French Politics & Society

The French party system, ed. by Jocelyn A.J. Evans.  Manchester University, 2003. (Dist. by Palgrave),  218p bibl index ISBN 0-7190-6119-9, $69.95; ISBN 0-7190-6120-2 pbk, $24.95. Reviewed in 2004mar CHOICE.
41-4274  JN2997  MARC

This volume contains most of the information one needs to make sense of political parties in France. Well-informed contributors deal with left-wing and right-wing, mainstream and minor, and older and newer parties. They focus on recent developments in both interparty and intraparty relations and offer the necessary historical background. They include the ideological confusions of the major parties, the growth of electoral abstention, the pressures of the market on long-held party programs, the role of elites, and the factor of personal ambition. Particularly interesting is the subject of cohesion and division, e.g., the breakdown of the Gaullist-neoliberal alliance and subsequently, the rise and fall of the gauche plurielle. Also discussed are the disintegration of the Communist Party and the “centrist” UDF, the public disengagement from traditional parties, the weakness of the Greens, the growth of extremist formations on the Right and Left, and the interesting question this raises about “rational” voting behavior. These developments support the authors’ major thesis concerning “hyper-alternance”: that despite internal rearrangements and instabilities within the Right and the Left, the two blocs have been fairly stable, but neither has been able to retain incumbency since 1978. Good documentation and a useful index. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. — W. Safran, University of Colorado at Boulder

The French voter: before and after the 2002 elections, ed. by Michael S. Lewis-Beck.  Palgrave, 2004.  249p bibl index ISBN 0-333-99419-1, $69.95. Reviewed in 2005jul CHOICE.
42-6753  JN2959  2003-56410 CIP

This useful collection in a sense is a follow-up to Lewis-Beck’s previous book on the elections of 1997, How France Votes (CH, Apr’02, 37-4737.) It dissects the presidential and parliamentary elections of 2002 by analyzing factors, such as class, religion, and geography. Several chapters deal with the “political earthquake”–the unexpected first-round performance of Jean-Marie Le Pen–and explore reasons for this outcome. Among them was the electoral system, which gave the voter freedom to “play games” in the first round. There was also the factor of divided government. In 2002 cohabitation served to exculpate the president and held the (institutionally “inferior”) prime minister responsible for domestic problems, punishing him electorally. Ideology was still important, but there was a disconnect between ideology and voting, as reflected in Le Pen’s electoral performance despite his low national rating, Chirac’s election victory despite his declining popularity and abysmal first-round score, and Jospin’s eclipse despite his personal appeal. These results show how “strategic” voting can produce unanticipated outcomes. Thus, many traditional supporters of the Socialists voted for Trotskyist and other spoiler candidates to send Jospin a signal in the belief that he would be in the runoff anyway; the miscalculation resulted in his dropping out of the final contest. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. — W. Safran, University of Colorado at Boulder

Kedward, Rod.  France and the French: a modern history.  Overlook Press, 2006 (c2005).  741p bibl index ISBN 1-58567-733-7, $35.00. Reviewed in 2007jan CHOICE.
44-2913  DC361  2005-58529 MARC

Historian of the French Resistance, author of In Search of the Maquis: Rural Resistance in Southern France, 1942-1944 (CH, Oct’93, 31-1100) and Resistance in Vichy France (CH, Dec’78), Kedward (emer., Univ. of Sussex) brings a formidable knowledge of 20th-century France to the task of writing a broad history accessible to all readers. This very long book–with 648 pages of text, extensive notes, detailed bibliography, a very useful glossary, and a precise index–is divided into three overlapping sections with critical themes. Part 1 concerns the workings of the Republic in peace and war, 1900-31, and provides excellent summaries of political and social movements, the character of society, and the devastating effects of WW I. Part 2 emphasizes the outbursts of ideology, from the Popular Front in the 1930s and collaboration and resistance in WW II to the failures of the Fourth Republic and the Gaullist regime and its antagonists in 1968. Part 3 addresses “issues of identity” from the 1960s to the present, including analyses of the rhythm of frequent political shifts. Overall, this is a lively, balanced narrative, very useful as a textbook. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All general, undergraduate, and graduate collections. — N. Greene, Wesleyan University

 Knapp, Andrew.  Parties and the party system in France: a disconnected democracy?  Palgrave, 2004.  423p bibl index ISBN 0-333-92083-X, $69.95.  Outstanding Title! Reviewed in 2005apr CHOICE.
42-4875  JN2997  2003-63274 CIP

Knapp (Univ. of Reading, UK) offers a mine of information on almost everything one could possibly want to know about the subject. He combines an excursus on typologies of political parties, rival models of party politics, and social cleavages with a chronology of developments from the beginning of the Fifth Republic in 1958 to 2002. Knapp traces the evolution of the major parties from Gaullist dominance through a modified bipolarism to Socialist dominance. The author, well known for his writings on French political parties, pays due attention to the major determinants of party changes–social class, the electoral system and its periodic revisions, and socioeconomic changes–and evaluates the impact of organizational weaknesses and the decline of ideology on party loyalty and voting behavior. He provides interesting details on party alliances, combinations, and scissions within the Right and the Left; the rise of the National Front; the emergence of marginal parties on both sides of the ideological divide; and the collapse of the Communist Party. References to cumul des mandats, subnational party politics, and relations between parties and interest groups could have been more fully explored. But this is a minor gap in a truly comprehensive study. The book contains over 80 statistical tables, maps, and figures and an enormous bibliography. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels. — W. Safran, University of Colorado at Boulder

Laurence, Jonathan.  Integrating Islam: political and religious challenges in contemporary France, by Jonathan Laurence and Justin Vaisse.  Brookings, 2006.  742p index afp ISBN 0-8157-5150-2, $52.95; ISBN 0815751516 pbk, $22.95; ISBN 9780815751519 pbk, $22.95. Reviewed in 2007apr CHOICE.
44-4692  DC34  2006-18347 CIP

This excellent book deals with the challenges posed by the presence in France of several million Muslims. It covers virtually everything one would want to know about the subject. French Muslims being the largest non-Christian minority in an officially secular nation, there have been evolving approaches to naturalizing and culturally assimilating these non-European immigrants; the problem of “communitarian” vis-à-vis French national identity remains. The authors deal with the treatment, on national and local levels, of an economically disadvantaged group of people in relation to the official commitment to liberty, equality, and fraternity. They analyze the problem of separating Muslims as people from Islam as a religion, and the effects of Muslim immigrants on political parties and interest groups, especially with respect to housing, jobs, and affirmative action. They discuss the government’s attempt to organize Muslims and move Islam in a “Western” direction. The study pays considerable attention to certain aspects of Muslim politics, particularly its relationship to terrorism and French foreign policy toward the Middle East. The authors examine whether or not this has fed a growing anti-semitism countenanced by elements of the secular Left. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels. — W. Safran, emeritus, University of Colorado at Boulder

Opello, Katherine A.R.  Gender quotas, parity reform, and political parties in France.  Lexington Books, 2006.  179p bibl index afp ISBN 0-7391-0852-2, $65.00. Reviewed in 2007jan CHOICE.
44-2933  HQ1236  2005-21545 CIP

This is an excellent, informative, brief volume on the impact of the French legislature’s recent decisions on women’s representation. In 1999 came the decision to require equal access to political life for women. A year later came the requirement that all political parties have an equal number of male and female candidates in upcoming elections. Opello (New York Univ.) does a superb job explaining the historical and ideological reasons why the French legislature has lagged behind all others in Western Europe, except for Spain. While female representation in the National Assembly increased to 12.3 percent in 2002 (from 6.1 percent in 1997), and in the Senate to 16.9 percent in 2004 (from 5.6 percent in 1999), the author points out that the Socialists have been more successful than parties of the Right. In addition, parties are still more likely to nominate male incumbents in single-member elections, adding females to candidate lists in party-centered elections where the focus is less on the individual candidate. The book concludes with two fascinating chapters on women’s groups and “party women,” the latter largely based on interviews with 25 women with positions in the Socialist Party. For all libraries with holdings in European politics and/or gender studies. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students through practitioners. — A. Katz, Fairfield University
 
Phillips, Peggy Anne.  Republican France: divided loyalties.  Greenwood, 1993.  168p bibl index afp  (Contributions in political science, 325) ISBN 0-313-27503-3, $49.95.  Outstanding Title! Reviewed in 1994sep CHOICE.
32-0477  DC417  92-45075 CIP

Phillips’s monograph is important not simply for specialists of modern France or Europe, but also for scholars across disciplines researching other national and chronological arenas. As European unity begins to confront ideologies of national identity from without, Phillips finds renewed debates about race and religion undermining France’s republican consensus from within. Phillips argues that the generation emerging as France’s political leadership was formed by the Algerian war experience, and finds it must grapple with the needs of a transformed population, including many citizens and residents of Algerian origin. This new social segment, incompletely assimilated, is being convulsed by its own defining crisis, the split between fundamentalist Islam and state secularism in Algeria. The challenge of this Moslem community to existing views of French national identity provokes political responses, with the Left fragmenting into separatism and the Right reformulating racist nationalism. Phillips provides a model of successful analyses of complex human realities, and her succinct prose demonstrates that complexity does not preclude lucidity. The excellent select bibliography will usefully guide researchers at all levels. Upper-division undergraduate and above. — F. Burkhard, Morgan State University
 
Smith, Timothy B.  France in crisis: welfare, inequality, and globalization since 1980.  Cambridge, 2004.  296p index ISBN 0-521-84414-2, $65.00; ISBN 0521605202 pbk, $23.99. Reviewed in 2005oct CHOICE.
43-1186  HN425  204-45814 CIP

Smith (Queen’s Univ., Ontario) challenges many idées reçues about the crisis of the French welfare state. He demonstrates the hollowness of French claims of solidaritD’e, showing that the majority of French public spending does not redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor. Rather, guaranteed and unfunded pensions to middle class, mostly male retirees are ballooning out of control, welfare spending and family allowances are stagnant or declining, and high payroll taxes and rigid labor laws discourage job creation. The result, Smith argues, is a growing divide between the privileged (older French men) and the excluded (women, the young, and immigrants). The author denounces French politicians of both the Left and the Right for worsening the crisis and blaming external factors such as “globalization” rather than acknowledging their own responsibility, and warns of the rise of political extremism. He also demonstrates the falsity of the opposition between French solidaritD’e and US “jungle capitalism,” arguing that France should follow the example of states such as Sweden, the Netherlands, and his native Canada, all of which have reformed their welfare states successfully while preserving their egalitarian principles. Summing Up: Essential. All students of contemporary French history and politics. — D. A. Harvey, New College of Florida

Waters, Sarah.  Social movements in France: towards a new citizenship.  Palgrave, 2003.  180p bibl index ISBN 0-333-77043-9, $65.00. Reviewed in 2004feb CHOICE.
41-3761  HN44  2003-42984 CIP

This slim volume has much to commend it. In her introduction, Waters (French, Leeds Univ.) offers a succinct summation of what she intends to accomplish and proceeds to do so with precision and clarity. Focusing on the “new generation of social movements” of the 1990s, Waters asserts that a variety of associations have emerged to “give voice” to those individuals and groups that are marginalized by or lack representation in mainstream political institutions. Introducing the topic in historical perspective in the first chapter, Waters proceeds to examine the role of social protest in contemporary France. After establishing a theoretical framework for her thesis by reviewing current European literature on “new social movement” theory, Waters proposes that French social movements focus not so much on “new issues” as on securing and extending the rights accorded to different groups in French society. The “new citizenship,” she maintains, most appropriately defines this approach to social protest. The remaining chapters examine specific movements dedicated to such causes as antiracism, antifascism, the unemployed, and the broader “solidarity” movement. Summing Up: Recommended. A valuable addition to undergraduate and graduate collections. — B. T. Browne, Broward Community College

© American Library Association. Contact [email protected] for permission to reproduce or redistribute.