The Problem of Reform in France: The Political Ideas of Local Elites

Abstract

The French circle of political stagnation, crisis, and return to administrative politics has once again revolved a full cycle. Like the political hopes raised at the Liberation and at all those moments in French history when political routine and bureaucratic order disintegrate, the posssibilities that the crisis of May-June 1968 seemed to open for a radical reform of politics and society already appear to be beyond the capacity and will of the restored regime. The missed opportunities of the May crisis have brought into sharp focus the lag between the political and social systems and the resilience of those features of the political system which insulate it against external disruption and internal reform. Since the war France has missed the opportunities which crises produce, and more important, has failed to exploit the possibilities for political reform latent in the profound social and economic changes of the last twenty years. The political institutions, al-