French Republican Model Research Articles

Black gay Paris: from invisibilization to the difficult alliance of Black and gay politics

ABSTRACTAccording to the French republican model, group identities are conceptualized as a threat to national identity. Thus, identity politics in France faces specific challenges. The following article focuses on the Black gay population in Paris. Their everyday interactions and activities in their own spaces reveal recurring instances of marginalization and invisibilization, notably linked to this republican model. We explore their activism and the obstacles identity politics faces, especially the challenge in bringing together Black and gay politics.

Genre, gender and the Republic: Televising the annual charity concert Les Enfoirés

Les Enfoirés, the long-running televised benefit concert in aid of the Restos du Cœur charity, has been an annual fixture in the French schedules since 1992. Existing academic accounts of the concert have highlighted the diversity of its performers and a sense of solidarity, unanimity and consensus. Drawing on archive research carried out at the French broadcasting archives (Inathèque, Paris), this article shows how television coverage of the Enfoirés concerts over the last 25 years has reinforced and problematised the television variety genre, gender identities and the French Republican model.

The insertion of Roma in Sénart Project (2000–2007): a local minority-targeted affirmative action following in the footsteps of the French republican citizenship model

Between 2000 and 2007, 34 Romanian families living in shanty towns in a Parisian suburb participated in a local group-specific social integration project. A socio-anthropological study was undertaken 2 years after it ended, including documentary analysis of its archives, interviews with its beneficiaries and the professionals involved and ethnography among three families with distinct integration histories. Using the analysis of the project’s implementation and outcomes, this article sheds light on how exceptional acts of minority identity recognition – sporadic and on a case-by-case basis – were ultimately functional in the performance of a republican redistributive policy on individual access to rights and resources based on the denial of racialised inequalities.

Integrating or Segregating Roma Migrants in France in the Name of Respect: A Spatial Analysis of the Villages D’Insertion

ABSTRACT:The French republican model has long promoted an individualist, universal and difference-blind conception of citizenship. Yet the sociological and historical reality of decolonization and immigration has strained the coherence of this conception and helped to reveal the tension between the universalism of republican principles and the particularistic application of such principles to a specific nation, defined in political and territorial terms. One limit of this model is particularly visible in the spatial management of immigration and segregation trends. Indeed, while French urban planning officially rejects any policies explicitly directed at ethnic minorities, preferring to address social inequalities in spatial terms, it has not prevented French society from pursuing a strict and enduring process of ethno-racial segregation. Recently, the traditional universalist position has faced a new dilemma with regard to the social and spatial treatment of the Romani populations that have settled in France since the early 2000s. Local authorities have adopted various measures to accommodate and “manage” these populations through specific spatial and administrative devices, some of which are called villages or inclusion villages (villages d’insertion). This article offers a spatial and political analysis of such local policies, focusing on three main ambiguities that characterize this urban device—security function, integrative role, and ethno-cultural component. The authors show that the villages d’insertion offer a paradigmatic situation in which the usual scales and frames of justice get blurred, and call for a new conception of citizenship, required to promote equal respect to all populations.

Integration of immigrants in France: a historical perspective

This article seeks to identify the different factors that have facilitated or impeded the integration of immigrants in France from a historical perspective. Its aim is to shed light on the contemporary debates on the alleged failure of the republican integration model. First, we will show that – with the formation of the nation state – the integration of migrants was a constitutive element of the social cohesion of French society. Later, and during periods of xenophobia in particular, immigrants were classified according to their ability to assimilate into the French society. Since the 1970s, the double-barrelled integration question – concerning migrants and social cohesion – has reappeared. Within this context, the ‘colour-blind’ French republican model has been challenged, primarily from an economic perspective, not only by persistent social inequalities, but also, in its quintessence, by demands for cultural recognition. These factors have reinforced racial discrimination, the success of the populist extreme right and recurrent assimilation pressure.

Frenchness, Jewishness, and ‘integration’ in Karin Albou’s La Petite Jérusalem

Karin Albou’s film La Petite Jérusalem (2005) stages the inner dilemmas of Laura, a 19-year-old Jewish woman of Tunisian origin who lives in Sarcelles, a Parisian suburb with a large Jewish population. This article examines the ways in which, through Laura’s rejection of Jewish traditions and her complicated love affair with an illegal Muslim-Algerian immigrant, Albou subverts notions of ‘Frenchness’, ‘Jewishness’ and territoriality in the ‘banlieues’, while challenging the French Republican model of integration and pointing to France’s failure to foster an environment that acknowledges and promotes diversity.

Racial profiling and the ‘French exception’

‘The “exceptional” nature of the French cultural and political tradition’, as scholar Catherine Raissiguier sees it ‘resides … in its ability to foreground a strong discourse of universal inclusion and equality along with its unique resistance to acknowledging exclusionary and discriminatory discourses and practices both in its past and in its present’ (2010: 1). In keeping with Raissiguier’s conceptualisation, les contrôles au faciès (which translates as ‘racial profiling’) fit squarely within this model at this moment when politicised discourse racialises diversity and defines it as a threat to personal and national security. The French Republican model functions in this context as an authoritarian mode of assimilation and universalism that seeks to destroy difference at the expense of equality and inclusion. These ‘controls’ are only, however, the surface of a deeper and more insidious problem in French society that continues to go misnamed and thus mishandled: race.

Cultural democratisation in the struggle between public intellectuals and the state: the debate on the ‘Theatre of the People' in France (1895–1905)

This paper deconstructs the golden legend of cultural democratisation as the achievement of the French Republican model. To do so it goes back to the years 1895–1905 when the debates on cultural democratisation were first structured. It shows how the intellectuals who ‘went to the people’ to give them culture and/or to promote a ‘people's culture’ found in this proselytism a way to express their vision of the ways to transform the social order, and to define a form of democracy in which intellectuals could play a prominent role. By doing so, they tried to oppose an alternative to the traditional methods of political representation that is to say they tried to compete with State officials as legitimate political representatives. Beyond this short-time historical period, this paper sheds light on the articulation between cultural democratisation, cultural policy and democracy in France.

The French Republican model, the European Diversity Perspective and the European Public Sphere

This article discusses some findings of a European research project led by Bergen University, ‘Eurosphere: Diversity and the European Public Sphere – Towards a Citizens’ Europe’. The project aimed to evaluate perceptions of the construction of a European Public Sphere and of transnational relations among specific social actors interviewed in 16 European countries, between 2007 and 2012. In this particular article, the authors first examine reactions to the European Diversity Directive in France among three political parties (2 majority and 1 minority), three think-tanks, three NGO/SMO, and four media. Analysis of their attitudes towards diversity reveals a Girondin/Jacobin cleavage across actors. The Directive on Diversity is estimated to have had a positive impact in France because it obliged organizations and institutions to position themselves and revisit the debate on racial and postcolonial questions and on the European role in the democratization process of European societies. Concerning the relationship between the French and the EU’s attempts to build a European public sphere, we find not so much a European Public Sphere understood in the thick sense of the concept but, rather, a progressive Europeanization of the French national public sphere.

A French dilemma: Anti-discrimination policies and minority claims in contemporary France

This article explores the gap between the principled notion of a French republican model and actual discriminations against minority group members in French society. It suggests that anti-discrimination policies implemented to overcome this contradiction have produced what could be characterized, following Myrdal, as a ‘French dilemma’. Anti-discrimination as a new public agenda has paralleled a process of ethnicization, giving rise to virulent public controversy, with a particular focus on the issue of ethnic statistics. This has also fostered a range of identity claims by ethnic minority organizations. In particular, this article examines identity claims by two ethnic minority organizations (the French Representative Council of Black Associations or CRAN, and the Natives of the Republic Movement or MIR), through a Barthian ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ dichotomy. It shows how the CRAN and the MIR tend to reproduce and make publicly visible the division between two types of minorities (Blacks and Muslims) with which French society has not established the same boundaries.

Act Up-Paris: French Lessons

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Randy Shilts, And the Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987) is largely responsible for the construction of “Patient Zero,” but this claim that Dugas was the source of AIDS has since been challenged. The case of “Robert R.” highlights this challenge: he was a teenager who died mysteriously in 1969, but testing of his stored tissue reveals he died of AIDS. See Gina Kolata, “Boy's 1969 Death Suggests AIDS Invaded US Several Times,” New York Times, October 28, 1987, http://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/28/us/boy-s-1969-death-suggests-aids-invaded-us-several-times.html. 2. Paul Farmer, AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). 3. See Edward Hooper, The River: A Journey to the Source of HIV and AIDS (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1999). Hooper theorizes that the oral polio vaccine may have been the origin of HIV. In contrast to Hooper's theory, David Ho and his colleagues identified a 1959 man in the Belgian Congo who had HIV but did not come to the same OPV hypothesis. See “Researchers Trace First HIV Case to 1959 in the Belgian Congo,” CNN, February 3, 1998, http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9802/03/earliest.aids/. Cindy Patton analyzes the racism and colonialism at work in some of the speculation about the origin of AIDS in Globalizing AIDS (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002). 4. Didier Lestrade, “Man in the Streets,” Didier Lestrade (blog), September 15, 2011, http://didierlestrade.blogspot.com/2011/09/man-in-streets.html. 5. Frédéric Martel, The Pink and the Black: Homosexuals in France since 1968, trans. Jane Marie Todd (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 292. 6. Martel, The Pink and the Black, 288. 7. Didier Lestrade, Act Up: Une Histoire (Paris: Denoël, 2000), 44. 8. Lestrade, Act Up: Une Histoire, 49. 9. Act Up-Paris, “Association de lutte contre le sida,” December 25, 2006, http://www.actupparis.org/spip.php?article2823. Il s'agit de mobiliser les médias autour d'actions rapides, ponctuelles, non-violentes, et spectaculaires: les zaps. Notre but est de susciter de l'information, de provoquer des réactions, de mettre à jour des problèmes spécifiques, d'inviter “les spectateurs et spectatrices” à répondre et à se situer, d'exhiber la violence à laquelle nous sommes confrontées. La colère est au départ de notre engagement: nous entendons la transformer en acte politique d'interpellation publique. 10. Luc Biecq, “Philippe Labbey: Mort d'un ‘Actupien’ historique,” Têtu, August 31, 2011, http://www.tetu.com/actualites/france/philippe-labbey-mort-dun-actupien-historique-20073. 11. Martel, The Pink and the Black, 359. 12. Denis M. Provencher, Queer French: Globalization, Language, and Sexual Citizenship in France (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007). It is notable that the French government does not ask for racial identity as part of the French census, as it runs counter to the main ideology of the French republican model. 13. Enda McCaffrey, The Gay Republic: Sexuality, Citizenship and Subversion in France (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005), 42. 14. Murray Pratt, “AIDS Writing in France,” in Gay Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia, ed. George E. Haggerty (New York: Garland, 2000), 39. 15. Quoted in Edmund White, The Flâneur: A Stroll through the Paradoxes of Paris (New York: Bloomsbury, 2001), 169. 16. David M. Halperin, Saint =Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). 17. Didier Lestrade, “Fuckyoufuckyeah Halperin,” Didier Lestrade (blog), December 7, 2010, http://didierlestrade.blogspot.com/2010/12/fuckyoufuckyeah-harpelin.html. 18. Didier Eribon, Insult and the Making of the Gay Self, trans. Michael Lucey (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004), 301. 19. Tim Murphy, “The French Connection,” POZ Magazine, April/May, 2011, http://www.poz.com/articles/Didier_Lestrade_HIV_2591_20109.shtml. 20. Didier Lestrade, “Je désavoue Act Up,” June 9, 2004. http://didierlestrade.fr/politique-sida/act-up/article/je-desavoue-act-up] “Vous êtes plus intéressés par ce qui se passe à l'autre bout du monde que par ce qui se passe dans vos lits.” Additional informationNotes on contributorsThomas K. NakayamaThomas K. Nakayama is Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Northeastern University

Promoting language rights as fundamental individual rights: France as a model?

France's regional languages have long suffered as a result of the French republican model, which denies the existence of minorities and hence the possibility of granting minority rights. It is sometimes argued by language rights specialists, however, that these should not be seen as special collective rights so much as linguistic aspects of existing fundamental individual rights. The present article examines France's potential to exploit instead this latter conception of language rights, building on the new constitutional status granted to the country's regional languages in 2008 to form a fresh approach to minority languages. Not only could this strengthen French republicanism, but could also serve as a useful model for language rights in other contexts that favour individual rights over groups rights.

Urban Rioting as an Indicator of Crisis in the Integration Model for Ethnic Minority Youth in France

France used to be proud of its ability to integrate the children of migrants. In fact, the French Republican model facilitated the assimilation of migrants rather than their ghettoisation. During the years of economic growth, businesses, trade unions and political parties contributed to a successful assimilation process. However, after the first urban riots occurred in a suburb of Lyon during the summer of 1981, two months after the election of ex-President François Mitterrand, a divorce occurred between the children of immigrant families and the institutions of the Republic, including local ones. The palliative remedies of a declining welfare state contributed to the growth of conflict between youth living in poor urban projects (cités) and institutions—above all the police—which produced the riots of 2005. While they have been widely treated as a call for cultural difference within a communitarian framework, these outbreaks of violence can also be viewed as a very strong paradoxical expression of rebellion for assimilation, defined as the right to be a citizen of France notwithstanding ethnic origins rather than an object of discrimination.

The 2005 Riots in France: The International Impact of Domestic Violence

Following the Autumn 2005 riots in France, many observers in both the popular and the academic press argued that the urban violence that occurred over a two-week period was an open challenge to the French Republican model of citizenship, which does not recognise racial, ethnic or religious affiliations. Many experts focused their analyses of the riots on the relationship between discrimination and ethnic mobilisation in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Often, the discussions surrounding the uprisings were embedded in the ongoing debate between liberal and communitarian notions of citizenship and the lack of ethnic recognition in France. The articles in this special issue of JEMS indicate another interpretation of the events of October–November 2005. According to much of the comparative analysis presented in this collection, the riots were not a challenge to the French Republic but a demonstration of its schizophrenic characteristics.

Mapping Beur Cinema in the New Millennium

RECENT EVENTS IN FRANCE have drawn international attention to the difficulties facing the nation's young people in an extremely tight labor market. In November 2005, riots on the outskirts of many major cities caused over 200 million euros of property damage and one death. The rioters were mostly young men from housing projects in urban fringe zones, or banlieues, with no religious or political agenda and no ties to Islamist fundamentalism. Rather, their actions were motivated by a general frustration at their lack of possibilities for social mobility; unemployment nationally stands at 22 percent for people ages sixteen to twentyfour, and it can reach as high as 30 to 40 percent in some banlieue areas.1 The use of the term racaille, or scum, by then Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy to refer to the rioters raised a storm of controversy. Supporters praised Sarkozy, the center-right politician who was elected President of France in 2007, for his willingness to take a hard line with delinquency, but his critics were furious at his perceived lack of tolerance for the difficult economic and social situation that led to the riots. This debate blossomed during the presidential election into a full-blown discussion by all the major candidates about French national identity, a topic that raised questions about the ability of the French republican model to integrate recent immigrants and their descendants into mainstream French society. Since his election, Sarkozy has provoked further criticism from the Left for his creation of a new government ministry that explicitly links immigration to integration and national identity. In addition to highlighting the French unemployment situation, the 2005 riots and the recent presidential debates also demonstrated to a broad audience the situation of topographical segregation that has come to characterize many cities in France. The riots were primarily confined to suburban areas and rarely reached any of the city centers. These neighborhoods in difficulty are defined by landscapes of grim cites, the low-income high-rises constructed by the French government from the 19505 through the 19705 as a hasty attempt to house a rapid influx of foreign workers in a time of unprecedented economic growth. Designated by various French euphemisms such as ZUP (zones a urbaniser en priorite) or ZUS (zones urbaines sensibles), these suburban areas are inhabited by a high concentration of immigrants from France's former colonies and their descendents. Some critics argue that the architecture of the cites itself has created a world in which topographic segregation from the city mirrors cultural segregation because the architectural enormity and impersonality are so depressing that anyone with the means to do so leaves. The cites end up as zones of highly concentrated social pathology, where poverty, police confrontations, drug dealing, unemployment, and general despair become the norm (Laurence and Vaisse, par. 14). Immigrants, who make up a disproportionately high percentage of the nation's low-income population, and others who are unable to leave end up enmeshed in a process of de facto ghettoization. Their integration into mainstream society is slowed in part because of racial and ethnic discrimination, but also in part because they come from les quartiers defavorises. The perceived conflation of topographical and cultural segregation that characterizes the poorer banlieues in France has led, in part, to the dissemination in the media of unfavorable images of disaffected youth and burning cars such as those broadcast worldwide during the 2005 riots. However, these marginal urban spaces have also been sites of a significant cultural renaissance in France, giving rise to many new rap and rai artists as well as to the birth of a dynamic and multifaceted literary and film tradition. This article addresses one aspect of this cultural renaissance, the production of films in France by artists of North African origin or their descendents. …

The French republican model of integration: The theory of cohesion and the practice of exclusion

What are the explaining factors for the wave of riots in France in November 2005? In providing some answers, this article begins by examining the practical usefulness of the French republican model of integration for social cohesion, highlighting the way its negation of other criteria, such as ethnicity, race, or religion, limit this national conception of citizenship and emphasizing these excluded factors as one of the main causes of frustration and resentment among migrant groups in France.The author compares these riots to the student movements in spring 2006 and shows some similarities as well as important differences between the explaining structural factors of these two youth-based social upheavals. One of the contributing distinctions is the experience of ethnic and racial discrimination as an important source of deep resentment. The author avoids reducing the riots simply to a clash between ethnic groups with specific ethnic interests or a class revolt. Instead, he stresses the relationship between specific social structural factors and spatial effects as the element that created the context for the riots by transforming inequalities into visible and indefensible discrimination. Several factors show that spatial aspects (in the form of segregation) are important alongside the ethnic/racial ones in explaining the riots.

The French Republic unveiled

How long can a beard be before it becomes a political weapon? How can one distinguish between a discreet and ostentatious deployment of signs of cultural difference? What signs of cultural identity are acceptable in the public sphere? In this article I shall argue that these questions can only be answered by understanding the French republican model. First, I shall suggest that France continues to ‘veil’ itself in a mythical past concerning the Republic and race. I shall then argue that contemporary debates about the visibility of signs of cultural difference in the public sphere often reproduce this mythologized view of the French republic. Finally I shall suggest that there is a need to demythologize republican memory and expose the hidden mechanism of the republican model for a proper understanding of the present. This article is not about beards, headscarves or any other sign of cultural difference per se but, by reversing the gaze on republican France, attempts to unveil the hidden ideology of the French republican model which constructs beards and headscarves as political weapons.

Le modèle républicain français et la Constitution de 1946

SUMMARY In this article, Sandro Guerrieri examines the debate about the renewal of the French republican model that took place in France after the Liberation. The forces that had fought the Vichy regime did not want to return to the constitutional system of the Third Republic (1875–1940): they aimed at building more efficient institutions. In the referendum of 21 October 1945, only 3.6 per cent of the voters consented to the hypothesis of going back to the Third Republic. But the protagonists of the constitutional debate had different ideas about the features of the new Constitution. For instance, while the communists wanted the absolute supremacy of a unicameral Parliament, General de Gaulle proposed to reinforce the role of the President of the Republic, which during the Third Republic had been greatly weakened. As a result, the two Constituent Assemblies of 1945–6 were marked by important disputes that weakened the final agreement between the communists, the socialists and the Christian Democrats of Mrp that was reached in September 1946. But if the Fourth Republic began with institutions that after all were quite similar to those of the previous Republic, an important renewal took place in the social basis of the Republican model, with an expansion of the idea of Republican citizenship.

Eclectisch en toch nieuw. De uitvinding van het Belgisch parlement in 1830-1831

Eclectic yet still new. The creation of the Belgian parliament in 1830-1831The Belgian Constitution of 1831 consisted mainly of clauses borrowed from older constitutions. Besides, most members of the Constituent Assembly were guided by the British parliamentary model, which was also promoted by French liberal authors as a welcome alternative to republicanism. Nevertheless, it departed from the British liberal model on some crucial issues and reverted to the French republican model once again. In this sense, the Belgian Constitution was indeed eclectic. Nevertheless, the combination was both refreshingly innovative and explicit in that it excluded the holistic concepts of ‘nation’ that were present in both the British and the French models. This article is part of the special issue 'Parlementen in de Nederlanden'.

La Versification by Jean-Michel Gouvard (review)

MLR, 96.I, 200I MLR, 96.I, 200I Frenchtranslation,he may also be compared to France'shithertofavouriteEnglish commentator on Frenchsociety and culture,Theodore Zeldin. Jack is far more telling and detailed (and up to date) in his analysis of what is wrong with the Frenchstateand Frenchsociety than Ardagh, and he gives a farless comfortable view of the French, or of the French elites at least, than does Zeldin, leaving no room for complacency among his readersoutre-Manche. While he admits to a love-hate relationshipwith France and refersin passing to 'an extraordinary quality of life in France',his stance is more often than not critical:he sees French institutionsas archaic, the state as too influential,producing a freemasonryof elites who too frequentlyend up running big business and industry,whether publicly or privately owned. He admits Franceis changing for the better (by which he means becoming much more of a free-marketsociety),and in theprocessitsexceptionalism is disappearingas it strugglesto freeitselffroma post-warcorporatestraitjacket. There will be those who reject his implicit admiration for the modernization of the Thatcher years as a model againstwhich to compare France,and who may not sharehis view of the huge Frenchpublic sectoras theproblem, resistingchange as it does in the shape of its ubiquitousenarques and Inspecteurs desfinances, elites who (he argues) have too often concentrated on self-perpetuation and self-preservation. However, it will need very cogent argument to refute the detailed evidence of his analysis of the fragility of the French state in the face of public protest, the weaknesses of the French Republican model of integration, the extent of public sectorprivilege,the self-servingcomplicityofitsgrands corps, leadingto scandalssuch as the Credit Lyonnais affair, the centralization and short-termism of decisionmaking , and corruption and complacency regardingthe Corsican problem. He is particularlygood on themedia, dealingwith issuesof privacy,ofpressindependence or lackof it, conflictsof interestin ownership,and the sycophancy of television. He also deals interestingly with the educational system and cultural policy, and economic and technological achievements. The book is certainlya challenging and stimulatingread forthose interestedin Francein the I99os and beyond. UNIVERSITY OFNEWCASTLE UPONTYNE GEOFFREY HARE La Versification. By JEAN-MICHELGOUVARD. (Collection Premier Cycle) Paris: PressesUniversitairesde France. 1999. x + 305 PP. 99F. This book is one of a seriesaimed at Premier Cycle studentsin Frenchuniversities and its aim is to present the theory of French versification from a descriptive viewpoint (p. 2).Itsopening chapterpresentsessentialinformationon syllabification clearly and comprehensively,but the following one on the role of accent in French verse createsdifficultiesforat least thisreaderthat the book never resolves. The ideasproposed reflectthe currentFrenchacademic consensuson accent and metre in French:that is, that the boundary of the metrical unit is markedby nondistinctive group-finalaccent (the only metrical accent) and that it is conservation of syllable-count from unit to unit that is fundamental to perception of metre (pp. 73-89). There is word-accent within the line, but as its distributionis aleatory, it can performno metricalfunction (pp. 86-87). A crucialimplicationof thistheory is that any isosyllabictext will be perceived as verse and a simple experiment may highlightthe weaknessof thishypothesis: (a)Tiens!GrosJeanvientde deciderde seprocurer deuxbonschiens.Toutce qu'onpeut pretendre enfin,c'estqu'iladf y renoncer. (b)Cethommeatoujours delachanc(e). Safemm(e) quil'aimeestbelleetnequitt(e)jamais l'hotelouell(e)vitenpaixdepuissonenfance. Frenchtranslation,he may also be compared to France'shithertofavouriteEnglish commentator on Frenchsociety and culture,Theodore Zeldin. Jack is far more telling and detailed (and up to date) in his analysis of what is wrong with the Frenchstateand Frenchsociety than Ardagh, and he gives a farless comfortable view of the French, or of the French elites at least, than does Zeldin, leaving no room for complacency among his readersoutre-Manche. While he admits to a love-hate relationshipwith France and refersin passing to 'an extraordinary quality of life in France',his stance is more often than not critical:he sees French institutionsas archaic, the state as too influential,producing a freemasonryof elites who too frequentlyend up running big business and industry,whether publicly or privately owned. He admits Franceis changing for the better (by which he means becoming much more of a free-marketsociety),and in theprocessitsexceptionalism is disappearingas it strugglesto freeitselffroma post-warcorporatestraitjacket. There will be those who reject his implicit admiration for the modernization of...