Search

Begin New Search Content Type Journal Article

14721. Farming Visions : Agriculture in French Culture

Author:
Susan Carol Rogers
Publication Date:
03-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Peasant Fever That Goes Beyond Corporatism," "Peasants: Old-Style and Modern." Such headlines led stories in the French press about the August 1999 attack on a MacDonald's deep in the French hinterlands by a group affiliated with the farmers union Confédération Paysanne. The incident, noted in the American press as a colorful example of Gallic excess, drew weeks of substantial and sympathetic attention from the French press and general public, inspired vocal support from politicians across the political spectrum, and catapulted the group's leader, José Bové, to the status of national hero. Part of the significance attributed in France to the event, as suggested by the headlines above, lay in claims that this action represented a radical new departure for farm organizations: unlike previous farmer protests-habitually no less symbolically-charged, well-orchestrated, or widely supported-this one, it was frequently said, spoke to issues of concern to society as a whole, not simply to the corporate interests of farmers.
Topic:
Agriculture
Political Geography:
America and France

14722. Craintes Et Espoirs Des Agriculteurs Français

Author:
François Clerc
Publication Date:
03-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Le bilan que les agriculteurs français peuvent présenter de leurs efforts au cours du dernier demi-siècle devrait les remplir de confiance en eux-mêmes. Ils sont parvenus à produire en abondance. Entre 1951 et 1997, la quantité de blé livrée a été multipliée par quatre et par cinq dans un secteur moins stratégique, celui des haricots verts. Entre 1980 et 1997, le volume de la production agricole française a augmenté de 30 pour cent. L'agriculture française nourrit des consommateurs dont le nombre a augmenté de plus de 40 pour cent en cinquante ans et le déséquilibre des échanges commerciaux a changé de sens. L'agriculture et les industries alimentaires qui lui font suite ont porté la France au rang de second exportateur agro-alimentaire mondial.

14723. La Loi D\'orientation Agricole Comme Enjeu De Société

Author:
Bertrand Hervieu
Publication Date:
03-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Pour le Gouvernement français, l\'ambition du projet de loi d\'orientation agricole, voté le 26 mai 1999, était de redéfinir la place de l\'agriculture dans la société du début du XXIe siècle et d\'assurer son ancrage dans le territoire. Face à l\'ouverture des marchés et à l\'évolution des comportements des consommateurs et des citoyens, l\'enjeu est de renforcer les liens entre l\'agriculture et la nation au plus près du terrain et d\'inscrire les projets agricoles dans des projets de société. La présentation de ce projet de loi a fait l\'objet de nombreuses interventions des ministres de l\'Agriculture et de la Pêche, Louis Le Pensec et Jean Glavany. Nous présentons ici une synthèse de ces discours qui a fait l\'objet de diverses notes internes au ministère de l\'Agriculture et de la Pêche et d\'une publication sous forme d\'un supplément du Bulletin d\'information du ministère de l\'Agriculture. La loi a été publiée au Journal Officiel de la République française le 10 juillet 1999.
Topic:
Agriculture

14724. Tragédiens Et Comédiens: Les Corses et l'État français

Author:
Jean-Louis Fabiani
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Le philosophe d'origine corse Jean Toussaint Desanti faisait un jour remarquer lors d'une soutenance de thèse que la Corse avait été "oubliée par la science". Il entendait probablement rappeler le fait que l'anthropologie et les sciences sociales avaient implicitement considéré que l'île dite "de Beauté" ne méritait pas véritablement d'investissement savant. Il y a plus : dans un univers social régi par des règles contraignantes de correction à l'égard des catégorisations ethniques, les plaisanteries publiques sur les Corses présentent encore aujourd'hui en France un caractère tout à fait licite. La stigmatisation de la paresse insulaire et les allusions aux penchants délinquants de la population en fournissent une illustration quotidienne. On peut considérer que le fait de se moquer, pas toujours gentiment, des Corses, constitue un espace résiduel pour la liberté de propos dans un régime d'autocontrôle généralisé à propos des qualifications à caractère ethnique. Il faut dire aussi que les Corses n'ont jamais été considérés positivement par l'intelligentsia de gauche.

14725. Of Linguistic Jacobinism And Cultural Balkanization: Contemporary French Linguistic Politics in Historical Context

Author:
Paul Cohen
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
In few countries has language played a greater role in constituting national identity than in modern France. French is first and foremost a political idiom, enshrined by the leaders of the Revolution and the Third Republic as the language of the Republic and the Nation. The French state promotes the use of French at home and throughout the world through an array of government institutions, including the Académie française, the Ministry of Culture and the agencies responsible for France's francophonie policies. The French language also represents a highly charged common cultural ground marking the boundaries of French society.3 Whether in informal conversation and public debate, in annual rituals like Bernard Pivot's televised "concours de dictées," or on the editorial pages of national newspapers, the French betray an intense awareness of linguistic issues. The defense and illustration of French has long been for French intellectuals and leaders a passionate vocation.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
France

14726. Domestic Constraints On French Nato Policy

Author:
Anand Menon
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Since 1966 and even before, the policies pursued by France toward NATO have been both the object of a certain amount of Gallic pride and the source of considerable confusion, not to say irritation, among France's partners. Why have these policies been pursued? The aim of this article is to address this question by means of an examination of the domestic pressures and constraints that have helped to shape France's policies toward NATO. It reveals a striking paradox: the decision-making arrangements that developed around and emerged out of de Gaulle's single-minded quest to achieve international independence for France were specifically designed to provide him with the freedom to pursue policies of his own choosing. They increasingly came, however, to hamstring the efforts of French political leaders to do likewise, particularly when, in the aftermath of the Cold War, they came to realize that traditional Gaullist policies were no longer serving France as well as they once had.
Topic:
NATO, Cold War, and Development
Political Geography:
France

14727. Protestations Collectives D'une Minorité Socio-Économique En France

Author:
Frédéric Royall
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Le 7 janvier 1998 plus de 50 villes françaises sont touchées par des manifestations nationales de sans-emploi et de leurs sympathisants pour réclamer une amélioration du sort des chômeurs. Le 13 janvier 1998 une deuxième journée nationale de protestation regroupe plus de 50 000 manifestants et touche 76 départements. Le gouvernement ayant commis l'erreur de ne pas avoir pris très au sérieux ces manifestations se trouve rapidement obligé, au grand dam de sa politique budgétaire, de débloquer un milliard de francs en aides financières d'urgence. Près d'un an plus tard à Marseille, le 3 décembre 1998, de 10,000 à 15,000 personnes proclament haut et fort leur hostilité à la politique gouvernementale. La semaine suivante, le 10 décembre 1998, 2000 personnes défilent à Paris et près de 3000 autres manifestent à Marseille. Si ces journées nationales d'actions de décembre 1998 ont témoigné des capacités encore réelles de mobilisation des collectifs de chômeurs (sous forme de manifestations), les organisations de défense des chômeurs peinent à susciter ensuite l'enthousiasme de leurs militants et sympathisants et à dépasser le stade des agitations ponctuelles et localisées en se basant sur un répertoire d'actions collectives classiques.
Political Geography:
France

14728. Debates Events -- Profession : "Messager culturel": Entretien avec Laure Adler, Directrice de France-Culture

Author:
Martha Zuber
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Une histoire? Un patrimoine? Une institution? France-Culture est tout cela. Petite chaîne prestigieuse, sans publicité, avec 80 millions de francs de budget annuel inchangé. C'est l'exception culturelle de la radio française. La chaîne rassemble une centaine de producteurs permanents (les réalisateurs des programmes), 450 000 auditeurs ou moins d'un pour cent de l'audience radiophonique en France. Certains de ses auditeurs se sont regroupés en une association présidée par un haut fonctionnaire au Ministère de l'emploi. Un personnel fortement attaché à l'identité de France-Culture, 116 avenue du Président Kennedy où sont installés studios et bureaux. Une radio unique au monde qui émet vingtquatre heures sur vingt-quatre de "la culture" tout au long de l'année. Elle se distingue par ses émissions exemplaires, souvent longues, traitant de sujets pointus : des reportages sérieux précédés par des enquêtes en profondeur et des radio-fictions de qualité, avec des pièces de théâtre spécialement écrites pour la radio.
Political Geography:
France

14729. In Memoriam: Gordon Wright (1912-2000)

Author:
Richard Kuisel
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
The new millennium brought the loss of the most eminent American historian of modern France. Gordon Wright, emeritus professor of history at Stanford University, died on the 11 th of January in his California home. Gordon Wright was a member of a generation that matured during the war who managed to combine academic life with public service. Born in Washington State into a family of farmers, teachers and preachers, he attended Whitman College. His first encounter with France came in 1937 as an American Field Service fellow. Although he originally wanted a career in the diplomatic corps, he took his Ph.D. in history at Stanford in 1939, published his thesis on the presidency of Raymond Poincaré,1 and began his academic life at the University of Oregon. The war interrupted the peace of academia. While serving as a liaison with the State Department in 1944 he was assigned the job of leading a convoy of vehicles and personnel from Lisbon to Paris to help set up the embassy.
Political Geography:
America, Washington, France, and Lisbon

14730. Gérard Noiriel's Third Republic

Author:
Robert O. Paxton
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Gérard Noiriel, Les Origines républicaines de Vichy (Paris: Hachette Littératures, 1999). This book has raised hackles in France, and one can see why. It is by turns illuminating, tendentious, and pugnacious. At its best it accomplishes first-rate historical work. Its central four chapters make an enduring contribution to understanding the exclusionary project of Vichy France. Polemical first and last chapters detract somewhat from this achievement. Noiriel's powerful central chapters address a key conundrum about Vichy: How did the odious discriminatory and exclusionary measures taken by Pétain's governments, so manifestly contrary to French republican values, find such broad acquiescence among the mainstream republican elite?
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
France

14731. Ordinary Antisemitism and Vichy: Anti-Jewish Policy The Role of the Legal Profession

Author:
Vicki Caron
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Robert Badinter, Un Antisémitisme ordinaire: Vichy et les avocats juifs (1940-1944) (Paris: Fayard, 1997). Richard H. Weisberg, Vichy Law and the Holocaust in France (New York: NYU Press, 1996). Among the hundreds of scholarly books and articles on Vichy France and the Jews that have appeared in recent years, the focal point of attention has increasingly shifted away from the state and toward the less scrutinized and more nebulous field of public opinion. Several works on this topic, such as John F. Sweet's Choices in Vichy France: The French Under Nazi Occupation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), Pierre Laborie's L'Opinion française sous Vichy (Paris: Seuil, 1990), and Philippe Burrin's, France under the Germans: Collaboration and Compromise (New York: New Press, 1996) have provided synthetic overviews of public responses to the anti-Jewish laws and policies of the Vichy regime as part of a broader analysis of public opinion toward Vichy. Others have focused more narrowly on the reactions of specific interest groups-the Catholic and Protestant churches, the civil service, university administrators and professors, and various liberal professions, especially lawyers and doctors - in an attempt to understand the precise mechanisms by which the exclusionary regime functioned, as well as to explore the impact of the segregation of Jews on the day-to-day lives of Jews and non-Jews alike.
Political Geography:
France

14732. Introduction

Author:
Laura Frader
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
An American scholar is often struck by the absence of race in France as a category of analysis or the absence of discussions of race in its historical or sociological dimensions. After all, "race" on this side of the Atlantic, for reasons having to do with the peculiar history of the United States, has long been a focus of discussion. The notion of race has shaped scholarly analysis for decades, in history, sociology, and political science. Race also constitutes a category regularly employed by the state, in the census, in electoral districting, and in affirmative action. In France, on the contrary, race hardly seems acknowledged, in spite of both scholarly and governmental preoccupation with racism and immigration.
Topic:
Immigration
Political Geography:
America and France

14733. Republican Antiracism And Racism: A Caribbean Genealogy

Author:
Laurent Dubois
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
In the Département d'Outre-Mer of Guadeloupe, a schoolteacher named Hugues Delannay presents me with a conundrum that has preoccupied him for a long time. He has been teaching in a lycée for over twenty years in Basse-Terre, the island's capital, and has had many brilliant students who, when they take their baccalaureat examinations, get mixed results. Normally, they excel on the written portions of the examination. Consistently, however, they do worse on their oral examinations, which drags down their grades. Why? It is not that their speaking skills are not up to par-far from it, he tells me, these students are articulate and speak impeccable French. There is, according to Delannay, a simpler, and ultimately more disturbing explanation. The examiners who give these students low grades in their oral examinations almost always come from metropolitan France. When they are face-to-face with the students, they of course notice their race (usually they are black, of African and/or Indian descent, as are most people in Guadeloupe) and this informs the grades they give. The students are, he believes, quite simply the victims of well-ensconced structural racism.
Political Geography:
Africa, India, France, and Caribbean

14734. Culture-As-Race Or Culture-As-Culture: Caribbean Ethnicity and the Ambiguity of Cultural Identity in French Society

Author:
David Beriss
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
"Notre père, un nègre de la Guadeloupe, a coutume de rétorquer à ceux qui, en France, l'importunent au sujet de sa couleur ou de son origine: "Je suis Français depuis 1635, bien avant les Niçois, les Savoyards, les Corses ou même les Strasbourgeois." Yes, but aren't these people black?" This is perhaps the most common question Americans ask about my research among West Indian activists in Paris and Martinique. It is asked in a tone that suggests that the answer itself is obvious and, more than that, that the questions I ask about West Indian claims to identity would be almost moot if I were to just get that answer through my head. This question has always confused me. "It's not that simple," is my usual response, but the truth is that I have always suspected that these people know something about the significance of blackness that I have failed to grasp. Most of these commentators on my research, I should point out, are not social scientists. But there is a social science variant to this question. Among colleagues, it takes the form of a directive: "You really have to deal with race more directly." This suggestion that I examine race generally raises another question. Are French people white?
Political Geography:
America, India, and Caribbean

14735. Antiracism Without Races: Politics and Policy in a "Color-Blind" State

Author:
Erik Bleich
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Since the end of the Second World War, millions of immigrants have arrived on French shores. Although such an influx of foreigners has not been unusual in French history, the origin of the postwar migrants was of a different character than that of previous eras. Prior to World War II, the vast majority of immigrants to France came from within Europe. Since 1945, however, an important percentage of migrants have come from non- European sources. Whether from former colonies in North Africa, Southeast Asia, or sub- Saharan Africa, from overseas departments and territories, or from countries such as Turkey or Sri Lanka, recent immigration has created a new ethnic and cultural pluralism in France. At the end of the 1990s, the visibly nonwhite population of France totals approximately five percent of all French residents. With millions of ethnic-minority citizens and denizens, the new France wears a substantially different face from that of the prewar era.
Topic:
Politics and History
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Turkey, France, Sri Lanka, North Africa, and Southeast Asia

14736. Les Politiques Françaises De Lutte Contre Le Racisme, Des Politiques En Mutation

Author:
Gwénaële Calvès
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Il pouvait sembler évident, jusqu'à une période très récente, que la formule célèbre du juge Blackmun selon laquelle, "pour en finir avec le racisme, nous devons d'abord prendre la race en compte" n'avait aucune chance de s'acclimater en France. La culture politique républicaine, exprimée et confortée par des principes constitutionnels fermement énoncés, s'opposait à la prise en compte d'un critère de catégorisation tenu pour intrinsèquement infamant et dénué de tout contenu positif: le droit français contemporain ne mentionne la "race" que pour en proscrire la prise en compte; la seule "race" qu'il connaisse est la race du raciste.
Political Geography:
France

14737. Half-Measures: Antidiscrimination Policy in France

Author:
Alec G. Hargreaves
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Since the Left returned to power in 1997, there have been remarkable changes in the debate over the "integration" of immigrant minorities in France. After a long period in which political elites emphasized the challenges associated with minority ethnic cultures and social disadvantage, the spotlight has shifted to the blockages arising from racial discrimination by members of the majority ethnic population. No less remarkably, there has been a significant abatement in the demonization of so-called Anglo-Saxon approaches to the management of ethnic relations, habitually branded by politicians and civil servants as the antithesis of France's "républicain" model of integration. Whereas British and American policies have encouraged "race" awareness in combating both direct and indirect forms of discrimination and have established powerful agencies to assist minorities suffering from unfair treatment, until recently there was a wide consensus in France that "integration" policy could best be served by erasing as far as possible any reference to ethnicity.
Topic:
Politics
Political Geography:
Britain, America, and France

14738. Forum -- Capitalism And Its Spirits?

Author:
George Ross
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Le Nouvel Esprit du capitalism:Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello (Paris: Gallimard, 1999). Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello's Le Nouvel Esprit du capitalisme is 843 pages long. Its considerable heft, however, has not prevented it from being widely read and commented upon. Herein lies a mystery. Why has such a dense and difficult book struck such a chord? Perhaps the first reason has to do with its general approach. "Spirits of capitalism"-borrowing from Max Weber is intentional - refers to the ways by which capitalism, at heart profoundly amoral, is "moralized." French readers worry, and they should, that contemporary capitalism makes less and less moral sense. Le Nouvel Esprit promises new understanding, if not new morality. To Boltanski and Chiapello, individuals and groups need to acquire sufficient personal commitment, in terms of a sense of justice in operation, to allow the system to function successfully. They see three successive ideal-typical "esprits du capitalisme," each with its own particular mixture of methods of moralization. The contemporary moment, they claim, is a major change from the previous spirit to something quite new. The "justifications" that key actors use to create morally acceptable social environments - and which, in turn, help make structures happen - have been shifting.
Topic:
Environment

14739. Forum -- Deconstructing The Reconstruction Of Capitalism

Author:
Michael J. Piore
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
This is a big, ambitious book with an intricate, engaging, and important argument. I picked it up in Paris in January and read it on the flight home. It made me happy to be an intellectual and a scholar; happy to be able to read French; happy, for the first time I can remember, to have seven and a half hours of uninterrupted time on a transatlantic flight. The book poses the question of why an active critique of capitalism has virtually disappeared in our times. The answer it provides is that capitalism itself has changed in ways that evade the criticisms that had been directed against it in the past. But it argues that these changes themselves are giving rise to a new moral framework from which a new critical perspective is emerging, and attempts to identify what that perspective is.
Political Geography:
Paris

14740. Forum -- Not Your Father's Capitalism

Author:
Donald Reid
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Le Nouvel Esprit du capitalisme is a socio-cultural response to the neoliberal explanation of the successes and failures of capitalism in France during the last three decades in terms of individual rational actors and markets. Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello draw their inspiration from critical readings of sociologists who interpreted earlier incarnations of capitalism, including Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Max Weber, and Emile Durkheim. The sesquicentennial of The Communist Manifesto elicited many commentaries praising Marx and Engels for their insightful evocation of the revolutionary nature of capitalism. Starting here, Boltanski and Chiapello point to the contradictory nature of capitalism, which thrives on destruction and expansion, yet requires checking mechanisms to avoid self-destruction through the alienation of precisely those who have driven the processentrepreneurial bourgeoisie, directors, and managers. To the obvious capitalist project of continually creating consumers must be added that of selling capitalism to those producers whose allegiance to capitalism Marx and Engels took for granted.
Political Geography:
France