This article examines conflicts concerning French policy on the American phase of the Vietnam War between the French Left and Charles de Gaulle during the 1965 elections. The Left faced a dilemma on a matter of central foreign policy as it found it difficult to differentiate its position on the war from de Gaulle's public statements on it. Through an evaluation of press commentary, I demonstrate that in its attempt to set itself apart from de Gaulle, the French Left challenged not only his interpretation of the war in Vietnam but also his understanding of France and its role in the world, proffering a softer, cooperative conception in opposition to de Gaulle's push for a militant leadership status for France in the international community. The study shows the limits political parties face as part of protest movements, while also situating French debate over the Vietnam War squarely within the ongoing dialogue over French national identity.
“Flattering the Little Sleeping Rooster”
The French Left, de Gaulle, and the Vietnam War in 1965
Bethany S. Keenan
In Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2011
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 91–106
Tim Huntley, Ian Birchall, Manuel Braganca, Nik Farrell-Fox, and Willie Thompson
Michael Lewis and Tanja Staehler, Phenomenology: An Introduction Review by Tim Huntley
Gérard Wormser (ed.), Jean-Paul Sartre, violence et éthique Review by Ian Birchall
Sam Coombes, The Early Sartre and Marxism Review by Manuel Braganca
Joseph S. Catalano, Reading Sartre Review by Nik Farrell-Fox
Jean-Pierre Boulé and Benedict O’Donohoe, Jean-Paul Sartre: Mind and Body, Word and Deed
Tony Judt, Marxism and the French Left: Studies on Labour and Politics in France, 1830–1981 and Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals 1944–1956 Reviews by Willie Thompson
Aaron Freundschuh, Jonah D. Levy, Patricia Lorcin, Alexis Spire, Steven Zdatny, Caroline Ford, Minayo Nasiali, George Ross, William Poulin-Deltour, and Kathryn Kleppinger
other large developed countries (17, translation by the author). Why is France so out of step with the rest of Europe? Spector argues that the answer lies in the nature of the French Left, specifically in the Left's penchant for privileging ideology over
In French Politics, Culture & Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2020
- Article Type:
- Book Review
- Pages:
- 129–162
From Insurrectional Socialism to French National Socialism
Gustave Hervé and the Great War
Michael B. Loughlin
the audience often confused revolutionary art with political reality. Among Hervé’s rivals on the French Left, such theatrics often generated resentment. By 1911—after many in his prospective coalition had labeled his movement demagogic, revolutionary
In Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2017
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 82–101
The Origins of the Anti-Liberal Left
The 1979 Vincennes Conference on Neoliberalism
Michael C. Behrent
French Left’s evolution over the course of the seventies. After a fever pitch of gauchiste activism in the years immediately following May ’68, a number of former student radicals dramatically foreswore the Marxism they once embraced. Seizing on the
In French Politics, Culture & Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2017
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 44–67
Patricia Mainardi
Working Life 2, 223. 10 On the relation of Saint-Simonianism to high art, see Neil McWilliam, Dreams of Happiness: Social Art and the French Left 1830–1850 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993). 11 The principal accounts of the founding of
In French Politics, Culture & Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2017
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 34–48
Helga Druxes, Christopher Thomas Goodwin, Catriona Corke, Carol Hager, Sabine von Mering, Randall Newnham, and Jeff Luppes
(whereas the Germans were expelled at least in part as a result of decisions made by the Allies, the French left as a result of decolonization) the differing historical contexts surrounding the population transfers; i.e., the scenarios on the ground in
Matthew Eshleman
that already revealed some of the traditions of the French left, of a current that could be classified as anarcho-syndicalism.” 18 My point here is not to state baldly that Sartre’s ideas during the composition of Being and Nothingness grew out of
In Sartre Studies International
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2018
- Article Type:
- Review Article
- Pages:
- 84–100
L’heure du laitier ou la contestation
Résistance, anticolonialisme et nouvelle gauche sur une « petite théorie » de Claude Bourdet
Fabrice Usman
-février 2010): 177–196, ici 177–178. 96 Hall, « The ‘First’ New Left », 15. 97 Claude Bourdet, « The French Left – Long-Run Trends », Universities & Left Review 1, no. 1 (Spring 1957): 13–16. 98 Voir Stuart Jeffries, Grand Hotel Abyss: The Lives of the
In Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2018
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 67–86
An Indochinese Dominion
L'Effort indochinois and Autonomy in a Global Context, 1936–1939
M. Kathryn Edwards
down of the historic possibility … of a gradual decolonization carried out through an accord between the French Left and a Vietnamese national movement reoriented toward the left.” 17 L'Effort and the Case for Indochinese Autonomy Following
In French Politics, Culture & Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2020
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 9–34