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Letter from France — July 1988

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Pierre Manent
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Extract

France is perhaps today the one European country about which it is most difficult to speak with any degree of accuracy. A phrase used by General de Gaulle during the events of May 1968 applies perfectly to France today, different as it is from France as it was then: ‘La situation est insaisissable’. (‘The situation is beyond our grasp.’) Let us recall the principal facts.

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Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , 01 October 1988 , pp. 458 - 464
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1988

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References

1 I can be very brief here. John Frears presented a remarkably complete and accurate description of ‘cohabitation’ and the presidential election in the Summer number of Government and Opposition, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 276–89. I disagree completely however with his evaluation of the activity of Francois Mitterrand.

2 See Government and Opposition, Vol. 23, No. 2, Spring 1988, pp. 186–94.

3 It is only fair to note that in spite of the stock exchange crash of October 1987, privatizations are clearly more popular than nationalizations.

4 In the course of a bitter and unskilful televised declaration the President allowed his disappointment to show.

5 The Socialists have an absolute majority in the Chamber with the support of the Communist votes.

6 I use the accepted term. On the National Front, see my remarks in the article already quoted.

7 It will be done less and less.

8 This is written by a Frenchman who finds the strident tone of Thatcherite nationalism deeply irritating.

9 ‘Receptivity is a large and massive power, like fortitude’, wrote George Eliot.