CIAO DATE: 08/2008
Volume: 19, Issue: 3
Summer 2001
The Gallic Rooster Crows Again: The Paradox of French Anti-Americanism
Richard Kuisel
What might a historical perspective provide toward understanding the current bout of bashing Uncle Sam? There is a pattern to Gallic anti-Americanism. It peaks, as it did in the 1950s and again today, when the U.S. postures as a socio-economic model and threatens a cultural invasion. But there are also new features to contemporary attacks on America. What has intensified French perceptions of American domination stems from changes within France as the nation pursues competitiveness and openness. These changes have brought a perception among the French that they have lost an idealized construction of "France" and are increasingly powerless over forces like globalization and European integration. Globalization in particular magnifies the presence and power of America. Anxiety about loss is transferred to an America that appears intrusive and selfserving. Neo-anti-Americanism is a form of retaliation—retaliation against a seemingly omnipotent United States which tries to impose the self-serving process of globalization on France; retaliation against our obstructionist, expendable and unreliable hegemony in international politics; and retaliation against American promotion of our flawed social model, which challenges a traditional construction of Frenchness.
Les élections locales françaises de mars 2001: un échec pour la majorité
Gérard Grunberg
The local elections of spring 2001 constituted a defeat for the Socialist government. The outcome of these elections in large and medium-sized cities show significant losses for the Left––despite Socialist victories in Paris and Lyon––and especially for the Communists whose numbers continue to decline. The only left-wing party to improve its position was the Green Party. These results do not reflect a clear rejection of the government by the public, but they outline two reasons for the Left to worry: First, although polls seemed to be favorable to the Left, the elections' disappointing outcome shifted the political climate in a way that benefits the Right. While the Left was politically destablilized, the election results boosted the opposition's morale and Jacques Chirac now felt confident in taking the offensive in his race for the presidency. Second, the election results––more specifically the analysis of how votes shifted between the two rounds––reveal two developments: The Right did a better job than the Left at mobilizing its potential voters for the second round; and in the context of the National Front schism, more far-right voters than in the past voted for moderate-right candidates. Such trends suggest that the 2002 elections will be a challenge for a more divided and instable "gauche plurielle." The local elections of 2001 moved the Left from the role of favorite to that of challenger.
A Tale of Two Countries: The Politics of Color-Blindness in France and the United States
Robert Lieberman
France and the United States are commonly portrayed as proceeding from diametrically opposed presumptions in their approaches to race policy. But accounts of race policy in these two countries that emphasize cultural and ideological obscure crucial similarities between French and American race policy and thus fail to explain national differences convincingly. Despite similarly enshrining principles of color-blindness in antidiscrimination law, French and American race policy took very different directions in the 1960s and 1970s. France adhered closely to color-blindness in the face of persistent and even mounting discrimination while the United States moved toward an ambivalent embrace of race-conscious remedies for discrimination. The answer to this puzzle lies in the politics of minority incorporation, particularly the kind of state power that was created and mobilized to implement antidiscrimination policy and the structure of political opportunities available to proponents of race-conscious policy. Ironically, the "weak" American state, which produced a compromised vision of civil rights law, proved stronger at promoting the enforcement of antidiscrimination law, while the "stronger" French state has mounted a relatively anemic enforcement effort.
From Republican Political Culture to Republican Democracy: The Benefits and Burdens of History
Dick Howard
The essay claims that there has been a consistent political logic whose course can be traced across the Ancient régime down through modern times. It is marked by the quest for unity, the refusal of particularity, and the rhetoric of republicanism. But, since left and right were distinguished by their attitudes toward the revolution, the emergence of the "social question" made it necessary for the left to justify its divisions. That was the role of Marxism, which functioned in France not as a theory but as an ideology of legitimation. The achievement of Mitterrand against this background can be seen as the "corruption of the republic." However, the logic of the "affaires" that have emerged may make possible for the first time in French history an autonomous magistrature. As a result, the French quest to realize a democratic republic may be replaced by the more modern politics of republican democracy.
The Sudden Memory of Torture: The Algerian War in French Discourse, 2000-2001
William B. Cohen
During the Algerian War successive governments denied that they employed torture in the conduct of the conflict. The French public during the war and thereafter were, however, well informed on the brutal means used in the North African conflict.
In the summer of 2000 an Algerian woman tortured by the French gave an interview to Le monde. The publicity surrounding this interview and a subsequent interview given by General Aussaresses, head of the secret operations in Algeria, created a public furor over France's record in Algeria.
In a much publicized petition, some of those who had opposed the Algerian war asked the French government to issue an apology for its acts. France's political leaders balked, refusing to take such a step. As a result of the furor created in 2000-2001 there was a greater sense of consciousness of the darkest sides of French colonialism. If the French government eventually does issue a public apology, it will largely be as a result of the dramatic debates of the last year.
Torturante mémoire
Christian Delacampagne
The regular use of torture by the French army during the Algerian War raises at least two questions: 1) How was such torture made possible? Incapable of facing public opinion–– which was primarily in favor of colonization up until the end of the 1960s––the leaders of the Fourth Republic erred by giving full power to the army to crush the insurrection. It even took General De Gaulle two years to correct the situation. 2) What have we done since then to ensure that this would not happen again? As shown by the following facts, France has certainly not done what is necessary: It never formally recognized its responsibility for torture; it never tried to punish the principal culprits, whether politicians or military; it does not even seem to have learned from its past mistakes. Indeed, successive French governments continue to adopt a complacent stance towards similar practices (torture, summary executions) that consecutive Algerian governments have been covering up for several years – as if the use of torture should not be systematically condemned.
Homosexuality in France
Michael Sibalis
Frédéric Martel, The Pink and the Black: Homosexuals in France since 1968, trans. Jane Marie Todd (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999); Le Rose et le noir: les homosexuels en France depuis 1968, 2nd edition, revised and enlarged (Paris: Seuil, 2000).
Florence Tamagne, Histoire de l'homosexualité en Europe: Berlin, Londres, Paris 1919- 1939 (Paris: Seuil, 2000).
Carolyn J. Dean, The Frail Social Body: Pornography, Homosexuality, and Other Fantasies in Interwar France Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).
Daniel Borrillo, Eric Fassin, and Marcela Iacub, eds., Au-delá du PaCS: l'expertise familiale à l'épreuve de l'homosexualité, (Paris: Presses Universitaire de France, 1999).
Louis-Georges Tin and Geneviève Pastre, eds., Homosexualités: expression/répression, (Paris: Stock, 2000).
Gay and lesbian studies have almost everywhere experienced an incredible rate of growth in the last decade or so, but until very recently French scholarship has lagged far behind. In particular, professional historians in France have been reticent to research the history of homosexuality, in large part because of the conservatism of the academic establishment. (Young scholars have feared that an interest in gay history would hinder their careers.) As a result, much of the existing gay history of France has been produced by "Anglo-Saxons" (as the French call anyone who speaks or writes in English), and to the extent that "gay studies" have made their appearance in France, it is journalists, sociologists, and legal scholars rather than historians who have led the way.