Postwar France Research Articles

‘En règle et rejeté’: Homelessness and Recognition in Driss Chraïbi’s Les boucs

Abstract This article explores the figuration of homelessness in post-war France across national and racial lines in and around Driss Chraïbi’s Les Boucs (1955). After situating Les Boucs within the broader discursive field concerning homelessness in the mid-1950s in France, first it considers Chraïbi’s critique of the character Mac O’Mac, a Christian philanthropist whose expertise on the ‘North African Question’ grants him the power to determine what forms of suffering are deemed morally legible for the French public, and those which are not. Second, it turns to the work that Les Boucs does to secure visibility for North African immigrant workers through its realist treatment of Yalaan Waldik’s descent through the bureaucratic machinery of the French labour market and the spaces of precarious housing. These sections, in dialogue with contemporary discourses surrounding the crisis of the French ‘sans-abris’, illuminate a marked contrast between what this article names epidemic and endemic forms of ‘homelessness’. That is, while the ‘sans-abris’ are portrayed as a population in crisis, the precarious housing of North African workers is naturalized into an essential component of national reconstruction.

“A New Historic Youth”: Lettrism, Delinquency, and the Fait Divers in Postwar France

This essay seeks to historicize Lettrist activity in France and to situate Lettrist aesthetic productions and destructions in relation to the memory of German Occupation of France during World War II, and to the violent outbursts and acting out of the Lettrists’ contemporaries. Isidore Isou and others belonged to a rather unique generation in the history of France—a generation that caused adults a great deal of concern as young men and women committed crimes and acts of violence at unprecedented rates. Attending to the cultural historical specificities of the Lettrists and other young troublemakers in postwar France, I argue that Lettrism, as an aesthetic idea, could never have gained or sustained momentum without the mid-century fait divers, a specific genre of miscellaneous news story. In the years immediately following the end of World War II, the raison d’être of the young Lettrists in France could perhaps be defined as the construction of situations that would generate banal news items of a very specific nature. Reframing Lettrist activity as essentially compatible with the raw material for faits divers, as defined by Roland Barthes, helps us to appreciate the somewhat-surprising interest the group generated at a historic moment when France had never been more concerned with the gratuitous misdeeds of young men.

Інтерпретація історії Франції повоєнної доби у романі Паскаля Кіньяра “Американська окупація”

The article deals with the specifics of the interpretation of the history of post-war France, made by a contemporary French writer Pascal Quignard in the novel "The American Occupation" (1994). The writer represents in detail the chosen historical period, emphasizing its socio-political and cultural peculiarities. In addition, the author pays attention to the phenomenon of modification of the national identity of the protagonists influenced by American mass culture. The depiction of a specific historical epoch in this work becomes part of Pascal Quignard's reflection on the meaning of history in its entirety.

Organic Resistance: The Struggle over Industrial Farming in Postwar France. By Venus Bivar. Flows, Migrations, and Exchanges. Edited by Mart A. Stewart and Harriet Ritvo. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018. Pp. xvi+224. $90.00 (cloth); $29.95 (paper); $22.99 (e-book).

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsOrganic Resistance: The Struggle over Industrial Farming in Postwar France. By Venus Bivar. Flows, Migrations, and Exchanges. Edited by Mart A. Stewart and Harriet Ritvo. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018. Pp. xvi+224. $90.00 (cloth); $29.95 (paper); $22.99 (e-book).Grégory QuénetGrégory QuénetUniversité de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Modern History Volume 93, Number 2June 2021 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/711272 Views: 104Total views on this site For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

L'Espagne Républicaine: French Policy and Spanish Republicanism in Liberated France

L'Espagne Républicaine: French Policy and Spanish Republicanism in Liberated France

Republic of Fakes: Art in the Service of Truth in Postwar France

Abstract In 1955, Paris Police Commissioner Guy Isnard curated the exhibition Le Faux dans l'art et dans l'histoire at the Grand Palais in Paris. Featuring a wide variety of forgeries, most notably counterfeit sculptures and paintings, the exhibition was an occasion to showcase the anti-counterfeiting efforts of the National Police. But in the broader context of the politically and economically weakened Fourth Republic, more was at stake. In the immediate postwar period, French society was steeped in uncertainty and a growing fear of inauthenticity, fueled by rumors of currency manipulation by foreign powers, the perceived corruption of the French language by an increasingly influential English, and anti-Americanism in intellectual and political circles. In this environment, the organizers of the exhibition called upon culture, and art in particular, to reaffirm a strict distinction between truth and falsity while also establishing France as the uncontested guardian of truth. This essay shows that Le Faux dans l'art et dans l'histoire constituted a crucial threshold moment in twentieth-century French history, both as an attempt to preserve a rapidly fading vision of truth and originality and as a prefiguration of aesthetic and philosophical debates to come.

The political history of France in reflection of the national cinematography (1960s – 1970s)

The goal of this research consists in determination of the place and role of French cinematography of 1960s – 1970s in the political history of postwar France. The object of this research is the process of transformation of political discourse in the context of transfer of power from Charles de Gaulle to Georges Pompidou. The subject of is reflection of the history of collaborationism in the films “Sadness and Pity” (1969) and “Lacombe Lucien” (1973). The author examines such aspect of the topic as reflection of the political and cultural elites on the Vichy regime. Special attention is given to the political consequences of the screening of films about collusion of the Nazi to French citizens. The scientific lies in the analytical overview of the popular films of French national cinematography of 1960s – 1970s, which interpret the phenomenon of “collaborationism” and “opposition" of the period of German occupation. As a result, it is proven that these films distorted the silence on collusion of a number of citizens to the occupier that prevailed in the French political and public discourse. The author notes that resign of Charles de Gaulle as the head of the French Republic led to the emergence of the products of popular culture that revise the previous interpretations of the military past and have a capacity to change the political situation in the country.

Fashion, Plastic and Myths in Color

This short article examines a photograph in a 1956 catalogue for the French department store Galeries Lafayette in the context of the country’s postwar modernization, Paris renovations and the development of the readymade garment industry. It relates the production of image to the construction and dissemination of fashion and femininity in the print media. In particular, it notes how the use of changing technologies in image production, notably Kodachrome color film, shaped and exposed these constructions. Drawing on the notion of myth, as formulated by Roland Barthes, this article asks how the image spoke to modernity’s inherent contradictions, notably between old and new, in its depiction of bodies, plastic and synthetic fabric. Finally, it shows why this was particularly relevant in the culture of postwar France.

КРИЗИС COVID-19 СНОВА ПОСТАВИЛ ПЛАНИРОВАНИЕ НА ПОВЕСТКУ ДНЯ?

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the emergence of an unforeseen event with far-reaching consequences. This surprise invalidated the traditional results of economic calculation and made the act of political decision-making emerge as central as the markets proved incapable of handling this type of event. In such a situation, the political decision turns out to be more effective than economic calculation. This is also the case with heuristic decision-making because it becomes impossible to calculate in advance the consequences of the unforeseeable event. In this situation, O. Neurath had shown in the debate with L. von Mises and F.A. Hayek that planning could be an effective alternative to a market. J.E. Stiglitz has stressed the risk of market failures too. It is therefore now clear that the health crisis has revived the issue of planning. The fear of a recurrence of such a pandemic will permanently shape economic behaviour in the years to come. We find empirical applications both in the case of war economies during the two world conflicts and in the Japanese or French post-war economy. Conscious and organized consultation, which can then take the form of a flexible mode of planning such as what was practiced in post-war France or in Japan by the MITI, can then - as Claude Gruson shows - prove to be a procedure that is not only effective but empirically efficient in the face of uncertainty and the inability of the market to manage information effectively.

Robert Schumann — “Father of Europe”

The article examines the main milestones in the biography of Robert Schumann, a prominent politician in post-war France, a member of several cabinets and an active supporter of Western European integration, who proclaimed a plan to unite the production of coal and steel (“The Schuman Declaration”, known as “Schumann Plan” in Russian historiography). His efforts to achieve historic reconciliation between France and Germany after the deep trauma inflicted by the two World Wars are underlined. Particular attention is paid to Schumann's Christian worldview and his ideas about Christian values that serve the common good and the cause of uniting Europe.

전후 프랑스의 유대인 재산 반환 문제와 마테올리 연구단

전후 프랑스의 유대인 재산 반환 문제와 마테올리 연구단

Eric Monnet. Controlling Credit: Central Banking and the Planned Economy in Postwar France, 1948–1973.

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Semi-Presidential Reform and Referendums in France and Romania

Abstract This paper seeks to examine how direct democracy was used as a means to achieve or to strengthen semi-presidentialism in France and Romania. Whereas the Fifth Republic is widely seen as the archetypal semi-presidential regime, Romania relied heavily on this particular model for its post-communist constitution but opted to drastically reduce the powers of an otherwise directly-elected head of state. Nevertheless, the Gaullist reforms of postwar France echoed through the turn of the century. Traian Băsescu used referendums in an uncanny resemblance to Charles de Gaulle’s own pursuit of constitutional reform. Both aimed to increase the president’s role and decrease parliamentary involvement in the dual executive. However, only de Gaulle achieved partial success in shaping the political system.

Controlling Credit: Central Banking and the Planned Economy in Postwar France, 1948–1973, by Eric Monnet

Controlling Credit: Central Banking and the Planned Economy in Postwar France, 1948–1973, by Eric Monnet

A prominent spy: Mehdi Ben Barka, Czechoslovak intelligence, and Eastern Bloc espionage in the Third World during the Cold War

ABSTRACT The 1965 disappearance of Mehdi Ben Barka in Paris, the catalyst of one of the greatest political scandals in the history of post-war France, is still shrouded in mystery several decades later. Newly declassified documents from Czech archives have shed light on the final years of the Moroccan politician’s life, revealing that Ben Barka had cooperated with Czechoslovak intelligence from 1961 until his abduction. The aim of this study is to assess the nature of this partnership and demonstrate the activities, methods, and aims of Czechoslovak intelligence in the Third World during the 1960s.

Building a National Machine

The article studies the development of the long-term marginal cost pricing of electricity in France, in the 1950s and 1960s. The engineers who managed the public monopoly for the production, transport, and distribution of electricity promoted a distinctive version of the economics and engineering nexus. Costs calculations were developed to design a nationwide integrated machine. Hydropower in the south was to be interconnected with thermal power in the north, in order to support a massive increase in consumption in the Paris basin, saving on coal and on the scarce funding of the Marshall Plan. Prices acted as administrative instructions, passing on costs to subscribers and shaping their present and future behavior according to the planned development of the system. This was a technocratic intervention: the engineer-economists made crucial and lasting decisions on land-use planning for the sake of the rapid growth of the system. This engineering and economics nexus was a far cry from the prewar liberal order made of multiple small and loosely regulated competitors, and from contemporary forms of economic engineering, more narrowly focused on the informational properties of prices, abandoning the calculated nationwide decisions on the growth of processes of production and uses. It is also slightly neglected in the discussion over the so-called indicative planning in postwar France.

France 1939–1945: From strange defeat to pseudo‐liberation

This essay provides a class-analysis interpretation of France's role in World War II. Determined to eliminate the perceived revolutionary threat emanating from its restless working class, France's elite arranged in 1940 for the country to be defeated by its “external enemy,” Nazi Germany. The fruit of that betrayal was a victory over its “internal enemy,” the working class. It permitted installing a fascist regime under Pétain, and this “Vichy-France”—like Nazi Germany—was a paradise for the industrialists and all other members of the upper class, but a hell for workers and other plebeians. Unsurprisingly, the Resistance was mostly working-class, and its plans for postwar France included severe punishment for the collaborators and very radical reforms. After Stalingrad, the elite, desperate to avoid that fate, switched its loyalty to the country's future American masters, who were determined to make France and the rest of Europe free for capitalism. It proved necessary, however, to allow the recalcitrant leader of the conservative Resistance, Charles de Gaulle, to come to power. In any event, the “Gaullist” compromise made it possible for the French upper class to escape punishment for its pro-Nazi sins and to maintain its power and privileges after the liberation.

Networks and claims: the role of students in spreading Genevan psychology in post-war France

Cet article précise comment les étudiants de la Sorbonne ont participé à l’institutionnalisation et à la professionnalisation de la psychologie dans la France d’après-guerre par une mise en circulation des savoirs et des pratiques élaborés par l’École de Genève. L’examen porte spécifiquement sur la façon dont l’expertise de Jean Piaget et de ses collaborateurs a été mobilisée par les étudiants parisiens dans la promotion et la défense de leur discipline, et comment, en retour, le Bulletin du groupe d’études de psychologie de l’université de Paris a contribué à diffuser l’enseignement prodigué à Genève, jusqu’à ce que Piaget lui-même soit appelé en 1952 à la faculté des lettres de la Sorbonne pour y enseigner la psychologie pédagogique. Cette analyse des échanges franco-suisses en matière de psychologie examine en particulier les revendications des étudiants au niveau de la formation, de l’insertion professionnelle et de la recherche. Elle se fonde sur un dépouillement des premiers numéros du Bulletin et mobilise quelques pièces issues de fonds d’archives genevois.

Rethinking the crisis in historicity: Precarity and postmodernism in French science fiction and film after May ’68

This article re-examines the crisis in historicity, an aesthetic hallmark of postmodernism, in light of unemployment and economic precarity in France during the 1970s. Whereas influential critics like Jean Baudrillard, Jean-François Lyotard and Fredric Jameson famously diagnosed an inability to represent historical movement, I argue that the decade’s literature and film represent changes to the organisation of working time. The article first discusses how time in post-war France was mediated through practices like national economic planning, industrial chronométrage, and staggered shifts, a temporal structure dramatically disrupted in the 1970s. The article then examines the aesthetic response to such economic disruption, drawing on examples like Michel Jeury’s science fiction novel, the cinétracts of May 1968, and the protest film, Rhodia 4/8. The crisis in historicity, I suggest, should be understood not as general disorientation, but rather as a specific solution to the problem of representing precarious employment in France.

Book Reviews: From Vichy to the Sexual Revolution: Gender and Family Life in Postwar France

Book Reviews: From Vichy to the Sexual Revolution: Gender and Family Life in Postwar France