Description

A bold interpretation of contemporary French political culture that uses current political debates to understand how the French engage with politics. An original interpretation of contemporary French political culture that uses current political debates surrounding republicanism and liberalism to build an imaginative new framework for understanding the relationship between nation, state and citizenship. An original interpretation of contemporary French political culture that uses current political debates surrounding republicanism and liberalism to build an imaginative new framework for understanding the relationship between nation, state and citizenship. This book is an original and sophisticated historical interpretation of contemporary French political culture. Until now, there have been few attempts to understand the political consequences of the profound geopolitical, intellectual and economic changes that France has undergone since the 1970s. However, Emile Chabal's detailed study shows how passionate debates over citizenship, immigration, colonial memory, the reform of the state and the historiography of modern France have galvanised the French elite and created new spaces for discussion and disagreement. Many of these debates have coalesced around two political languages - republicanism and liberalism - both of which structure the historical imagination and the symbolic vocabulary of French political actors. The tension between these two political languages has become the central battleground of contemporary French politics. It is around these two poles that politicians, intellectuals and members of France's vast civil society have tried to negotiate the formidable challenges of ideological uncertainty and a renewed sense of global insecurity. Introduction: French politics after the deluge; Part I. Writing the National Narrative in Contemporary France: The Return of Republicanism: 1. Writing histories: two republican narratives; 2. From nouveaux philosophes to nouveaux réactionnaires: Marxism and the Republic; 3. La République en danger! The search for consensus and the rise of neo-republican politics; 4. Postcolonies I: integration, disintegration and citizenship; 5. The Republic, the Anglo-Saxon and the European project; Part II. Liberal Critics of Contemporary France: Le Libéralisme Introuvable?: 6. In the shadow of Raymond Aron: the 'liberal revival' of the 1980s; 7. Rewriting Jacobinism: François Furet, Pierre Rosanvallon and modern French history; 8. Postcolonies II: the politics of multiculturalism and colonial memory; 9. Whither the Trente Glorieuses? The language of crisis and the reform of the state; 10. Liberal politics in France: a story of failure?; Conclusion: political consensus in twenty-first-century France; Bibliography; Index. 'This is an outstanding and groundbreaking book. It provides a powerful and persuasive account of the transformation of the modern French intellectual landscape, and the emergence of new patterns of republican and liberal thought. The analysis is rich, nuanced, and sophisticated, and Chabal provides us with the essential keys to understanding contemporary French political debates.' Sudhir Hazareesingh, University of Oxford 'Emile Chabal demonstrates with great perspicacity how, since the end of the 1970s, a newly revived French republicanism came to prominence amidst the ruins of the grand ideologies of the 'Trente Glorieuses'. His analysis is compelling and he successfully steers clear