How the French Think: an Affectionate Portrait of an Intellectual People by Sudhir Hazareesingh (Allen Lane, £20)
In 1949, the French novelist André Malraux, who had been information minister in Charles de Gaulle’s first postwar government, declared: “There’s us [the Gaullist party, the RPF], the communists and nothing else.” Malraux was exaggerating, but only a little.
It is hard, at this distance, to grasp the extent to which the French Communist Party (PCF) dominated the left of politics in France during the two decades following the end of the Second World War. But in his superb analysis of the “collective frame of mind of the French,” the political scientist Sudhir Hazareesingh helps English-speaking readers to understand what the historian Pierre Nora has called “the moment of Gaullo-Communism”—the dominance of parties of left and right united by a shared belief in the power of the state at home and France’s “civilising mission” abroad.
The way in which French politicians of both right and left have spoken the same language was brought home to a global audience in February 2003, when the then Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin, addressed the United Nations, setting out his country’s opposition to the use of force against Saddam Hussein. “We are the guardians of an ideal,” he said, “the guardians of a conscience.” The way Villepin laid claim to universal values was, Hazareesingh argues, “recognisably, unquestionably French.”
Since then, however, such sublime self-confidence has been in much shorter supply. Hazareesingh devotes the later chapters of his book to the “discourse of decline” that has gripped France over the past decade or so. Whether or not you agree with him that it may be premature to conclude that France is condemned to a future of liberté, égalité and morosité (moroseness), one thing is certain: Hazareesingh has done more than anyone writing in English to unravel what the sociologist Emmanuel Todd recently called “le mystère français.”
In 1949, the French novelist André Malraux, who had been information minister in Charles de Gaulle’s first postwar government, declared: “There’s us [the Gaullist party, the RPF], the communists and nothing else.” Malraux was exaggerating, but only a little.
It is hard, at this distance, to grasp the extent to which the French Communist Party (PCF) dominated the left of politics in France during the two decades following the end of the Second World War. But in his superb analysis of the “collective frame of mind of the French,” the political scientist Sudhir Hazareesingh helps English-speaking readers to understand what the historian Pierre Nora has called “the moment of Gaullo-Communism”—the dominance of parties of left and right united by a shared belief in the power of the state at home and France’s “civilising mission” abroad.
The way in which French politicians of both right and left have spoken the same language was brought home to a global audience in February 2003, when the then Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin, addressed the United Nations, setting out his country’s opposition to the use of force against Saddam Hussein. “We are the guardians of an ideal,” he said, “the guardians of a conscience.” The way Villepin laid claim to universal values was, Hazareesingh argues, “recognisably, unquestionably French.”
Since then, however, such sublime self-confidence has been in much shorter supply. Hazareesingh devotes the later chapters of his book to the “discourse of decline” that has gripped France over the past decade or so. Whether or not you agree with him that it may be premature to conclude that France is condemned to a future of liberté, égalité and morosité (moroseness), one thing is certain: Hazareesingh has done more than anyone writing in English to unravel what the sociologist Emmanuel Todd recently called “le mystère français.”
