Some Recent Books on French Politics
| Date | 01 February 1959 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1959.tb00892.x |
| Author | Philip M. Williams |
| Published date | 01 February 1959 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
SOME RECENT
BOOKS
ON
FRENCH
POLITICS1
PHILI?
M.
WILLIAMS
Nufield College, Oxford
THE
conflict between traditional p-actices and modern delevopments has
become
a
familiar theme in discussions of French politics and society since
the war. It
is
a
theme with many facets. The relative power of the country-
side has declined with industrialization and urbanization. The gap is
steadily widening between the progressive technique and outlook of some
industries, firms, and sections of the peasantry, and the antiquated equip-
ment and mentality of others. The class struggle seems at times less signifi-
cant than the clash between the regions of demographic and economic
progress, impatient with
immobilisme
and eager for change, and the back-
ward areas where a diminishing population clings tenaciously to unten-
able-and uncomfortable-positions; better communications have not
mitigated the hostility towards Paris of the men of the declining provinces,
the ‘French desert’. Professional, religious, and political organizations have
become stronger in the last generation, and old-style individualism has
correspondingly receded. The traditional warfare of clericals and anti-
cIericals is overlaid if not wholly superseded by newer and deeper divisions,
and the once dominant Radicals, the traditional party of the old order,
have split into bitterly antagonistic fragments under the pressure of un-
familiar problems and conflicts.
The growth of Socialism and later of Communism has driven the old-
fashioned Left into the arms of its former enemies. This process is well
illustrated on a small scale by
M.
Raymond Long’s painstaking study of
elections in the C6te d’Or since
1870.
This is a rural department with
a
great commercial and transport centre in Dijon but
no
large industry. Early
in the Third Republic it was firmly on the Left; Dijon had
a
Republican
LBS eLECTIONS LGGISLATIVES EN COTE D’OR.
By
RAYMOND
MNG.
(Armand
LA PRESSE
DE
PROVINCE SOUS LA TROISIkME RBPUBLIQUE.
By
JACQUES
ORGANIZED BUSINESS IN FRANCE.
By
HENRY
W.
EHRMANN.
(Princeton University
THE HOUSE WITHOUT WINDOWS.
By
CONSTANTIN
MELNIK
and
NATHAN
LEITES.
Colin, Cahiers de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques,
No.
96.
Pp.
294.
N.P.)
WYSER
and
others.
(Colin, Cahiers de la F.N.D.S.P.,
No.
94.
Pp.
532.
1800
fr.)
Press; London, Oxford University Press.
Pp.
514. 60s.)
(Row,
Peterson.
Pp.
358.
$6.25.)
Politlcel
Studies,
Vol. VII,
No.
1
(1959,
62-69).
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