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771. Identity and Democracy

Author:
Ellen Badone
Publication Date:
09-2002
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
This thought-provoking essay analyses the changing relationships between the French state and the individual. The author contends that French republican democracy originally developed as a bulwark against the hegemony of the Roman Catholic Church. However, in the secularized context of present-day France, such protection is no longer necessary. Hence, democracy has lost much of its original meaning. In the past, political actors privileged the collective good above private interests and identités. Now, however, it is precisely these agendas that have come to dominate French political discourse. In the face of competing minority demands, government must remain neutral and can no longer serve as the moral arbiter for the collectivity.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
France and Romania

772. Dangerous Liaisons in 1940s Quebec: Vichy or la France libre

Author:
Robert Schwartzwald
Publication Date:
03-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
It may come as a surprise to American readers that during the Second World War, both the Vichy regime and la France libre cared deeply about public opinion in French Canada. Yet resource-rich Canada was Britain's principal ally against Nazi Germany before the collapse of the Hitler-Stalin pact and the attack on Pearl Harbor. If public opinion in English-speaking Canada rallied immediately behind Great Britain and was solidly interventionist, this was not the case in Quebec. In his study, Montreal historian Eric Amyot demonstrates that the opposing French camps well understood the necessity of waging a war for public opinion in the largely French-speaking province. At stake were Canadian government policy and the respective claims for legitimacy of Vichy and la France libre both at home and on the world stage.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
Britain and France

773. Les élections locales françaises de mars 2001: un échec pour la majorité

Author:
Gérard Grunberg
Publication Date:
06-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
The local elections of spring 2001 constituted a defeat for the Socialist government. The outcome of these elections in large and medium-sized cities show significant losses for the Left––despite Socialist victories in Paris and Lyon––and especially for the Communists whose numbers continue to decline. The only left-wing party to improve its position was the Green Party. These results do not reflect a clear rejection of the government by the public, but they outline two reasons for the Left to worry: First, although polls seemed to be favorable to the Left, the elections' disappointing outcome shifted the political climate in a way that benefits the Right. While the Left was politically destablilized, the election results boosted the opposition's morale and Jacques Chirac now felt confident in taking the offensive in his race for the presidency. Second, the election results––more specifically the analysis of how votes shifted between the two rounds––reveal two developments: The Right did a better job than the Left at mobilizing its potential voters for the second round; and in the context of the National Front schism, more far-right voters than in the past voted for moderate-right candidates. Such trends suggest that the 2002 elections will be a challenge for a more divided and instable "gauche plurielle." The local elections of 2001 moved the Left from the role of favorite to that of challenger.
Topic:
Government

774. The Sudden Memory of Torture: The Algerian War in French Discourse, 2000-2001

Author:
William B. Cohen
Publication Date:
06-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
During the Algerian War successive governments denied that they employed torture in the conduct of the conflict. The French public during the war and thereafter were, however, well informed on the brutal means used in the North African conflict. In the summer of 2000 an Algerian woman tortured by the French gave an interview to Le monde. The publicity surrounding this interview and a subsequent interview given by General Aussaresses, head of the secret operations in Algeria, created a public furor over France\'s record in Algeria. In a much publicized petition, some of those who had opposed the Algerian war asked the French government to issue an apology for its acts. France\'s political leaders balked, refusing to take such a step. As a result of the furor created in 2000-2001 there was a greater sense of consciousness of the darkest sides of French colonialism. If the French government eventually does issue a public apology, it will largely be as a result of the dramatic debates of the last year.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
France and North Africa

775. Torturante mémoire

Author:
Christian Delacampagne
Publication Date:
06-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
The regular use of torture by the French army during the Algerian War raises at least two questions: 1) How was such torture made possible? Incapable of facing public opinion–– which was primarily in favor of colonization up until the end of the 1960s––the leaders of the Fourth Republic erred by giving full power to the army to crush the insurrection. It even took General De Gaulle two years to correct the situation. 2) What have we done since then to ensure that this would not happen again? As shown by the following facts, France has certainly not done what is necessary: It never formally recognized its responsibility for torture; it never tried to punish the principal culprits, whether politicians or military; it does not even seem to have learned from its past mistakes. Indeed, successive French governments continue to adopt a complacent stance towards similar practices (torture, summary executions) that consecutive Algerian governments have been covering up for several years – as if the use of torture should not be systematically condemned.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
Algeria

776. Homosexuality in France

Author:
Michael Sibalis
Publication Date:
06-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Gay and lesbian studies have almost everywhere experienced an incredible rate of growth in the last decade or so, but until very recently French scholarship has lagged far behind. In particular, professional historians in France have been reticent to research the history of homosexuality, in large part because of the conservatism of the academic establishment. (Young scholars have feared that an interest in gay history would hinder their careers.) As a result, much of the existing gay history of France has been produced by "Anglo-Saxons" (as the French call anyone who speaks or writes in English), and to the extent that "gay studies" have made their appearance in France, it is journalists, sociologists, and legal scholars rather than historians who have led the way.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
France

777. Of Linguistic Jacobinism And Cultural Balkanization: Contemporary French Linguistic Politics in Historical Context

Author:
Paul Cohen
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
In few countries has language played a greater role in constituting national identity than in modern France. French is first and foremost a political idiom, enshrined by the leaders of the Revolution and the Third Republic as the language of the Republic and the Nation. The French state promotes the use of French at home and throughout the world through an array of government institutions, including the Académie française, the Ministry of Culture and the agencies responsible for France's francophonie policies. The French language also represents a highly charged common cultural ground marking the boundaries of French society.3 Whether in informal conversation and public debate, in annual rituals like Bernard Pivot's televised "concours de dictées," or on the editorial pages of national newspapers, the French betray an intense awareness of linguistic issues. The defense and illustration of French has long been for French intellectuals and leaders a passionate vocation.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
France

778. Gérard Noiriel's Third Republic

Author:
Robert O. Paxton
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Gérard Noiriel, Les Origines républicaines de Vichy (Paris: Hachette Littératures, 1999). This book has raised hackles in France, and one can see why. It is by turns illuminating, tendentious, and pugnacious. At its best it accomplishes first-rate historical work. Its central four chapters make an enduring contribution to understanding the exclusionary project of Vichy France. Polemical first and last chapters detract somewhat from this achievement. Noiriel's powerful central chapters address a key conundrum about Vichy: How did the odious discriminatory and exclusionary measures taken by Pétain's governments, so manifestly contrary to French republican values, find such broad acquiescence among the mainstream republican elite?
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
France