CIAO DATE: 08/2008
Volume: 22, Issue: 1
Spring 2004
Fourastié avant Fourastié: La construction d'une légitimité d'expert
Olivier Dard
Décédé depuis 1990, Jean Fourastié demeure présent à travers certains titres d'ouvrages, le plus célèbre étant Les Trente Glorieuses. Le succès de ce livre, comme de bien d'autres, a fait de Fourastié une sorte de phénomène de l'édition, spécialisé dans des ouvrages d'un type particulier qui depuis lors a fait florès: l'essai économique grand public. On ne saurait négliger en effet les 400 000 exemplaires vendus de trois livres à succès publiés de 1945 à 1949: L'Économie française dans le monde, La Civilisation de 1960 et Le Grand Espoir du XX è siècle 1. Dès les lendemains de la guerre, les ouvrages de Fourastié ont connu un incontestable retentissement en France comme à l'étranger, ce don't atteste une quantité impressionnante de comptes rendus, les multiples solicitations dont il est l'objet pour des conférences et les nombreuses traductions de ses ouvrages.
Michel Leiris, French Anthropology, and a Side Trip to the Antilles
Sally Price
Susan Sontag seems to have been on to something when she placed her word portraits of Michel Leiris and Claude Lévi-Strauss back to back. An elaboration of her comparison (which was more implied than explicit) may help situate anthropological practice in France-and Leiris' special role in it-within the larger context of trends elsewhere in the world.
An Enigma Still: Poujadism Fifty Years On
James G. Shields
The day began on a solemn note. The laying of a wreath at the war memorial and a minute's silence for the fallen of Saint-Céré, victims of conflicts from the trenches to Algeria. Red, white and blue carnations, laid by Pierre Poujade and his wife, Yvette. Flanking them, two mayors in their Republican sashes, sons of early-day poujadistes. A picture of respectful, patriotic commemoration.
Between Europe and a Hard Place: French Financial Diplomacy from 1995 to 2002
Daphne Josselin
In the mid-1990s, a series of financial crises placed international financial stability and North-South dialogue once again very firmly on the agenda of economic diplomacy. These had long been pet topics for the French: back in the 1960s, President Charles de Gaulle had famously clamoured for the establishment of a new monetary order; the summitry set up, on French initiative, in 1975, had been largely focused on exchange rate stability and North-South relations; in the 1980s, President Mitterrand had made repeated appeals for a "new Bretton Woods." One could therefore expect the French to contribute actively to debates on how best to reform the international financial architecture.
An Extremism of the Center? Jean-Pierre Chevènement, French Presidential Candidate, 2002
Sharif Gemie
There are few politicians who can claim that they have, literally, come back from the dead. Jean-Pierre Chevènement can make a still more dramatic declaration: He is a man who has been reborn twice. Chevènement was the French minister of the Interior from 1997-2000, in the last Jospin government. In October 1998 he was admitted to hospital for a routine gall-bladder operation. Following a complication in the anaesthetic procedure, his heart stopped beating for forty-five minutes. He fell into a deep coma that lasted for three weeks, during which he drifted in a muffled, foggy world inhabited by strange beasts, as he later recalled.
Debate: La France qui tombe? Free-Falling France or Free-Trading France
Sophie Meunier
The most common perception of France found these days in the American media is that of an arrogant country, whose international gesticulations are the last hurrah masking its inevitable decline into oblivion. The French have not yet come to terms with their lengthy collapse, which started with the devastation of World War I, continued with the humiliation of their defeat in 1940 and was furthered by the loss of their colonial empire. This would explain their support, still to this day, for a Gaullist policy made up of power incantations, in contrast to real power-or lack thereof.
Debate: Le Monde qui tombe? La Fin du Monde? Tradition and Change in the French Press
Le Monde, or rather its current management team of publisher and editor Jean-Marie Colombani, managing editor Edwy Plenel, and director-of-the-board Alain Minc, has been the critical target over the past year of several best-selling books, accompanied by scores of articles in the rest of the French press. This avalanche of unwelcome attention for the newspaper was launched with the 630-page, exhaustively documented La Face cachée du Monde (The Hidden Face of Le Monde), by Pierre Péan, perhaps France's most highly-regarded investigative journalist, and Philippe Cohen, economics editor for the newsweekly Marianne. Other critical books that appeared during 2003 included Ma part du Monde by former Le Monde journalist Alain Rollat; Le Pouvoir du Monde by Bernard Poulet, an assistant managing editor at business magazine L'Expansion; Bien entendu … c'est off by former Le Monde political reporter Daniel Carton and Le Cauchemar médiatique by former Le Monde television chronicler Daniel Schneidermann.
Debate: Le Monde qui tombe? Premières leçons d'un audit sauvage
Pierre Grémion
Lorsque, le 26 février, le livre de Pierre Péan et de Philippe Cohen est sorti, je me suis précipité chez mon libraire. Trop tard! Les quelques exemplaires don't il disposait avaient déjà été enlevés. C'est le lendemain seulement que j'ai pu être servi. Le libraire s'était levé aux aurores pour faire lui-même son réassortiment. Il ne put en mettre en vente que 30 exemplaires: tous épuisés le soir même. "Si j'en avais pris 50 (mais nous ne pouvions pas, nous étions contingentés), ç'aurait été pareil. Je les aurais vendus dans la journée", m'a-t- il dit.