France

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Emile Chabal. France

CONTENTS

Maps

Guide

Pages

Polity Histories series

France

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Chronology

Introduction: A Paradoxical Nation

1 Defeat and Resistance

In the Shadow of Defeat

The Spirit of Resistance

2 Colonialism and Anti-Colonialism

The Rise and Fall of the French Colonial Empire

The Promise of Anti-Colonialism

3 Grandeur and Decline

The Road to Grandeur: France’s Long Reconstruction

The Fear of Decline

4 Left and Right

The French Left: The Children of the Revolution

The French Right: From Counter-Revolution to Technocracy (and Back)

5 The Republic and Its Discontents

The Chequered History of French Republicanism

The Republic’s Broken Promises: Race and Gender

6 Local Citizens in a Global State

Centre and Periphery: Local Challenges to the French State

France’s Global Ambitions: Myth or Reality?

Conclusion: An Uncertain Future

Further Reading

Index

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

R

S

T

U

V

W

Y

Z

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Jeff Kingston, Japan

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I build on some of these insights by bringing them into the post-war period and applying them to politics and society more broadly. I address a series of important – and unresolved – questions about contemporary France. Why do the French cling to a vision of global power despite a succession of military defeats and the collapse of their imperial ambitions? Why has the legacy of French colonialism provoked such acrimonious memory wars? Why are the French so attached to a ‘republican’ political ideal that seems to be morally and historically bankrupt? Why do so many French voters still long for a great leader to solve their problems, despite their open hostility to a political system that is more presidential than almost any other? Why are the French so obsessed with the state? I will not pretend that this book provides any definitive answers to these questions. But it does offer clues as to why they should be questions in the first place.

In chapter 3, I tackle the period now commonly known as the ‘Trente Glorieuses’ – the ‘Thirty Glorious Years’ of post-war economic growth. This sets the stage for one of the most familiar paradoxes of contemporary French politics: the contrast between the country’s supposedly ‘great’ destiny and the hard realities of economic contraction since the 1970s. The question of whether France has (or has not) been in decline in recent decades is guaranteed to incite polemic, but the only way to understand present-day anxieties about France’s place in the world is by exploring ideas of ‘grandeur’ that have their roots in post-war reconstruction and its most famous politician, Charles de Gaulle. The fourth chapter brings to the fore one of the best-known political cleavages in the modern world: the clash between left and right. These terms were first used during the French Revolution and they continued to resonate after the Second World War. Today the left–right divide has lost some of its intensity, but it remains a vital part of the story of post-war France.

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