France. Emile Chabal
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explains the diverging responses to the huge social and political transformations that took place after the war. The second chapter introduces another important context for understanding post-war France: the history of colonial conquest and the powerful anti-colonial reaction to which it gave rise. This long predated the Second World War, but the post-war period saw the conflict between colonial and anti-colonial narratives come to a head, often in moments of extreme violence. The end result of this unsustainable paradox was the almost total collapse of the French empire in the early 1960s and an angry, multi-generational struggle over colonial memory.
In chapter 3, I tackle the period now commonly known as the ‘Trente Glorieuses’ – the ‘Thirty Glorious Years’ of post-war economic growth. This sets the stage for one of the most familiar paradoxes of contemporary French politics: the contrast between the country’s supposedly ‘great’ destiny and the hard realities of economic contraction since the 1970s. The question of whether France has (or has not) been in decline in recent decades is guaranteed to incite polemic, but the only way to understand present-day anxieties about France’s place in the world is by exploring ideas of ‘grandeur’ that have their roots in post-war reconstruction and its most famous politician, Charles de Gaulle. The fourth chapter brings to the fore one of the best-known political cleavages in the modern world: the clash between left and right. These terms were first used during the French Revolution and they continued to resonate after the Second World War. Today the left–right divide has lost some of its intensity, but it remains a vital part of the story of post-war France.
The final two chapters address paradoxes that have become increasingly visible in French public life in the twenty-first century. The first of these is tied to French republicanism, a set of political values that form the basis of French political culture. In chapter 5, I discuss the glaring disparity between the most important values of French republicanism and the inequalities of French society. These disparities – and the way people have responded to them – offer a unique insight into the way the French have navigated the gap between ideals and reality. The second contemporary paradox relates to the tension between France’s strong local traditions and its unashamedly global outlook. As I show in chapter 6, few paradoxes are as acute today as the one between a French citizenry that wants more local democracy and a state that wants to be a European and global power. As the recent gilets jaunes protests clearly demonstrate, this paradox has not been resolved, and may well become more acute in future.
It will be obvious that these six chapters cannot do justice to the richness of French history since 1940. This is a very short book, and I have had to omit an enormous number of themes, personalities and events. I particularly regret that I could not say more about intellectual and cultural debates, environmental history, rural life, cinema and music, and the family. I have made a conscious decision to focus on politics, mostly because politics touches almost every aspect of life in France, but even here I do not pretend to have covered each topic in detail. Instead, I offer a series of arguments about how France works and how the French think. While many of these run through the whole book, the chapters do not necessarily have to be read as a single, chronological narrative that begins with France’s defeat in 1940 and ends with the gilets jaunes protests in 2018 and 2019. It is also possible to treat each chapter as an essay on a specific problem within contemporary French history, especially because several of them begin with a discussion of people, events and histories that predate 1940. There is a basic timeline at the start of the book to help readers navigate the chronology of modern France.
I should stress that the point of this book is not to offer a definitive account of contemporary French history. My aim is more modest. I want to use some of the exciting new work that is being published in the field to shine an unfamiliar light on familiar stories. I am assuming that my readers will have some interest in France, either as students, tourists, residents or aficionados of French culture. If this is the case, then I hope my arguments will stimulate further reading and reflection. I will be equally happy if they lead to disagreement and debate. Writing about contemporary France is a sure way to court controversy, and I expect that my ideas will be challenged by my readers and my colleagues. Nevertheless, if the only result of my book is to make the French seem a little less paradoxical, I will consider it a job well done.
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