TIME EUROPE
June 12, 2000 VOL. 155 NO. 23
SPECIAL REPORT
From Decline to Renewal
Shorn of its grandeur, France is succeeding as a modern, middle-size power
By STANLEY HOFFMAN
At the end of his war memoirs, Charles de Gaulle invoked "old France, overburdened by History, bruised by wars and revolutions, moving endlessly from grandeur to decline and back, but regenerated, century after century, by the genius for renewal." This is still the best short description of France's historical fate.
The France of the year 2000 has many reasons to be satisfied. Although it reappears from time to time, the almost obsessive fear of decadence that gripped so many intellectuals at the end of the 19th century, and deepened after the ordeal of World War I, has receded.
The drama of adaptation to the post-1945 world, in which Europe was divided and dominated by two non-European giants, was particularly intense in France. The rise of the superpowers, and the revolt of the colonized peoples, struck at the power, the status, the prestige of the old European nations — just at the moment when the French were trying to modernize their country and to recover their rank in world affairs. But France's postwar reconstruction and the efforts of a remarkable group of brilliant civil servants resulted in what many foreign observers, in the early 1950s, had deemed impossible: a genuine industrial revolution, accompanied by the modernization of France's agriculture, under the aegis of a state that knew how to marshal and to reward the energies of entrepreneurs and of young farmers.
This was no mean accomplishment. The "30 glorious" years (actually, 20) made France the fourth- largest industrial power in the world, and the main exporter of food in Europe. Only a few years later came another revolution: that of the information age, of globalization, of the world of services and instant communications. Again, there was no lack of doomsayers (in France and abroad) who explained that this was more than the French could handle, and that the same state that had engineered the economic transformation of the '50s and '60s was now the main obstacle to the liberation of individual initiative required by the new age. Again, they were wrong. They had not taken into account that "genius for renewal" De Gaulle mentioned, which is fed both by the human skills of people — workers, engineers, entrepreneurs — who are intelligent, ingenious and hardworking, and by a collective ambition not to fall behind in the global race.
Of course, this new, quite drastic, transformation of French society takes place à la française. The state has loosened some of its grip on society — the flexibility of labor has increased, the role and scope of voluntary associations have grown — but it remains a stimulator, a crutch, a source of funding. State policy, under Gaullist as well as under Socialist rule, has freed France from chronic inflation, practiced monetary rigor and either privatized state enterprises or made them competitive.
Two other transformations have made this social renewal possible. One is institutional. The Fifth Republic was given, by De Gaulle, a constitution which has provided France with the kind of stability, and with the strong executive, that neither the Third nor the Fourth Republics had enjoyed. The election of the President by universal suffrage has, if not reduced the number of parties, at least led to the formation of two coalitions that need (as in the U.S.) to please both their own supporters and the electorate of the center. Moreover, the Constitution has been far more flexible than many had expected, successfully allowing for several periods of "cohabitation" between a President from one of the coalitions, and a Prime Minister from the other — a situation De Gaulle had never anticipated.
The other great engineer of change has been the opening of France to the outside world. Here, the decisive move was taken 50 years ago by the French — specifically, Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman: the launching of European integration. The gradual establishment of a single European market required the dismantling of traditional French protectionism (except in agriculture). This has made French business and finance ready to play their part in the worldwide whirlwind of mergers and alliances. European integration too has been handled à la française. Attached to their nation and to their state, French public officials have put aside the dream of a Federal U.S. of Europe, in favor of a kind of halfway house, a "union of nations" in Prime Minister Jospin's recent formulation, with a common economy and currency, and institutions that oblige these nations to cooperate in all the areas — including diplomacy and defense — where the nation state can no longer be an effective actor alone. Intransigent defenders of absolute national sovereignty are more vocal than vigorous, more nostalgic than effective. The motor of the European enterprise remains the Franco-German alliance — another achievement for which every French government since 1950 can claim credit.
Foreigners should not be surprised to find France both eager to benefit from globalization — indeed, to figure among its leaders — and ready to criticize practically every aspect of la mondialisation (increasing inequalities within and among countries, jobs lost to countries with cheap labor, "Americanization," etc.). France remains a nation that practices capitalism but harbors a solid anticapitalist tradition, based on the high value attached to equality, and linked to powerful socialist and Catholic schools of thought. But isn't the critique of the dominant ways of thinking and acting the proper function of intellectuals? Dissent is an old French habit.
There are, of course, huge problems still. There is nothing scandalous about the attachment of the French to the thick social safety net built after World War II by an extraordinary coalition of Gaullists, Socialists, Communists and Christian Democrats. But its financing, in a country whose population is aging, will require either higher taxes — bad for business and unpopular with all — or serious cuts — opposed by almost everyone.
The biggest issue is the reform of the state. It remains a formidable bureaucratic tangle of regulations, led by a very narrow élite educated in a small number of monopolistic grandes écoles. It is true that society has emancipated itself in considerable measure from that spider's web, that the state provides public services of great quality (such as a splendid public transportation system), and that the efforts of the European Commission in Brussels to introduce some competition into national public service are beginning to bear fruit. Nevertheless, the size and habits of the French bureaucracy pose two huge problems. The system of higher education is in many ways perverse (separation between the élitist grandes écoles and overcrowded universities; separation of teaching and research). The other problem is what makes a drastic reform of this system almost impossible: the state is, in fact, colonized by its employees and their unions, who resist change fiercely. A government that confronts them head-on is sure to fail, a government that tries to co-opt them will not get far. Change, here, will come — but slowly.
Americans have shown remarkably little interest in the changes that have occurred in France, and little understanding of France's claim to a right to be (or at least to sound) "different" in world affairs. One lesson the French have learned from the inter-war period and from De Gaulle is the need not to be the dependent client of any one power. They know that France is a middle-size nation, but they believe, first, that even middle-size powers need not be satellites of the world's only superpower (whose self-proclaimed ability to "see farther" they question) and, secondly, that a unipolar world is badly in need of counterweights. If America was in France's position, and vice versa, Americans would sound like the French do today. They too would want to protect their distinctiveness, and their language. The rhetoric of independence does not prevent cooperation — in Bosnia, in Kosovo, during the Gulf war — just as the new push for a European common diplomacy and defense is both a kind of insurance policy against American withdrawal symptoms, and a way of reinforcing nato. It is not in America's own interest to have allies who unquestioningly carry out designs made in Washington. America needs candid friends and frank allies. And it needs to understand that the France of 2000 is still moving ahead on the rails that De Gaulle laid down: a strong executive, a modernizing society, a leader in European integration and a proud actor in world affairs.
Stanley Hoffmann is the Buttenwieser University Professor at Harvard University
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June 12, 2000
SPECIAL REPORT
French Connected
Despite a legacy of state control, and an archaic political leadership, France is thriving — and modernizing — in the face of global competition
Venture Playground
A new spirit of entrepreneurship has created a thriving culture for Internet start-ups and fueled the country's robust growth. How the new economy is changing the way the French do business — and reshaping the nation itself
French Exodus
Driven out by excessive taxes and red tape, and also by a spirit of adventure, more and more French men and women are taking their talents abroad
Mixing Bowl
The French don't like to admit it, but decades of immigration have produced a multicultural society that is reinvigorating the nation
Vive Les Regions
Key provincial cities are emerging as the new vectors of economic development and cultural expression
From Decline to Renewal
Stanley Hoffman on France's success as a modern, middle-size power
EUROPE
The Victory Lap?
Europe toasts Clinton one more time, but the Atlantic relationship is showing strain
Soft Power Politics
Europe and the U.S. must seek a world beyond winners and losers
Battle of the Basques
Political inertia combines with disunity and distrust among Spain's national and regional security forces to play into the hands of the terrorist group ETA
Expensive Exposure
Hanover hopes Expo 2000 will put it on the map. It surely will, but the price of publicity will be high
Lights, Camera, Shoot!
Police disguised as a TV crew trick a man to free children and teachers held hostage in Luxembourg
AFRICA
Reliving Apartheid Horrors
The trial of a South African cardiologist accused of murder reopens old wounds
BUSINESS
Ad Land Goes Cyber
Virtual agencies are using the Web to create campaigns in record time, and without the bureaucracy
The Game of the Name
The struggle for Web dominance shows that brands matter just as much in the new economy as in the old
The Wide Blue Yonder
Giant airships could become commercially viable again six decades after the Hindenburg disaster
Battle Below the Belt
Designer Calvin Klein goes to court claiming a business partner is destroying his brand's image
SOCIETY
Tangled Webs for Sale
Planning a tryst or a day at the races away from the boss? A Scottish firm can cover your tracks — for a fee
THE ARTS
Recreating a Jewel
Egypt has built an updated version of the fabled Bibliotheca Alexandrina, but its commitment to intellectual freedom remains an open question
Thandie Makes It Possible
Her mission: to help make M:I-2 the hottest movie of the season. But first she tells you about Hollywood stupidity (and Tom's unusual sense of humor)
The Daily Courage
Journalist Benjamin Pogrund let the facts speak for themselves, no easy task in apartheid South Africa
DEPARTMENTS
Essay
To Our Readers
World Watch
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