Exceptional Pragmatism: The French State at War, 1914–1918

Abstract

ABSTRACT The 1914 German invasion left few people in doubt about the existential nature of the crisis faced by the French Republic. France was soon forced to contemplate the prospect of defeat, of the loss of national sovereignty, and of the evisceration of its industrial capacity. This justified the declaration of a “state of siege” on 2 August 1914. Giorgio Agamben positions France’s political tradition and its experience of the First World War at the core of his genealogy of the state of exception. To test out his interpretive framework, this article sets out to re-situate the French state of exception in its wartime context and to delineate a pragmatic and geographic approach to the belligerent state. It demonstrates that Agamben’s stimulating reflections on the state of exception misrepresent the nature of the French state. As the logic of mass mobilisation and participation transformed the relationship of individuals and groups to the state, it did so largely in a contingent and pragmatic way. In challenging monolithic and centralised conceptions of state authority, the social history of the conflict therefore contributes to deepen our understanding of the transformations of the state in the First World War.