French Politics, Culture & Society

Jusqu’à une époque très récente, l’expérience historique de la France et la mémoire dont elle était porteuse étaient pensées dans les termes d’une histoire ; et cette histoire ne s’énonçait pas, elle ne se pensait pas n’importe comment : elle pouvait être diverse et contradictoire, mais elle avait ses formes et elle obéissait à des règles.

If the Resistance as a whole is part of French identity, the different types of resistance, among them that of women, do not benefit from the same status. On the contrary, official commemorations of the Resistance are based upon two implicit statements: that the Resistance and the nation are somewhat equivalent— the Resistance being viewed as the uprising of the whole nation—and that to differentiate among the resisters would go against the very principles of the Resistance, its universalism, its refusal to make any distinction in race or origin. The assimilationism that is part of the ideology of the French Republic hinders the recognition of particularisms, whether regional, cultural or gendered.

At the time of his death, the sociologist of immigration Abdelmalek Sayad (1933-1998) was putting the final touches on a collection of his principal articles—since published under the title La Double Absence.1 The publication of this collection provides, I think, a good occasion for introducing Sayad to the anglophone public, which to date has had almost no exposure to his work. In France, Sayad’s sociology has been essential not only to the study of Algerian immigration, but to the understanding of migration as a “fait social total,” a total social fact, which reveals the anthropological and political foundations of contemporary societies. The introduction of this exceptional work to American specialists of French studies is timely, moreover, because immigration and more recently, colonization have been among the most dynamic areas of research in the field in the past few years.

Farmers still count for a lot in France, despite their shrinking numbers. Scarcely four per cent of the workforce now earns a living in agriculture. Yet, every politician knows that the country has a huge stake in farming— France is second only to the United States as an agricultural exporter—and that farmer unions wield clout. Farmers have cultural leverage as well. Rolling fields and rural hamlets still figure prominently in most people’s mental image of what makes France French and its social fabric whole.

“Peasant Fever That Goes Beyond Corporatism,” “Peasants: Old-Style and Modern.”1 Such headlines led stories in the French press about the August 1999 attack on a MacDonald’s deep in the French hinterlands by a group affiliated with the farmers union Confédération Paysanne. The incident, noted in the American press as a colorful example of Gallic excess, drew weeks of substantial and sympathetic attention from the French press and general public, inspired vocal support from politicians across the political spectrum, and catapulted the group’s leader, José Bové, to the status of national hero. Part of the significance attributed in France to the event, as suggested by the headlines above, lay in claims that this action represented a radical new departure for farm organizations: unlike previous farmer protests—habitually no less symbolically- charged, well-orchestrated, or widely supported—this one, it was frequently said, spoke to issues of concern to society as a whole, not simply to the corporate interests of farmers.

Le bilan que les agriculteurs français peuvent présenter de leurs efforts au cours du dernier demi-siècle devrait les remplir de confiance en eux-mêmes1. Ils sont parvenus à produire en abondance. Entre 1951 et 1997, la quantité de blé livrée a été multipliée par quatre et par cinq dans un secteur moins stratégique, celui des haricots verts. Entre 1980 et 1997, le volume de la production agricole française a augmenté de 30 pour cent. L’agriculture française nourrit des consommateurs dont le nombre a augmenté de plus de 40 pour cent en cinquante ans et le déséquilibre des échanges commerciaux a changé de sens. L’agriculture et les industries alimentaires qui lui font suite ont porté la France au rang de second exportateur agro-alimentaire mondial.

Pour le Gouvernement français, l’ambition du projet de loi d’orientation agricole, voté le 26 mai 1999, était de redéfinir la place de l’agriculture dans la société du début du XXIe siècle et d’assurer son ancrage dans le territoire. Face à l’ouverture des marchés et à l’évolution des comportements des consommateurs et des citoyens, l’enjeu est de renforcer les liens entre l’agriculture et la nation au plus près du terrain et d’inscrire les projets agricoles dans des projets de société.

John W. P. Veugelers Support for the Front national and Le Pen: Research Findings and Issues of Interpretation

Nonna Mayer Reply to John W. P. Veugelers

Michel Gueldry Où en est la République? Les Jacobins partent, les Girondins reviennent, l’Europe s’installe

Helena Lewis Surrealism Re-Viewed

Book Reviews

David Harrison Unfinished Revolutions: Legacies of Upheaval in Modern French Culture edited by Robert T. Denommé and Roland H. Simon

Bonnie Smith Ready-to-Wear and Ready-to-Work: A Century of Industry and Immigrants in Paris and New York by Nancy L. Green

Paula E. Hyman Les Juifs dans la banlieu parisienne des années 20 aux années by Jean Laloum

Richard J. Golsan Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France Between the Wars by Romy Golan

Siân Reynolds Vichy et l’éternel féminin by Francine Muel-Dreyfus

Chiarella Esposito France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe 1944-1954 by William Hitchcock

David Cleeton France on the Brink: A Great Civilization Faces the New Century by Jonathan Fenby

Film Review

Muriel Dreyfus Voyages by Emmanuel Finkiel

Notes on contributors