A Divided Republic
Nation, State and Citizenship in Contemporary France

A bold interpretation of contemporary French political culture that uses current political debates to understand how the French engage with politics.

Emile Chabal (Author)

9781107061514, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 2 April 2015

314 pages
23.1 x 15.7 x 2.8 cm, 0.59 kg

'An excellent book which makes a major contribution to the study of French politics. … an important contribution and will be essential reading for students and scholars of French history and contemporary politics. It offers a very thorough treatment in English not just of (misguided and transgressive) Republicans such as Alain Finkelkraut and Regis Debray, or towering liberals such as Raymond Aron, but also forefronts lesser-known thinkers in the liberal tradition such as the political philosopher Pierre Rosanvallon and the economist Nicolas Baverez.' Alistair Cole, English Historical Review

This book is an original and sophisticated historical interpretation of contemporary French political culture. Until now, there have been few attempts to understand the political consequences of the profound geopolitical, intellectual and economic changes that France has undergone since the 1970s. However, Emile Chabal's detailed study shows how passionate debates over citizenship, immigration, colonial memory, the reform of the state and the historiography of modern France have galvanised the French elite and created new spaces for discussion and disagreement. Many of these debates have coalesced around two political languages - republicanism and liberalism - both of which structure the historical imagination and the symbolic vocabulary of French political actors. The tension between these two political languages has become the central battleground of contemporary French politics. It is around these two poles that politicians, intellectuals and members of France's vast civil society have tried to negotiate the formidable challenges of ideological uncertainty and a renewed sense of global insecurity.

Introduction: French politics after the deluge
Part I. Writing the National Narrative in Contemporary France: The Return of Republicanism: 1. Writing histories: two republican narratives
2. From nouveaux philosophes to nouveaux réactionnaires: Marxism and the Republic
3. La République en danger! The search for consensus and the rise of neo-republican politics
4. Postcolonies I: integration, disintegration and citizenship
5. The Republic, the Anglo-Saxon and the European project
Part II. Liberal Critics of Contemporary France: Le Libéralisme Introuvable?: 6. In the shadow of Raymond Aron: the 'liberal revival' of the 1980s
7. Rewriting Jacobinism: François Furet, Pierre Rosanvallon and modern French history
8. Postcolonies II: the politics of multiculturalism and colonial memory
9. Whither the Trente Glorieuses? The language of crisis and the reform of the state
10. Liberal politics in France: a story of failure?
Conclusion: political consensus in twenty-first-century France
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: European history [HBJD]