No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The Politics of Nationalism in Contemporary France
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 May 2009
Extract
For the past two decades the nation-state in Western Europe has been on the defensive as a principle of political organization and the nationalism which sustains it has been held in disrepute. The assailants have been both internal, reacting against the increasing centralization which comes first with nation building and later with modernization, industrialization, and increasing welfare activity, and external in the form of federalist, neo-functionalist, and supranationalist claims against the nation-state. These latter claims challenge the material adequacy of the nation-state to fulfill the security and welfare demands of the modern age and die moral validity of the principle of nationalism at whose door has been laid the responsibility for the bellicosity, aggression, war, and destruction which plagued the European Continent during the first half of this century.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The IO Foundation 1969
References
1 The following discussion focuses on political elites, not on the general public. A number of reports by the French polling organizations, l'Institut Français d'Opinion Publique (IFOP) and the Société Française d'Enquêtes par Sondage (SOFRES), indicate a wide measure of support among the public for the idea of European economic and political integration. It is yet to be demonstrated, however, that European integration is a highly salient issue for the French public or that high-priority issues such as educational reform, standard of living, or social justice can be or should be resolved at the European rather than the national level. Nor has it been shown that the position of a parliamentary candidate on the issue of European integration is an important or determining factor in the mind of the French voter.
2 See, e.g., Macridis, Roy C., “French Foreign Policy,” in Macridis, Roy C. (ed.), Foreign Policy in World Politics (Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall, 1962)Google Scholar; Grosser, Alfred, French Foreign Policy Under de Gaulle, translated by Pattison, Lois Ames (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1967)Google Scholar.
3 See Girardet, Raoul, “Pour une introduction a l'histoire du nationalisme francais,” Revue Francaise de Science Politique, 09 1958 (Vol. 8, No. 3), pp. 505–528CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 It is very likely that the Gaullists as a group are more integration-oriented than General de Gaulle. We do not claim that the Gaullists as a group are as radicalized in their nationalism as their leader.
5 Michelat, Guy and Thomas, Jean-Pierre Hubert, Dimensions du nationalisme: Enquête par questionnaire (1962) (Cahiers de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, No. 143) (Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1966)Google Scholar.
6 Aron, Raymond, France: Steadfast and Changing (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1960), p. 148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7 Grosser, Alfred, “Les commodités de I'anti-Améncanisme,” Le Monde, 11 25, 1965Google Scholar.
8 US. News and World Report, 01 3, 1958 (Vol. 44, No. 1), p. 61Google Scholar.
9 Le Monde Diplomatique, January 1968.
10 Gaulle, Charles de, The War Memoirs of Charles de Gaulle, translated by Griffin, Jonathan and Howard, Richard (3 vols; New York: Simon and Schuster, 1959)Google Scholar.
11 Charles de Gaulle, speech at Dakar, December 13, 1959, cited in Macridis, Roy C., DeGaulle: Implacable Ally (New York: Harper 8t Row, 1966), p. 90Google Scholar.
12 Charles de Gaulle, cited in Grosser, , French Foreign Policy Under de Gaulle, p. 15Google Scholar.
13 Ibid., p. 19.
14 Charles de Gaulle, third press conference, Paris, May 5, 1960, cited in Macridis, , DeGaulle: Implacable Ally, pp. 157–158Google Scholar.
15 Gaulle, De, The War Memoirs, Vol. 1: The Call to Honour, p. 3Google Scholar.
16 Charles de Gaulle, speech at l'École de Guerre, Paris, November 3, 1959, cited in Macridis, , DeGaulle: Implacable Ally, p. 133Google Scholar.
17 Charles de Gaulle, seventh press conference, Paris, January 14, 1963, in ibid., p. 143.
18 Charles de Gaulle, speech to the officer corps at Strasbourg, November 23, 1961, in ibid., p. 137.
19 See Ailleret, Charles, “Directed Defense,” Survival, 02 1968 (Vol. 10, No. 2), pp. 38–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
20 Duverger, Maurice, “Notre idée de la France,” Nouvel Observateur, 08 21, 1967Google Scholar.
21 Hassner, Pierre, “From Napoleon III to de Gaulle,” Interplay, 02 1968 (Vol. 1, No. 7), p. 17.Google Scholar
22 Le Monde, March 10, 1966, notes that the Gaullist initiative would not be so bad if it were not for the German problem. With France out West Germany becomes America's principal ally and is thus better placed to present its nuclear claims. See also Guy Mollet's remark in Le Monde, June 14, 1966, that Europe must be built “because, essentially, nobody has proposed to us another method to regulate the German problem.”
23 See Dabernat, René, “Diplomatic à l'Est, commerce à l'Ouest,” Le Monde (weekly selection), 09 14, 1967Google Scholar.
24 See Thomson, David, Democracy in France: The Third and Fourth Republics (4th ed.; New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), pp. 154–158.Google Scholar
25 On this point see Grosser, French Foreign Policy Under de Gaulle, Chapter 9.
28 L'Express, March 10, 1968, reported that while only 37 percent of the respondents in a recently taken poll supported de Gaulle's social policy and 53 percent his economic policy, 61 percent rallied to his foreign policy. This continued a trend recorded in Sondages throughout the life of the Fifth Republic: On Gaullist policy toward the United States, the Adantic area, and even the force de frappe supporters consistently outnumber critics or nonsupporters. The polls also seem to show that the French public, while supporting the idea of alliance, also cherishes sovereignty. Thus, in a poll reported in Sondages, while 38 percent felt France should stay in NATO and 22 percent felt it should wimdraw, 41 percent concluded diat if the United States refused to put bases in France under French command it should be asked to withdraw and only 20 percent felt contrariwise. (Sondages: Revue Française de l'Opinion Publique, 1966 [28th Year, No. 2], p. 41.) A later poll reported in Notwel Observateur, October 18, 1967, indicated that while 59 percent felt France could not defend itself alone and 54 percent would vote to maintain the Atlantic alliance if the question were raised in a referendum, only 34 percent felt that a defense arrangement like NATO was the preferable solution to France's security problems. These opinions all were expressed prior to the Czechoslovakian crisis of 1968, of course. An interesting poll suggesting increased strength for closer and more entangling political links in Europe, on the other hand, is reported and analyzed in Lancelot, Alain and Weill, Pierre, “Les Francais et Punification politique de l'Europe, d'après un sondage de la SOFRES,” Revue Française de Science Politique, 02 1969 (Vol. 19, No. 1 ), pp. 145–170CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
27 Deutsch, Karl W. and others, France, Germany and the Western Alliance: A Study oj Elite Attitudes on European Integration and World Politics (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1967), p. 75Google Scholar. For an indication that the public makes the same identification see Lancelot, and Weill, , Revue Française de Science Politique, Vol. 19, No. 1Google Scholar.
28 Le Monde, June 14, 1966.
29 Journal Officiel, Débats Parlementaires, Assemblée Nationale, November 3, 1964, p. 4428 “author's translation].
30 Le Monde, December 14, 1965.
31 Mitterrand, François, “Europe, A Strategy,” Europe: Documents (No. 468), 03 6, 1968Google Scholar. (Emphasis added.)
32 Fauchon, Pierre, “Le Legs repudié,” Le Monde, 06 5, 1969Google Scholar.
33 Le Monde, June 14, 1966. Mitterrand remarked that “NATO belongs to the past and a government of the left cannot hope to revive the dead.”
34 Dumas, Roland, spokesman for Mitterrand, cited in I'Express, 10 23, 1967Google Scholar.
35 Servan-Schreiber, Jean-Jacques, Le Défi américain (Paris: Denoel, 1967)Google Scholar.
46 L'Express, February 6, 1967.
37 Ibid., February 20, 1967.
38 Ibid.
39 Nouvel Observateur, November 9, 1965.
40 Ibid.
41 Mitrany, David, “The Prospect of Integration: Federal or Functional,” Journal of Common Market Studies, 12 1965 (Vol. 4, No. 2), pp. 119–149CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
42 In Hoffmann, Stanley, Gulliver's Troubles, or the Setting of American Foreign Policy (Atlanticism Policy Studies) (New York: McGraw-Hill [for the Council on Foreign Relations], 1968), Chapter 2Google Scholar.
43 There is no evidence that the events of May-June 1968 or the defeat of the referendum on regional and senatorial reform in April 1969 can be regarded as repudiations of Gaullist nationalism. Europe was a slogan in the presidential campaign of May-June 1969 but does not appear to have been a significant factor in relation to the other issues evoked (institutions, information, social reform).
44 José Ortega y Gasset's turn of phrase regarding nation building in his Invertebrate Spain, translated by Adams, Mildred (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1937), p. 26Google Scholar.