The New France

If geography is destiny, the fate of France would assuredly seem blessed. A temperate climate and gentle, well-watered terrain have contrived down the ages to produce a civilization sans pareil. It is a culture abrim with connoisseurs of the good life and nature's bounty. Charles de Gaulle, father of the Fifth Republic, used to cite France's prodigious number of cheeses -- 265 by his reckoning -- as an example of the land's lavish variety. Some benighted souls across the Channel may still believe God is an Englishman, but the French have never doubted that heaven is their home.

So why all the buzz today about discontent, about social gloom and political drift, a crisis of faith in the future and a fading sense of national identity? An identity crisis -- in France? It sounds as unlikely as the notion of Cyrano de Bergerac fumbling his sword or groping for the mot juste. In his 1983 book The Europeans, the Italian journalist Luigi Barzini, a seasoned and mordant observer of the Continental scene, cites Edmond Rostand's fictional Cyrano as the quintessence of French character, at least as outsiders exaggerate it: the boastful, cocksure Gascon whose fellow provincials are defined in Rostand's play as "free fighters, free lovers, free spenders, defenders of old homes, old names and old splendors . . . bragging of crests , and pedigrees." Yet now it seems that the rooster, the national symbol, is crestfallen.

How can a people so certain of their birthright be disoriented? More to the point, how can the French feel lost when France has emerged as the master builder of modern Europe? Not since the mid-19th century, when Baron Haussmann thrust his boulevards through rancid slums, has Paris experienced such a fever of construction and renewal. With a Metro that works, streets kept remarkably clean by 5,000 green-uniformed sweepers, parks planted like Impressionist paintings and bakeries galore, Paris may well represent the apogee of civilized city living -- for those who can afford the rent. Yet not since Parisians finally ousted Haussmann for his arrogant, free-spending ways has there been such a struggle over progress versus preservation.

The French can look with pride at high-speed trains and modern aircraft, fashion and luxury goods better than most of the world's; yet the country is, more than ever before, obsessed with its ability to compete in a global marketplace. It sees the power-house of a united Germany bulking over a Europe destined to become the world's biggest single market in 1993. According to the authoritative World Competitiveness Report for 1991, France has dropped to its lowest ranking since 1986 and is listed 15th, behind most other members of the European Community. Industrial growth has lagged, and the trade gap with behemoths like Germany and Japan has grown severalfold. But the world's fourth largest economy, with a gross national product of $956 billion, is far from an also-ran. Under the steady hand of President Francois Mitterrand, France now stands to become a keystone of 21st century power -- so long as the French people manage to keep their cool.