French Politics, Culture & Society

Décédé depuis 1990, Jean Fourastié demeure présent à travers certains titres d’ouvrages, le plus célèbre étant Les Trente Glorieuses. Le succès de ce livre, comme de bien d’autres, a fait de Fourastié une sorte de phénomène de l’édition, spécialisé dans des ouvrages d’un type particulier qui depuis lors a fait florès: l’essai économique grand public. On ne saurait négliger en effet les 400 000 exemplaires vendus de trois livres à succès publiés de 1945 à 1949: L’Économie française dans le monde, La Civilisation de 1960 et Le Grand Espoir du XXè siècle1. Dès les lendemains de la guerre, les ouvrages de Fourastié ont connu un incontestable retentissement en France comme à l’étranger, ce dont atteste une quantité impressionnante de comptes rendus, les multiples sollicitations dont il est l’objet pour des conférences et les nombreuses traductions de ses ouvrages.

Susan Sontag seems to have been on to something when she placed her word portraits of Michel Leiris and Claude Lévi-Strauss back to back.2 An elaboration of her comparison (which was more implied than explicit) may help situate anthropological practice in France—and Leiris’ special role in it—within the larger context of trends elsewhere in the world.

The day began on a solemn note. The laying of a wreath at the war memorial and a minute’s silence for the fallen of Saint-Céré, victims of conflicts from the trenches to Algeria. Red, white and blue carnations, laid by Pierre Poujade and his wife, Yvette. Flanking them, two mayors in their Republican sashes, sons of early-day poujadistes. A picture of respectful, patriotic commemoration.

In the mid-1990s, a series of financial crises placed international financial stability and North-South dialogue once again very firmly on the agenda of economic diplomacy. These had long been pet topics for the French: back in the 1960s, President Charles de Gaulle had famously clamoured for the establishment of a new monetary order; the summitry set up, on French initiative, in 1975, had been largely focused on exchange rate stability and North-South relations; in the 1980s, President Mitterrand had made repeated appeals for a “new Bretton Woods.” One could therefore expect the French to contribute actively to debates on how best to reform the international financial architecture.

There are few politicians who can claim that they have, literally, come back from the dead. Jean-Pierre Chevènement can make a still more dramatic declaration: He is a man who has been reborn twice.

The most common perception of France found these days in the American media is that of an arrogant country, whose international gesticulations are the last hurrah masking its inevitable decline into oblivion. The French have not yet come to terms with their lengthy collapse, which started with the devastation of World War I, continued with the humiliation of their defeat in 1940 and was furthered by the loss of their colonial empire. This would explain their support, still to this day, for a Gaullist policy made up of power incantations, in contrast to real power—or lack thereof. Of course, this characterization is meant as much as an insult as an objective statement of fact. What few of these American commentators comprehend, however, is how much this image of a nation blinded by self-confidence is erroneous. On the contrary, the French have excelled at self-flagellation for a long time, rightly or wrongly. Whether one calls it “malaise” or decline, French commentators are the first to confess that France is free-falling—whether vis-à-vis the US, its European partners, or its own aspirations.

Le Monde, or rather its current management team of publisher and editor Jean- Marie Colombani, managing editor Edwy Plenel, and director-of-the-board Alain Minc, has been the critical target over the past year of several best-selling books, accompanied by scores of articles in the rest of the French press. This avalanche of unwelcome attention for the newspaper was launched with the 630-page, exhaustively documented La Face cachée du Monde (The Hidden Face of Le Monde), by Pierre Péan, perhaps France’s most highly-regarded investigative journalist,1 and Philippe Cohen, economics editor for the newsweekly Marianne.

Lorsque, le 26 février, le livre de Pierre Péan et de Philippe Cohen est sorti, je me suis précipité chez mon libraire. Trop tard! Les quelques exemplaires dont il disposait avaient déjà été enlevés. C’est le lendemain seulement que j’ai pu être servi. Le libraire s’était levé aux aurores pour faire lui-même son réassortiment. Il ne put en mettre en vente que 30 exemplaires: tous épuisés le soir même. « Si j’en avais pris 50 (mais nous ne pouvions pas, nous étions contingentés), ç’aurait été pareil. Je les aurais vendus dans la journée», m’a-t-il dit.

Marie Cartier La Dactylographie et l’expéditionnaire: Histoire des employés de bureau (1890-1930) by Dephine Gardey

Tad Shull Between Montmartre and the Mudd Club: Popular Music and the Avant-Garde by Bernard Gendron

John Ireland La Naissance du phénomène Sartre: Raisons d’un success 1938-1945 by Ingrid Galster

Notes on contributors

Index to Volume 21 (2003)