Book Review: Western Europe: The Government of France
| Author | Geoffrey Adams |
| Published date | 01 March 1964 |
| Date | 01 March 1964 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070206401900131 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
110
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
which
by
their
controversial
nature
are
well
designed
to
provoke
productive
discussion of
matters
that
are
vital
to
our
times.
York
University
EDGAR
MCINWM
Tmn
GOVERNMENT
OF
FRANCE.
2nd
Edition.
By
E.
Drexel
Godfrey,
Jr.
1963.
(New
York:
Thomas
Y.
Crowell,
x,
197pp.
$1.95)
Mr.
Godfrey's
brief
study
of
the
Fifth
Republic is
part
of
a
series
designed
primarily
for
students
of
comparative
government. Insofar
as
the
author
sticks
to
an
examination
of
the
political
institutions and
practises
of
contemporary
France,
he
is
precise
and
informative;
such
interpretations
and analyses
as
he
offers
rarely
break
new
ground.
We
are
reminded
that
radical
changes
in
French
society
are
still
frustrated
by
the
survival
of
a
deeply-ingrained
"peasant
complex",
but
urged
to
-believe
that
a
new
breed
of
sophisticated
industrialists
and
technocrats
(a
"fortunate
legacy"
from
the
Fourth
Republic)
has
emerged
which
may
change
all
this.
Godfrey
tends
to
agree
with
those
political
analysts
who
argue
that
Left
and
Right
have
lost
their
meaning
in
contemporary
France.
(Recent
battles
over
the
laicitd
of
the
state
school
system
and
the
confrontation
between
workers and
Algerian
putschists
in
1960
and
1961
allow
for
some difference of
opinion
on
this
point.)
As
to
the
tendency
toward
"social
leveling" which
the author
detects,
the
bourge-
oisie
is
still
very
much
the
bourgeoisie
in
France.
If
the
former
"proletariat"
is
now
more
patronisingly
described by
the
middle-class
Frenchmen as
les
congds
payds,
this
only
establishes
that
social
bar-
riers
are
as
high
as
ever.
Godfrey
rightly
draws
attention
to
the
dangerous
disequilibrium
in
France
between
an
over-powerful
executive
and
a
hobbled
legislature,
and
perceptively
remarks
that
government and
parliament
"have
been
made
constitutionally
incompatible".
Until
now,
de
Gaulle's
overwhelm-
ing
prestige
and
power,
the
devotion
of
his
agents
in
the
Assembly,
especially
Debr&
and
Pompidou,
and
the
remarkable
triumph
of
the
Guallist
UNR
at
the
polls in
1962
have prevented
this
incompatibility
from
leading
to
chaos.
Godfrey
speculates
that
a
conservative
is
likely
to
be
elected
as
de
Gaulle's
successor;
he
is
not
prepared
to
guess
what
will
become
of
the French
party
system
after
de
Gaulle.
Debrd,
MendZs-France
and
Maurice
Duverger
all
seem
to
believe
that
the
only
sound direction
for
the
Fifth
Republic
lies
in
the
evolution
of
a
fairly
balanced
two-party system along
British
lines.
When
he
ventures
outside
the
range
of
contemporary
France,
God-
frey
launches
into
some
rather
hazardous
analyses.
Students
of
French
history
will
be
surprised,
I
think,
to
learn
that
Rousseau's works
leave
an
impression
of
a
"tumbling,
racing
course
toward
joy."
More
startling
still
is
the
reference
to
a
pre-revolutionary
France
"when
many
em-
ployers supported
the
ancien regime
and
most
workers
were republi-
cans."
One
can
only
wish
that
the
author
had
stuck
to
the
present with
which
he
so
competently
deals.
Loyola
College
GEOFFREY ADAMS
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