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.
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In French Politics, Culture & Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2004
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 98–107 (10 total)
Knut Rio
of egalitarian life in France, as one among many possibilities in the comparison of egalitarian formations that we present in this special issue, I propose that we look at the commons in that capacity of being governed exceptions. For understanding
In Social Analysis
- Published (Print):
- 01 Sep 2022
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 147–168 (22 total)
Scott Gunther
In February 2013, the French National Assembly passed a bill to allow same-sex couples to marry and adopt children; the Senate eventually approved the bill in June. 1 The issue remains far from settled, however. In the years following the Senate
In French Politics, Culture & Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2019
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 131–158 (28 total)
Patricia Mainardi
scholarship devoted to French periodicals, the intertwined history of French and English publications has received little attention. 3 Yet it was the English who took the lead in the establishment and development of the illustrated press. In this brief essay
In French Politics, Culture & Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2017
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 34–48 (15 total)
The French Carbon Tax
Autopsy of an Ambition
Éloi Laurent
The French carbon tax was to become in 2010 the centerpiece of the country's new climate change mitigation strategy. After a heated public debate, the Constitutional Council, France's higher constitutional law body, censored the executive's proposal, which in turn, in the aftermath of a severe electoral defeat, announced the indefinite postponement of the carbon tax. This article tries to make sense of this important sequence in French contemporary public life by reviewing its different facets: environmental economics, political economy, constitutional law, and finally politics.
In French Politics, Culture & Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2010
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 114–122 (9 total)
French E-Managers
A Generation in the Making
Mette Zølner
In the spring of 2000, the Financial Times eagerly predicted that the world would be piloted by a new global generation of managers who, having been educated at business schools, share similar ideas and values.1 To this generation belong managers in start-up companies that provide goods and services online. These e-managers work with and on the Internet, which reaches worldwide instantly and redefines our concepts of time and place. Since emanagers have the whole world as their “playground,” they are likely to replace traditional nation-based feelings of belonging with new values and identities. French magazines went even further than the Financial Times, stating that since e-managers speak English and have adopted the American way of doing business, they would eventually Americanize French society.2 Or, rather, e-managers would turn France into a society that mirrored the stereotypes of American society that have been prevalent in France.
In French Politics, Culture & Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Sep 2002
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 33–51 (19 total)
Michael Sibalis
Frédéric Martel, The Pink and the Black: Homosexuals in France since 1968, trans. Jane Marie Todd (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999); Le Rose et le noir: les homosexuels en France depuis 1968, 2nd edition, revised and enlarged (Paris: Seuil, 2000).
Florence Tamagne, Histoire de l’homosexualité en Europe: Berlin, Londres, Paris 1919-1939 (Paris: Seuil, 2000).
Carolyn J. Dean, The Frail Social Body: Pornography, Homosexuality, and Other Fantasies in Interwar France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).
Daniel Borrillo, Eric Fassin, and Marcela Iacub, eds., Au-delà du PaCS: l’expertise familiale à l’épreuve de l’homosexualité, (Paris: Presses Universitaire de France, 1999).
Louis-Georges Tin and Geneviève Pastre, eds., Homosexualités: expression/répression, (Paris: Stock, 2000).
In French Politics, Culture & Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Sep 2001
- Article Type:
- Review Article
- Pages:
- 108–119 (12 total)
Marc Abélès
What is anthropology in France about, what is its image, its impact? Where do we come from? Where are we going? Finding answers to these questions would require a whole book. However, in a more modest way, I would like to make a number of observations related to the recent history of the discipline – history that, as we shall see, is inseparable from the general socio-political context and the place that the discipline occupies today in the French intellectual landscape.
In Anthropological Journal of European Cultures
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2007
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 101–110 (9 total)
Sophie Meunier
Why do the French appear as incorrigible anti-Americans? Why is France singled out as a bastion of systematic opposition to US policies? Anti-Americanism can be defined as an unfavorable predisposition towards the United States, which leads individuals to interpret American actions through pre-existing views and negative stereotypes, irrespectively of the facts. It is based on a belief that there is something fundamentally wrong at the essence of what is America. This unfavorable predisposition manifests itself in beliefs, attitudes and rhetoric, which may or may not affect political behavior. Is France, according to this definition, anti-American? It is difficult in practice to distinguish between genuine anti-Americanism (disposition) and genuine criticism of the United States (opinion). It is partly because of this definitional ambiguity that France appears more anti-American than its European partners. While it is not clear that the French have a stronger negative predisposition against the US, they do have stronger opinions about America for at least three main reasons: the deep reservoir of anti-American arguments accumulated over the centuries; the simultaneous coexistence of a variety of types of anti-Americanism; and the costless ways in which anti-Americanism has been used for political benefit. This article explores each of these three features in turn, before discussing briefly the consequences of French anti-Americanism on world politics.
In French Politics, Culture & Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2005
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 126–141 (16 total)
Yan Slobodkin
In 1913, famine struck the Sahel from Senegal to Sudan and killed as many as half a million people. French observers barely noted the event. In 1931, a far smaller famine in western Niger caused between 15,000 and 30,000 deaths. This time, the
In French Politics, Culture & Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2018
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 52–75 (24 total)