The MIT Cultura project juxtaposes French/American opinion and expression, in order to involve respondents in a collaborative and ongoing process designed to identify perspectives and values, and so to undermine cross-cultural misconceptions and stereotypes.
Analysis of opinion polls shows that even Americans unfamiliar with France are prepared to hold opinions about the country. Many see France as a non-America, a positive or negative counter-model. Moreover, "Americans" comprise many different perspectives and so "France" does not mean the same thing to everyone.
From a highly critical position in the early 1990s, the Washington Post evolved toward move favorable coverage of France in areas even beyond the familiar one of culture, as a function of a perceived tendency on the part of the French to follow at last the American lead. But for how long?
Dane Johnson's Le Divorce and Le Mariage are representative of contemporary novels that use French-American interpersonal relations to reconfigure questions of national identity and cultural specificity, via metaphorical networks that recall the "complex connectivity" that characterizes globalization.
American films about France or French people seek to maintain a certain level of Frenchness, usually through superficial traits and stereotypes, while also naturalizing them for perceived American expectations, including a taste for romance, a clear demarcation between good and evil, a certain type of action, and happy closure.
French Catholicism experienced a renaissance in the interwar decades, which expressed itself in a variety of forms: associational activism, cultural production, and political organizing. The new Catholic activism left a mark on the life of the late Third Republic; it played a well-known part at Vichy; and it made a major, if not always acknowledged, contribution to the renovation of French public life in the aftermath of the Second World War.
In October 1961, an as yet undetermined number of Algerian protesters were killed by the police in Paris while demonstrating for Algerian independence. In the last two decades, these killings have become the focal point of a public controversy in France, as questions about the memory of the Algerian war converged with debates about immigration and citizenship in the 1980s and 1990s and with the willingness of the French state to confront the crimes committed during the last phase of decolonization between 1945 and 1962. Most commentaries have emphasized the connections of this debate with an earlier bout of French soul-searching over the question of the Vichy government's collaboration with Germany during World War II. This connection seemed all the more relevant when the man who was the prefect of police in Paris in 1961, Maurice Papon, was accused and eventually convicted of assisting in the deportation of Jews from Bordeaux in 1942-1944. This article argues that the public attention to the connections between Maurice Papon and the Holocaust have obscured the extent to which the debate in France about October 1961 has been driven by developments in Algerian politics in the last four decades. The extent to which historical accounts of the events of October 1961 are shaped by very contemporary political concerns presents particular challenges to the historian, who must find a way of retelling the story without merely reproducing the ideological conflict that produced the violence in the first place.
Le système français de retraite présente de façon typique, voire caricaturale, les caractéristiques des systèmes continentaux de protection sociale, qualifiés de conservateurs et de corporatistes par Gosta Esping-Andersen 2. Ce système d'as-surance vieillesse, financé en répartition, vise au maintien du revenu des salariés et garantit des prestations relativement généreuses aux travailleurs mais se soucie peu des plus pauvres ou de ceux (surtout celles) aux carrières discon-tinues et aux faibles revenus. Ce système, obligatoire, n'est pas géré directement par l'État mais par les partenaires sociaux, représentants de ceux qui cotisent et bénéficient du système. Dans la mesure où chaque catégorie professionnelle atenu a conserver son propre régime de retraite, le système est très fragmenté.
The cultivation of genetically modified crops has re-energized a tendency within French culture to apply broad, humanistic values to social and technological trends perceived to endanger them. Humanists invoke qualitative standards of refined taste, social equity, humane work conditions, aesthetic satisfaction, and critical political engagement in their judgments. The spread of transgenic plants challenges humanistic culture to the extent that biotechnological innovations are perceived to be driven by narrower considerations of scientific curiosity, agronomic advantage, and corporate profitability. The French state has had to balance a desire to put those techno-economic interests in the service of its international standing and an imperative to respond to skeptical citizens intent on having more say in decisions affecting the quality of their lives. Consequently, the state has experimented with new participatory practices designed to register concerns that might be shortchanged in the culture of political and scientific elites.
The first round of the French presidential election of 2002 seemed to confirm and worsen the representation crisis, the loss of influence of the main political parties, and the weakening of the right/left division. The strength of the French political system seemed threatened. Yet, the political reality that came out of the 2002 elections is quite different. The end of the "cohabitation" regime restored the power of the president and a unified leadership. The two main parties - the RPR, transformed and expanded into the UMP - and the Socialist Party, were strengthened in their own camps and collected together more than 90 percent of the seats. The UMP holds the majority in the National Assembly. The high participation of voters in the second round of the presidential election showed the isolation and powerlessness of the National Front. All in all, the political system took the assault fairly well. The Fifth Republic remains and functions. Much to the contrary, the defeat of the left and its growing divisions are serious reasons for the Socialist Party to worry. Its credibility is weakened, and the dominating power on the political spectrum is the UMP.