueville, Alexis de Danton, Georges-Jacques, 20 Doriot, Jacques, 52,63 Darlan, Franqois, 51,61 Dreyfus Affair,28,31-33,39,46,94 Darnand, Joseph, 52,63 Drieu la Rochelle, Pierre, 63 Darquier de Pellepoix, Louis, 52,66,67 Drumont, fdouard, 32 de Gaulle, Charles, 5-6, 8, 15, 35, du ROY,Albert, 262-63 37-38,49,59,69,274; Algerian Dubet, Franqois, 206,213 policy Of, 87-89, 102, 129; and Duclos, Jacques, 120 American power, 101, 102-3, 105, Duhamel, Olivier, 236, 290 106, 129; assassination attempts DUIMS, Roland, 152,243-44,286 against, 88;"une certaine idee de la France," 37, 431129; and conservative Ecole libre des sciences politiques. See parties, 128-30; opposed to Institut ddtudespolitiques dictatorship,86-87,99, 101; Ecole nationale dadministration economic views of, 105,165; and (ENA), 179-80. See also dirigisme European integration, 100,101, 103-5,264,270-71; and institutional Ecole normale, 80, 167-68 kcole polytechnique, 163, 167 reform, 78-79,81,87,88-89,99, economic crisis (post-1973), 122,123-25, 105, 112-13; view of leadership, 138,140,142;and globalization, 190, 100-101,112-13; and May 1968, 201; and immigration, 217-20; and 119-20; and Mendks France, 81, 112; labor market policies, 209-10,215; and modernization of French and personalization of politics, military, 103; and NATO, 100,102-3, 150-53; bipartisan policy responses 264; nationalism of, 37-38,99-100, to, 208-15; policy responses of left in 105, 106; and political parties, 111, power to, 123-25,165;policy 112-13, 128-30; and Pompidou, responses of right in power to, 146, 130-31, 141; resignation in 1969, 149-50,165,215;political strategies 120, 131; and social questions, adopted by major parties in response 1571110; and sovereignty, 53,99-106, to, 144-54; effect on public attitudes 261,264; speech of June 18, 1940, and voting behavior, 142-43,145, 49; and UN, 101, 264; view of Vichy, 148-49,151-52,153,165,201, 55, 58, 100; understanding of World 2058,215-17; and social change, War II,49, 53. See also Gaullism; 201-5 Jacobinism;Resistance; World War I1 economic growth: during the postwar de Maistre, Joseph, 236 trente glorieuses, 79, 177-81; under de Villiers, Philippe, 148,150

bonapartism; legitimism; ligues; National Front; orleanism;parties Constitution of 1958,87,231,233, 237, 243,256n117,261-62. See also Conseil constitutionnel;Republic, Fifth Convention, 19, 22, 154 corporatism, 163 Corsica, 22429,301 Cresson, fidith, 147, 230, 231, 232 Croix de Feu, 47,60. See also ligues Crozier, Michel, 132, 133-36, 244

332

INDEX

economic growth (continued) Second Empire, 27; in France, compared to other countries, 162, 181; effect on political attitudes, 122, 140, 152; and industrial revolution, 161-62, 170; and social structure, 170-73,181-87 Edict of Nantes, 18 education, educational system ,21-22, 23,27,30,123-24, 167-68,174-75, 182-83,206-7; difficulties facing would-be reformers, 210-11, 219; and headscarves controversy, 220-24; and Syndicat national de Z‘kducation secondaire (SNES), 210. See also Zai‘citk May 1968 elections, local: of 1976, 140; Paris, 1977,141 elections, national, to legislative bodies, presidency, and European Parliament: of 1792,20; of 1848,26,174; of 1885, 29; of 1889,31;of 1919,38;of 1936, 47; of November 1946, 114; of 1956, 85; Of 1965, 118-19; Of 1968, 120, 189; of 1969,120,131,137; of 1973, 121, 138; of 1974, 121-22, 138-39; of 1978,122-23,140,142; Of 1979 (European Parliament), 143; of 1981 (legislative), 122, 145; of 1981 (presidential), 68, 122, 142; of 1984 (European Parliament), 124; of 1986, 145; of 1988 (legislative), 143, 146; of 1988 (presidential), 143, 145, 146, 219; of 1993, 143,147; of 1994 (European Parliament), 147,148,231, 290; Of 1995, 143,148-49,201; Of 1997,143,150; of 2002 (legislative), 90,143,245-46,263,298; Of 2002 (presidential), 90, 143, 245-46,263, 298; and suffrage rights, 20,23,25; and plebiscitary tradition, 23. See also electoral laws; parties; referenda electoral laws, 87,88-89, 111, 112, 117, 145,146,1591143,233,appendix C Emmanuelli, Henri, 148 Empire, French. See colonization; decolonization Empire, First, 22-23 Empire, Second, 22,26-27, 125, 176 empowerment, 3,4-5; disempowering effects of economic crisis, 205-8 Enlightenment, 18

Erignac, Claude, 224. See also Corsica European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), 103,266,269 European Defense Community (EDC),

82,104,264,265-66,3051113 European Economic Community and successor organizations, 103-4, 138, 178,266; Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), 185,266,269; European Community/LJnion as constraint on domestic economic and social policies, 208, 266-72,293-95; and Schengen agreements, 271; and Single European (Single Market) Act, 267. See also Maastricht Treaty European integration,8,9, 112, 113, 188, 265-72; and “democraticdeficit,” 267, 268-69; political parties and, 265-66; public opinion and, 265-69 European Parliament. See elections; European integration European Union. See European Economic Community; European integration; Maastricht Treaty; Yugoslavia excZusion. See economic crisis extreme right. See bonapartism; ligues; Maurras; National Front; Vichy government Fabius, Laurent, 179 Faure, Edgar, 85,111 Faure, Paul, 117 Fauroux, Roger, 202, 301 Fkdkration nationale des syndicats et exploitants agricoles (FNSEA), 126, 185, 284. See also peasantry Ferry, Jules, 21-22,30,173-74,222-23, 263,274 Finkielkraut, Alain, 741130,221,287 foreign policy. See de Gaulle, Charles; Gaullism; sovereignty; United States; Yugoslavia Foucault, Michel, 5 Franco, Francisco, 46, 87 Franco-American relations, 55; U.S. favors Giraud over de Gaulle, 61, 101; U.S. and Vichy, 61; See also de Gaulle, Charles; United States Franco-British relations, 18, 27, 29-30, 33,49-50, 101, 104. See also European integration; Yugoslavia

INDEX

333

globalization,7 , 4 5 , 9 3 , lob, 149-50, Franco-German relations, 30, 33; in 178,190,199-200; and l w s , 104-5; and appeasement, antiglobalization NGOs in France, 46-48; conservativeview of in 1914, 296-99; defined, 9; Europeanist/ 34; and European integration, 266, multilateralist response to, 264-5, 267,270-71; and German relationship 269-72; “Jacobin”/souvwainiste with US.,104-5; leftist view of in response to, 264-65; and identity 1914,34;See also France-Prussian questions, 21517,228,264,263, War; Vichy government;World War I; 271; public attitudes towards, 263-65; World War II; Yugoslavia and sovereignty, 262-64. See also France-Prussian War, 16,27-28,32 economic crisis; humanitarian France-Russian relations, 30, 33, 103 intervention Free French. See de Gaulle, Charles; Glucksman, Andre, 280, 284, 286, 289 Resistance Goya y Lucientes, Francisco de, 23 French Communist Party (PCF). See Grevy, Jules, 30 communism group politics, 5, 93, 153, 229, 262, 264; Front de libhation nationale 0. and Jewish identity, 65-66,70, See Algerian War 751132,236;and Muslims, 92, Front de libkration nationale de la 220-24,229,238; republican Corse (FLNC), 224,226, 227 rejection of, 200-201, 219-20, 230, Front national (FN). See National Front 240. See also gay rights; Furet, Franqois, 283 globalization;Jacobinism; lazcitk; parity; republicanism; sovereignty Gambetta, Eon, 22, 39, 174-75 growth, economic. See economic growth Gameh, Maurice, 46,49 Guesde,Jules, 115-16, 120 Garaud, Marie-France, 139,140,292 Guigou, Ibsabeth, 224, 241, 279, 294, Gaspard, Franqoise, 223 Gaullism, 64,99-106,128-30, 141; and 295 Gulf War, 100,273 postwar economic growth, 178;and rivalries on the right, 136-42. See Hadj, Messali, 84 also Chirac, Jacques; de Gaulle, Halimi, Gisile, 232 Charles; sovereignty Hall, Peter A., 208 gay rights, 238-43; AIDS crisis and, Hassner, Pierre, 287, 291 238-39; conservative opposition to Henriot, Philippe, 63, 66 PACS, 239,243; and issue of gay HenryVIII, 17 marriage, 239,240-42; and Pacte Herriot, Edouard, 80,168 civile de solidarite‘ (PACS), 238-241; public attitudes toward PACS, 242-43 Hitler, Adolf, 46, 51, 283, 289. See also World War I1 gender politics. See gay rights; parity Ho Chi Minh, 78 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Hoffmann, Stanley, 133, 135-36,244 (GATT), 177 HoIlande, Franqois, 298 Germany: and “Germanproblem,” 102; Hoover, Herbert, 85 unification of under Bismarck, 27; Hoover, J. Edgar, 77 unification of, 1989-90, 100,216, Hue, Robert, 154 273. See also France-German relations; World War I; World War 11; Hugo, Victor, 25 humanitarian intervention, 94,280-93. Yugoslavia See also sovereignty Girardet, Raoul, 103 Gmud, Henri, 5 4 6 1 identity politics. See citizenship; group Giscard d’Estaing,Valery, 68, 12 1 , politics; immigration; National Front 137-42, 179; and ouverture, 138, immigration, 79, 94-95, 146, 181, 139, 140, 158n33; as president, 122, 184-85,217-20,228-29. See also 140. See also orleanism

334

INDEX

immigration (continued) citizenship; economic crisis; group politics;Jacobinism; lazclte National Front ind6pendunce.See sovereignty Indochina War, 15,78,81-82 Institut d&udespolitiques, 80, 168, 179 intellectuals, 58,94133; and headscarves controversy, 22 1-24; and humanitarian intervention, 282-93; and left, 282-85; and martial law in Poland, 284-85; and Yugoslavia, 280, 282-93. See also education International Monetary Fund (IMF), 177 Internationale, 201,249n13

Kouchner, Bernard, 153,285 Kriegel, Annie, 218, 283

Kant, Immanuel, 18 Keynesianism, 81, 163, 167; defined, 164; and postwar political settlements, 164, 187,293 Klarsfeld, Serge, 62,66,67 Koestler, Arthur,94 Kohl, Helmut, 271

Maastricht Treaty, 100, 121,148,265, 269-72,301; and Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), 270,279; and subsidiarity, 300 Mac-Mahon, Patrice de, 81 Madelin, Alain,226,254~196,291 Malraux, Andre, 69-70,93,105

Lacoste, Robert, 86,163 Laguiller, Arlette, 123 lufcit6,21-22, 92, 220-24. See also Catholic Church Ferry, Jules; group politics; Jacobinism; republicanism Lalonde, Brice, 123,287 Landes, David, 175-76 Lanzmann, Claude, 66 Lapeyronnie, Didier, 213 Laval, Pierre, 51,61,67,78. See also Vichy government Le Figaro Magazine, 252n67 Le Pen, Jean-Marie, 89-91,148,150, 218,245,263. See also National Front Jacobinism, 20-22,132,168-69,302; Leclerc philippe de Hauteclocque), 55, and cultural assimilation/diversity, 131 70,79,83,92-93,200,216-17; Lefebvre, Georges, 283 defined, 22; and globalization, left, “first,”120-21, 123, 284, 285 264-65; attacked byparitaires, left, “second,”120-21, 123, 124, 126, 232-33. See also dirigfsme 166,188,296 Jacobins, 19-20 legitimism, 25, 125-26 compared to JamesII, 19 other traditions on right, 128-30 Japan, 77 Lkvy,Bernard-Hemi, 279-80,284,287, Jaw-&, Jean, 35, 115,116, 120,168 289-91 Jews. See antisemitism; Dreyfus Affair; liberalism, economic, 178; and group politics; trials; Vichy neoliberal response to economic government crisis (‘la p e n d e unique”), 149, 152, Joffre, Joseph, 35,36 178, 207, 208-9, 215. See also Jospin, Lionel, 62,90,143,148,179, capitalism, French; economic crisis; 295; and Corsica, 224-29; and globalization elections of 2002, 245-46, 301-2; liberalism, political, 4,7,161-62; and and gay rights, 239; and gauche Jacobinism, 20 plurielle, 153-54; and headscarves ligues, 47, 52, 56, 60, 80, 127, 151, controversy, 221,223; and parity, 1601154. See also bonapartism; 233; trotskyist past of, 283 Maurras, Charles; Vichy government Jouhaux, Leon, 35 Locke, John, 18 Julliard, Jacques, 221, 227, 228, 237, Long, Marceau, 219 286-87,289,291,293 LouisXIV, 18,166 July Monarchy, 25,125 Louis XVI, 18,19,24 June Days, of 1848,25,115,127. See Louis XVIII, 24 also Republic, Second Juppk, Alain, 149,179,208,230,243,287 LouisPhilippe, 25

INDEX

335

multiculturalism. See citizenship; group Marchais, Georges, 122,142 politics; immigration;Jacobinism Marshall Plan, 166 multilateralism, 262. See also Gaullism; Martin du Gard, Roger, 92 sovereignty Massu, Jacques, 93, 119 Munich summit of 1938,48; later Mauriac, Francois, 49, 3081147 references to, 222,227, 229,273,289 Mauroy, Pierre, 121, 123, 299 Muslims. See Algeria; citizenship; group Maurras, Charles, 32,47-48. See also politics; immigration; lakite‘ ligues Mussolini, Benito, 46 May 1968,2,105, 114,119-20,132, 183,189,207 Napoleon (Napoleon,)I 22-24,27, 132, Meline Tariff, 175 169. See also centralization Mend& France, Pierre, 79-82, 111, Napoleon, Louis Bonaparte (Napoleon 112-13,178; and elections of 1955, III), 26. See also bonapartism; 85; and May 1968,119; opposition to Empire, Second presidential institutions, 87, 119; Napoleonic Code, 23 resignation in 1956,86;and “second Nasser, Gamal Abdul, 86 left,” 120, 121 “nationalchampions,” 180. See also Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 94 dirigisme Messmer, Pierre, 138 National Front (FN), 29, 66, 79, 89-93, Michelet,Jules, 26, 39 145, 150,215,236; appeal and Milice, 61. See also trials, Vichy audience, 89,90-91; and government conservative parties, 89-90, 150, Millon, Charles, 150 218; electoral performance of, Milosevic, Slobodan, 275, 277-79,289, 89-90,91. See also bonapartism; Le 291. See also humanitarian Pen, Jean-Marie intervention; Yugoslavia nationalism, 8; during 1930s, 46; and Min~, Alain, 244-45,290 Commune, 27-28; different political minimumwage, 189, 1951164 connotations of, 15-17,38-39; and Mitterrand, Danielle, 220,223 liberal democratic politics, 16, 20, Mitterrand, Francois, 6, 58-59, 80, 202, 28,29,31,38-39; and external 285; and European integration, 263, conflict in generation of political 269-72,294; and May 1968, 119; identities, 8, 20; and First Empire, and Mendes France, 82,85; as 22-24; missionary zeal associated president of the Republic, 122-25, with (mission civilisatrice de la 145-47,286; and reconstruction of France), 20, 26, 35, 37, 38,262-63; Socialist Party, 118-19, 121-25, 147; as opposition ideology, 16-17, 28, activities during World War 11, 31; and orleanism, 25, 176; and 59-63; and crisis in Yugoslavia, Restoration Monarchy, 24-25; and 274-75, 286,287, 289. See also revolutionary doctrine of popular Socialist Party sovereignty, 17-22, 38; and Second Mollet, Guy, 85-86,87,113 Empire, 26-27; and Second Republic, monarchism. See legitimism; Maurras, 25-26; and Third Republic, 28-37. Charles; orleanism; Thiers, Adolphe See also bonapartism; Boulanger Mondale, Walter, 124 Affair;Dreyfus Affair,National Front; Monfort, Silvia, 223,253~183 World War I Monnet, Jean, 166 nationalization, 163, 164-65. See also Montand, Yves, 283 dirigisme Morin, Edgar, 283 Nazism, 56; See also Vichy government Morocco, 49,82 neoliberalism. See liberalism, economic Moulin, Jean, 53,64,69-70,80,93 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), Mouvement des entreprises de France (MEDEF), 188-89,208,297 295-96,300

336

INDEX

Nora, Simon, 132 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 100, 112. See also de Gaulle, Charles; Yugoslavia Notat, Nicole, 208 nuclear strike force, 88, 102, 103, 299. See also Gaullism; sovereignty Nuremberg. See trials Old Regime, 17-21, 168-69. See also centralization; Revolution; state building;, Tocqueville, Alexis de Opportunism, 30. See also Radical Party Oradour-sur-Glane,55 Organisation Arme'e Secr6te (OAS), 88, 102, 103. See also Algerian War orleanism, 25, 126-27, 137, 175; compared to other traditions on right, 128-30 ouverture, 131, 138, 139, 144-45,

146-50,154-55 ouvrie'risme, 116 Ozouf, Mona, 235 Pacte civile de solidarite' (PACS). See gay rights Papon, Maurice. See trials parity, 7, 229-38; and elections of 2002,

238 Parti communistefrangais (PCF). See communism Parti socialiste (PS). See Socialist Party parties, political, in France, 5, 135-36, 244-46; attitude of right toward, 128, 141; fragmentation of the right,

128-30 parties, political, outside of France: Conservative Party (UK), 5; Labour Party (UK), 5, 116,124,294-95; Social Democratic Party (Germany),

government, 50-52, 170; and World War I, 35, 286; and World War 11, 49, 69,70. See also Vichy government pieds noirs. See Algeria; Algerian War Pinochet, Augusto, 87 Pisier, Evelyne, 241-42 Pius M,21,126. See also Catholic Church planning, economic, 163-67. See also dirigisme Plantu, 301 plebiscitarianism. See bonapartism, elections Poher, Alain, 120, 131 Poincare, Raymond, 3 3 , 3 4 8 1 Poland, 48,284-85 Polanyi, Karl, 161, 297 political culture, French, 5, 8, 9, 38-39,

83,94, 132-36,200-201,205-8. See also Jacobinism; republicanism political economy, 2 political legitimacy, 2,6. See also political settlement political settlement, 6 defined, 1; French search for, 4, 16, 22, 24-25, 26, 28, 32-33,42n20,99, 173-75; liberaldemocratic, 5; and party system, 112; and republic as default regime, 28, 31, 38; and World War I, 34-38 Pompidou, Georges, 130-31, 168, 229; and Chaban, 136-38, 141; death in 1974, 121, 138; and May 1968, 119, 130, 136, 137, 189; wins presidency in 1969,120 Popular Front, 45,46, 47, 182 popular sovereignty, 7, 17, 19, 20-21, 38; and First Empire, 23. See also Jacobinism populism. See bonapartism positivism, 167 Poujadism, 29

124, 294-95 party systems: bipolar, 111;forces that shape, 111; of Fifth Republic;

112-13, 117, 186-87,200-201, 244-46; of Fourth Republic, 111- 12; of Third Republic, 135 Pasqua, Charles, 150 Pean, Pierre, 59, 61 peasantry, 171, 173-75, 176, 185. See also Fe'dbration nationale des syndicats et exploitants agricoles Petain, Philippe: as leader of Vichy

quartiers dexil. See suburbs Quastana, Paul, 225

Radical Party, radicalism, 30, 31, 79-80,

85 Raffarin, Jean-Pierre, 214, 215 rang, 16,69,99, 102 Rassemblement du peuple franGais (RPF), 12n5, 107111, 129 Rassemblementpour la Rdpublique WR),

141

INDEX Reagan, Ronald, 124,208 referenda: of 1962 (direct election of the president), 89; of 1969 (on regions and Senate), 120, 131, 137, 157n5;of 1972 (admission of Britain to Common Market), 138; of 1992 (Maastricht Treaty), 148,150,216, 265,270,279-80; of 2000 (length of presidential term), 153; de Gaulle's use of to end Algerian War, 88; provided for under Article 11 of the constitution of 1958,87.See also Constitution of 1958; Republic, Fifth Reformation, 17-18 religion. See Catholic Church; lakite' Remond, Rent, 125 Renan, Ernest, 16, 101 Renault, Lois, 63,172 Renouvin, Jacques, 54 representative politics, 7. See also bonapartism; parties; party systems Republic, Fifth, 5-6,7,135; attitude of left toward, 87, 117, 129; bipolarizing logic Of, 113, 117-19, 122-23, 130, 131, 143; electoral laws of, 117-18; divided executive in, 137, 140-41, 142-43,145-47; institutional arrangements,87,88-89,112-13, 117; institutionalevolution of, 125, 130, 153-54,244-46,301-2; role of judiciary in, 152; and school system, 182-83. See also Constitution of 1958; de Gaulle, Charles Republic, First. See Jacobins; Terror Republic, Fourth, 15, 135; electoral laws of, 117; end of, 86-87; party system under, 81, 112 Republic, Second, 25-26, 132 Republic, Third, 28,118,135,176; competition with Catholic Church, 28, 29,32; social project of, 173-75; and World War I, 35-36. See also Boulanger Affair;Dreyfus Affair; Ferry, Jules; lazcite' republicanism, 26,28,199-200, 216-17, 282. See also kziiiitk Resistance, 49, 52-56, 59,61-63,64, 65-71,81,94, 126. See also de Gaulle, Charles; trials; Vichy government Restoration Monarchy, 16,25,125. See also legitimism

337

Revolution, American, 7, 18 Revolution, Glorious, 17, 19. See also United Kingdom revolutions, French: of 1789,7, 16, 17, 18-22, 155,168-69,283; of 1848, 25. See also Commune, Paris; June Days, of 1948 Reynaud, Paul, 49 Richelieu, Armand, 166 right. See bonapartism; elections; legitimism; orleanism;specific political parties and leaders Rinaldi, Angelo, 227-28 Robespierre, Maximilien, 19 Robien, Gilles de, 243, 272 Rocard, Michel, 120,146-48,179,231, 287,290 romantic movement, 25 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 85 Rossi, Jean-Michel, 226 Rossi, Jose, 225 Rousseau,Jean-Jacques,18 rural revolution. See peasantry Russia, 33, 34, 36-37, 38. See also FranceRussian relations; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Saint-Simon, Claude-Henri de Rouvroy, 167 Salan, Raoul,88,89 Sallenave, Daniele, 237,238 Santoni, Franqois, 226 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 94, 283 Savary, Alain, 124 scandals, 30, 150-52,243-45 Schnapper,Dominique, 219,3081147 school system. See education;May 1968 Schroder, Gerhard, 295 Schuman, Robert, 103 Schumpeter,Joseph, 175 Second Empire. See Empire, Second Section franGaise de l'lnternationale ouvri&e (SFIO), 37,47,87,115-19; alliance problems of, 117-19; and rearmament in the 1930s, 47; relations with PCF, 77, 113, 114, 117-19; relations with trade union movement, 116. See also Guesde, Jules; Jaures,Jean; Popular Front; Socialist Party; workers, working class movement secularism. See latcite'

338

INDEX

Seguin, Philippe, 150 Stguy, Georges, 189 September 11,2001, 100, 270, 271-72, 280 Serbia. See Yugoslavia Service du travail obligatoire (STO), 52 settlements, political. See political settlement Sieyes, Emmanuel-Joseph,19 Signoret, Simone, 283 social change. See economic growth social policy, 208- 15 Socialist Party (PS), 113, 147-48; alliance strategy in the 1970s, 121-23; and “experimental”supporters, 123,124, 147,154; political strategy during the 1980s, 122-25; and Programme commun, 121. See also Jospin, Lionel; Mitterrand, Francois;Section franGaise de l’lnternationale ouuri&re Solzhenitsyn,Alexandr, 284. See also intellectuals SOS-Racisme, 219,224,282 sovereignty, 4 , 8 , 18, 100, lob, 261-65, 267,268,287-89, 299-302; defined, 17. See also Debray, Regis; de Gaulle, Charles; European integration; Gaullism; humanitarian intervention; Yugoslavia sovereignty, popular. See popular sovereignty Spanish Civil War, 46,48,49, 117 StaIin, Joseph, 3 state building: European patterns of, 17-18; in France, 18,20-21,166-69, 178-80 state intervention (in the economy), 162-63, 199-200. See also dirigisme; economic crisis, bipartisan policy responses to; Keynesianism;nationalization; p1-g strikes and major political demonstrations: of February 1934, 45,47, 151; of 1936,48,51,188;of 1958, 86-87; of October 17, 1961, 67-68,75n36; of June 1984, 124; of December 1995, 149-50,207; prompted by issues associated with the school system, 206, 207. See also May 1968

Suburbs, 170, 172-73, 186,201,211-13, 248115 Suez expedition, 86 Talamoni,JeanGuy, 225 Tapie, Bernard, 147,290,310n78 Terror, 21,25,26,28 Thatcher, Margaret, 165, 208, 267, 293, 294 Thery, Irene, 241 Thiers,Adolphe, 28,42n20,173,175 Tiberi,Jean, 151 TocqueviIle, Alexis de, 132-33,165, 166-69,244, 283,284. See also centralization; state building Touraine, Alain, 201,219 trade unions, 120-21, 186,207-8; and collective bargaining, 187-89; Confdddrationgknkrale du travail (CGT), 114, 116, 186, 188-89; Confkdkration frangaise dhnocratique du travail (CFDT), 120-21,126,188439,208; Confiddration frangaise des travailleurs catboliques (CFTC), 120-21; Force ouvripre (FO), 188-89. See also strikes and major political demonstrations; workers, working class movement trials: Klaus Barbie, 64-66; Robert BrasiUach, 63; and changing views of crimes committed during World War II,64-71; Joseph Darnard, 63; RenC Hardy, 64; Pierre Laval, 63; Nuremberg, 63,64; Maurice Papon, 67-69; Philippe PCtain, 63; purge policies followed at the Liberation, 63,64; Riom, 46; Paul Touvier, 66-67. See also Bousquet, Rene; Resistance; Vichy government Tunisia, 82 unemployment, 202-5,209-10; and immigration, 217. See also economic crisis Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), 77,273; and World War II, 48, 50,54,77.See also Cold War; communism,French Communist Party United Kingdom: British politics compared to French, 1-2, 5, 6, 7, 165, 262; industrial revolution in,

INDEX 161-62, 170; policy responses to economic crisis, 208,294; state building in, 17-18. See also FrancoBritish relations; World War II United Nations. See humanitarian intervention; Yugoslavia United States, 38, 208, 229; as “hyperpower” after end of Cold War, 216,262,292-93; as postwar superpower, 77; French attitudes toward, 1, 199-200,205-6,262-64, 292-93,299-300. See also de Gaulle, Charles; sovereignty urban problems. See suburbs urbanization. 170-71 Vallat, Xavier, 52 Vedrine, Hubert, 262,271,295 Veil, Simone, 144,231,232 Vercors, 55 Verdun, 34, 38,271 Vichy government: and antisemitism, 52,56-59; economic and social policies of, 163, 170, 176; nature of, 50-51,52; 56-59; postwar republican view of, 58-59,69-71; public attitudes toward, 50-52, 731112. See also Resistance; trials; World War I1 Viet-Minh. See Indochina War Voynet, Dominique, 154 Weber, Max, 289 welfare state, 5,199,293. See also state intervention Weygand, Maxime, 49,51 Wilde, Oscar, 2

339

workers, working class movement, 26, 29, 186; and ouvrih-isrne, 116; and Popular Front, 48; and revolutionary syndicalism, 116; social and demographic evolution of, 171-73, 18547,202-5; and World War I, 34-37,47, 171. See also Commune, Paris; communism;June Days, of 1848; trade unions World War I, 33-39; union sacr6e during, 34-35; and Versailles Treaty, 45-46; working class attitudes during, 34,36-37 World War 11, 2,8,45-71; changes in France brought about by, 70, 177; and international alliances, 77; reasons for French defeat in 1940, 45-50. See also de Gaulle, Charles; Resistance; trials; Vichy government Yugoslavia, 8,9, 94, 100, 263, 272-81; British role in, 275-76; Dayton Accords, 277; European institutions and, 274-76, 279-80; French role in, 273-76; German role in 275, 279; Kosovo, 277-79, 280; “lift-andstrike” option, 287-91; public debate over intervention in, 279-80, 280-81, 282-93; NATO role in, 277-79; and UN, 272,274-76, 276-79; U.S. role in, 273, 274, 277, 278-79. See also European integration; humanitarian intervention; Milosevic, Slobodan; sovereignty Zola, Emile, 32

About the Author Anne Sa’adah is Joel Parker Professor of Law and Political Science in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College. She is the author of The Shaping of Liberal Politics in Revolutionary France: A Comparative Perspective (1990) and Germany’s Second Chance: Trust,Justice, and Democratization (1 998).

340