I | INTRODUCTION |
France, major industrialized nation in western Europe.
France is the third largest country in Europe, after Russia and Ukraine, and the
fourth most populous. Officially the French Republic (République
Française), the nation includes ten overseas possessions, most of them
remnants of France’s former colonial empire. Paris is the nation’s capital and
largest city.
Roughly hexagonal in shape, France shares
boundaries with Belgium and Luxembourg to the northeast; Germany, Switzerland,
and Italy to the east; and Spain and Andorra to the southwest. In the northwest,
France is bounded by the English Channel. At the Strait of Dover, the narrowest
part of the channel, France and England are separated by just 34 km (21 mi).
France faces three major seas: the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the North Sea to
the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the southeast.
France is a nation of varied landscapes,
ranging from coastal lowlands and broad plains in the north, to hilly uplands in
south central France, to lush valleys and towering, snow-capped Alps in the
east. Mountainous and hilly areas lie on nearly all of France’s borders,
creating a series of natural boundaries for the country. Only the nation’s
northeastern border is largely unprotected. Several major rivers drain France,
including the Seine, Loire, Garonne, and Rhône.
France is highly urbanized. Three-quarters of
the population lives in cities, including more than ten million people in the
metropolitan area of Paris, the most densely populated region in France. The
French are among the healthiest, wealthiest, and best-educated people in the
world. A comprehensive social welfare system is in place, guaranteeing all
citizens a minimal standard of living and health care. Most citizens speak
French, the principal language. The dominant religion is Roman Catholicism.
French culture, especially French art and
literature, has profoundly influenced the Western world. Paris, one of the
world’s great intellectual capitals, has been at the center of Western cultural
life since the Middle Ages. World-renowned French cultural figures include
philosophers, writers, painters, sculptors, architects, composers, playwrights,
and film directors. French literary and artistic contributions during the
Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment deeply influenced the path of Western
cultural development. Impressionism, an innovative painting movement in the late
19th century, originated in France. During the 20th century, French writers and
artists were at the center of movements such as dada, surrealism,
existentialism, and the theater of the absurd. France has a long reputation for
excellence in cuisine, and French fashion styles are imitated throughout the
world.
The economy of France is large, diverse, and
one of the most highly developed in the European Union (EU). It is a leading
manufacturing nation, producing goods such as automobiles, electrical equipment,
machine tools, and chemicals. France is the EU’s most important agricultural
nation—shipping cereals, wine, cheese, and other agricultural products to the
rest of Europe and the world. In recent decades service industries, including
banking, retail and wholesale trade, communications, health care, and tourism,
have come to dominate the French economy.
France is one of the oldest states in the
Western world and its history is rich and varied. Little is known of France’s
earliest inhabitants. Cave paintings in southwestern France dated to about
15,000 bc reveal the existence of
a sophisticated and creative people (see Paleolithic Art). By the 8th
century bc hordes of Celts, among
other tribes, began entering and settling in France. A Celtic word, Gaul,
was a name used in antiquity for the region of France. The ancient Romans
incorporated France in the 1st century bc and ruled the region until the Roman
Empire collapsed in the 5th century ad.
After the fall of Rome, a series of royal
dynasties ruled much of what would become France. Royal power declined in the
Middle Ages with the spread of feudalism, which distributed power among local
rulers. From the 14th to 18th century the power of the monarchy grew steadily as
French kings and their ministers built a centralized bureaucracy and a large
standing army. The French Revolution in 1789 toppled the monarchy, ushering in
decades of political instability. Despite this turmoil, the revolution, and the
subsequent rule of Napoleon Bonaparte, established a uniform administrative
state in France.
French strength and prosperity grew during the
19th and early 20th centuries, and France built a worldwide colonial empire
rivaling that of the United Kingdom. Much of World War I (1914-1918) was fought
on French soil, and the nation suffered heavy losses. During World War II
(1939-1945), Germany occupied northern France while a collaborationist regime
was established at Vichy in central France. After the war France rebuilt its
shattered economy and emerged as one of the world’s major industrial countries.
Growing resistance to French rule in the colonies increased in the postwar
period, triggering a wave of decolonization that stripped France of most of its
overseas possessions.
In 1958 an uprising in Algeria, then a French
colony, threatened France with civil war. The French government surrendered
dictatorial power to Charles de Gaulle, a resistance leader during World War II,
and invited de Gaulle to form a new government. French voters approved a new
constitution by popular referendum that strengthened the powers of the
presidency, and de Gaulle became the new government’s first president. De Gaulle
viewed France as a great power, and he followed an independent stance in foreign
affairs, a policy that helped boost France’s international influence. In recent
decades, France, working closely with Germany, has played a leading role in the
move toward greater European economic and political integration.
II | LAND AND RESOURCES |
The total area of France is 543,965 sq km
(210,026 sq mi), including inland waters. The Mediterranean isle of Corsica is
considered part of the total area of metropolitan France. France has an extreme
length from north to south of about 965 km (600 mi) and maximum width from east
to west of about 935 km (580 mi). The country spans the breadth of the European
peninsula, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea, and stretches from
the coastal lowlands of the Great European Plain to the Alps.
A | Natural Regions |
France has three distinctive types of
surface features—rolling plains, uplands, and high mountains. Nearly two-thirds
of France consists of lands that are less than 250 m (820 ft) above sea level in
elevation. Despite the existence of several uplands in the French interior,
there is relatively easy access from lowland to lowland. Most of the high
mountains are located on France’s borders.
A1 | Plains |
The north and west of France are
dominated by segments of the Great European Plain, a vast lowland. This plain
includes the Basin of Aquitaine in the southwest, which stretches from the
foothills of the Pyrenees, near the border with Spain, to west central France.
The basin narrows midway up the coast where it meets the expansive Paris Basin
in north central France, the nation’s heartland. Here the landscape consists
mainly of plains separated by low plateaus. The plateaus typically rise in a
series of concentric, outward-facing escarpments (cliffs). The
escarpments resemble saucers of progressively smaller size stacked atop one
another, with the city of Paris in the middle of the smallest, central saucer.
These escarpments, particularly those facing east, have been the sites of many
battles, as France defended itself against invasions.
In both the Paris and Aquitaine basins,
fertile soils derived from limestone and wind-deposited dust, called loess, have
supported prosperous agriculture since ancient times. Other lowlands in France
are scattered and relatively small. They include the Alsace Plain in the east,
bordering Germany, the valley of the Rhône River in the southeast, and the
Languedoc Plain along the Mediterranean coast.
A2 | Uplands |
France contains several regions of
uplands, the worn down remains of ancient mountain systems. The largest of these
is the vast plateau of the Massif Central, in south central France. A region of
rounded hills, the Massif Central has abundant extinct volcanoes, remnants of
the powerful geologic pressures that uplifted the region. Deep river gorges cut
many parts of the Massif Central. The steepest areas of the region are to the
east, nearest the Alps. To the west and north the Massif Central gradually
descends to meet the Aquitaine and Paris basins.
The Armorican Massif in the far northwest
forms the peninsula of Brittany, a landform that juts into the Atlantic Ocean.
Less elevated than the Massif Central, the Armorican Massif is still deeply
scored by stream valleys and has comparatively little level land. Steep slopes
and poor soils restrict agriculture in much of the region. Other uplands include
the Vosges and Ardennes mountain ranges in the northeast, where rounded and
wooded hills rise above deep valleys.
A3 | Mountains |
Imposing mountains form the southeastern
and southwestern borders of France. These mountains, created by the ongoing
collision of the African and Eurasian tectonic plates, are younger than the
eroded mountain systems of the French interior (see Plate
Tectonics).
The high, rugged mountains of the Alps
border southeastern France. Mont Blanc, in the French Alps, is one of the
highest points in Europe at 4,807 m (15,771 ft). Rivers carved deep valleys in
the Alps, and Ice Age glaciers gouged the valleys wider and deeper. These broad
valleys offer a number of low passes that permit relatively easy travel through
the mountains.
The Pyrenees, a mountain range of fairly
uniform height, lie along the border with Spain. The highest peak in the
Pyrenees is Pic de Vignemale, at 3,298 m (10,820 ft). The Pyrenees were not
heavily glaciated during the Ice Age and are devoid of the large lakes, pleasant
valleys, and serrated ridges characteristic of the Alps. Their high, difficult,
and infrequent passes establish a true barrier and have historically served to
limit traffic between France and Spain.
The Jura Mountains form the boundary with
Switzerland to the east. Although less rugged than the Alps, the Jura Mountains
were created at the same time and are related geologically to the Alps.
B | Rivers |
France has several major rivers. The Seine,
in northern France, drains much of the Paris Basin and flows northwest into the
Atlantic Ocean. The Seine’s even flow is well suited to navigation, and the
river is an important water route to and from Paris. The Loire rises in the
Massif Central, flows west across the southern portion of the Paris Basin, and
enters the Atlantic Ocean at the Bay of Biscay. The Loire’s water level
fluctuates greatly, and floods are frequent. Stretching more than 1,000 km (620
mi), the Loire is the longest river in France. The Garonne rises in the Pyrenees
and flows north, draining much of the Aquitane Basin. The Dordogne rises in the
Massif Central and flows west, joining the Garonne to form the Gironde estuary,
just before the Atlantic. These four great rivers all lie entirely within French
territory.
Major rivers with some sources outside of
France include the Rhône, the great river of the Mediterranean region of France.
The Rhône rises in Switzerland, joins the Saône at Lyon, and crosses the
Languedoc Plain en route to the Mediterranean Sea. Draining the French Alps
region, the Rhône is the largest river in France measured in terms of volume of
discharge. The Rhine, which is one of the world’s most important inland
waterways, rises in the Swiss Alps and flows northwest, forming part of France’s
eastern boundary. The river then travels through Germany and The Netherlands
before entering the North Sea. The Meuse traverses northeastern France and
passes through Belgium and The Netherlands before also emptying into the North
Sea.
An extensive network of canals connects the
major rivers with each other and with other river and canal systems. Nearly all
of France’s more than 200 streams are commercially navigable for varying
distances. France has only a few lakes. Lake Geneva (also known as Lake Leman),
situated along the Franco-Swiss border, lies mainly in Switzerland.
C | Coastline |
The coastline of mainland France, about
3,430-km (2,130-mi) long, is highly varied. A marshy lowland prevails along the
northern coast, and many areas must be artificially drained. Moving west, along
the English Channel, these lowlands give way to the cliffs of Normandy and then
to the rugged, ragged coast of Brittany. Stretching south of Brittany, a low,
sandy coast meets the Atlantic Ocean.
The Mediterranean coast is equally varied.
In the Riviera district to the east, the Maritime Alps plunge abruptly into the
sea, forming one of the most scenic areas of Europe. West of the Riviera, the
coastline gives way to the large, marshy delta of the Rhône. West of the Rhône
delta, a coastal lowland dotted with wetlands stretches all the way to the
Pyrenees.
The French coast has relatively few natural
harbors. The northern coast, along the English Channel and the North Sea, is
broken by a number of promontories, river estuaries, and minor indentations, few
of which provide safe anchorages. The harbor at Le Havre, at the mouth of the
Seine, is the one outstanding exception. A number of harbors in the north have
been formed by the construction of breakwaters, including the seaport at
Cherbourg. Along the Atlantic coast, important harbors are at Brest, Lorient,
and Saint-Nazaire. The best natural harbors in France are on the Mediterranean
and include the harbors of Marseille, Toulon, and Nice.
D | Plant and Animal Life |
France’s generally mild climate, ample
rainfall, variety of elevations, and long growing season, offer habitat for many
species of plants and animals. Centuries of human settlement have profoundly
altered the land and greatly reduced the number and diversity of indigenous
species. Conservation efforts in recent decades have helped protect important
undeveloped areas that remain.
The natural vegetation of France is
closely related to climatic conditions. In the mountains, the highest elevations
near the snow line consist of expanses of bare rock with only a few varieties of
moss and lichen growing in sheltered areas. Farther down the mountainside, but
still above the timberline, alpine pastures provide good grazing for sheep and
cattle during the summer months. Below the tree line the higher forests are
composed of coniferous species such as pine, larch, fir, and spruce.
Below the coniferous forest is a deciduous
forest of oak, beech, and chestnut. Only tiny remnants of the great forest that
once covered the plains and lower mountain slopes of France remain. Most of the
lowlands of France are now in farmland, and forests are restricted to areas of
poorer soil. Yet the lowlands of France are not treeless; lines of stately trees
border many highways and canals, and in the hedgerow country of Normandy and
Brittany virtually every tiny plot of ground is enclosed by an embankment
planted with bushes or trees.
Expanses of an evergreen shrub, called
maquis, prevail along much of the Mediterranean coast, where summers are
generally long, hot, and dry (see Shrub Land). The Mediterranean region
once supported open forests of live oaks and grasses. This native vegetation was
destroyed by centuries of overgrazing, burning, and woodcutting. Many areas have
been reduced to expanses of bare ground. The most common trees found in the
Mediterranean region are the olive, the cork oak, and the Aleppo pine.
The destruction of France’s native
woodlands led to a sharp decline of native animals, a process that continues to
the present day. Few specimens of the larger mammals remain in France; the most
common of these include species of deer and fox. Red deer and roe deer are still
hunted, as are wild boar, which survive in remote forest areas. The rare
chamois, a type of goat, is found in the Alps and in the Pyrenees. Among the
smaller animals found in the region are the porcupine, skunk, marmot, and
marten. Endangered species include beaver, otter, and badger. A small population
of brown bears and lynx survive high in the Pyrenees.
France has an abundance of bird life. Many
species of migrating birds, including ducks, geese, and thrushes, spend their
winters in France. The Mediterranean region is home to various exotic bird
species, including the flamingo, bee-eater, egret, heron, and black-winged
stilt. Reptiles are rare, and the only venomous reptile in France is the
adder.
E | Natural Resources |
France is richly endowed with agricultural
resources. The fertile soils of its basins and plains have supported a robust
farming culture since antiquity. Today, France is the largest exporter of
agricultural goods in the European Union (EU). The French landscape, most of
which receives abundant precipitation, also supports a thriving timber industry.
Today, about one-quarter of France is forested, and commercial tree farms
constitute a significant share of this total.
France is not exceptionally rich in
natural mineral resources. The coal deposits of northern France and the iron ore
deposits in the east were important to the nation’s early industrialization.
However, France’s coal deposits have largely been depleted, and the low quality
of French iron ore has lead to a sharp decline in domestic production. Deposits
of petroleum and natural gas are small and largely tapped. Today, France imports
iron ore along with most other minerals important in industrial production.
However, France remains a significant producer of uranium, a fuel used in
nuclear reactors, and bauxite, from which aluminum is made.
F | Climate |
The climate of France is generally
temperate with three major variations: oceanic, continental, and Mediterranean.
The climate of any particular region of the country is largely determined by the
dominant of these three influences in the region, although elevation and other
local conditions are also important. In general, the climate of France is well
suited to agriculture.
The oceanic climate prevails throughout
much of the country, especially in the north and west, where westerly winds from
the Atlantic Ocean bring mild and moist conditions. These winds, charged with
moisture, produce cool summers, mild winters, and year-round rainfall. The rain
usually comes in the form of a slow, steady drizzle. Overcast skies are common,
but snow and frost are rare. Paris, for example, receives 650 mm (26 in) of
precipitation annually, with rain occurring an average of 188 days each year.
The average daily temperature range in Paris is 1° to 6°C (34° to 40°F) in
January and 13° to 24°C (55° to 75°F) in July. The oceanic climate fully
dominates the west coast. Brest, in Brittany, has an average January temperature
range of 4º to 9ºC (39° to 47°F) and an average July temperature range of 12º to
19ºC (54° to 67°F).
The continental climate has a pronounced
influence in northeastern France. Winds and air masses coming from the east,
over the great Eurasian landmass, bring little moisture and more extreme
temperatures. In winter these air masses bring cold weather, and in summer they
bring heat. The eastern city of Strasbourg, for example, has an average January
temperature range of -2º to 3ºC (28º to 38ºF). In the course of an average
winter the temperature in Strasbourg is below freezing for 80 days, and on at
least 20 days snow is recorded. But the summers in Strasbourg, which average 13º
to 25ºC (56º to 77ºF), are hot and often oppressive, with heavy precipitation
during summer thundershowers.
The Mediterranean climate holds sway over
regions of southern France, with the strongest influence felt in areas lying
within 160 km (100 mi) of the sea. Winters are mild and moist, although much of
the precipitation comes in short showers. Summers are hot and rainless. The
Mediterranean city of Marseille, for instance, has an average daily temperature
of 2° to 10°C (35° to 50°F) in January and 17° to 29°C (63° to 84°F) in July.
Average precipitation in Marseille is 550 mm (22 in) annually, with rain
occurring an average of 95 days a year. Occasionally, a cold, dry wind, called a
mistral, blows down from the north, through the narrow Rhône-Saône trench
valley, and out onto the Languedoc Plain. The mistral is strongest and most
frequent in the winter and spring and can temporarily bring chilly temperatures
to the Mediterranean shore.
Severe climates are found only in the
mountains. High in the French Alps and Pyrenees, winters are long and snowy,
sufficient to support ski resorts. In several places in the Alps, remnant
glaciers survive.
G | Conservation |
For centuries the French devoted few
resources to the protection and conservation of the environment. Like most of
the world’s peoples, they have focused mainly on economic development of
national lands and waters. A conservation movement arose in France in the 19th
century, as environmental problems associated with industrialization
accumulated. However, the movement did not gain broader popular support until
the end of World War II (1939-1945). Rapid industrial expansion, urbanization,
and the proliferation of automobiles further degraded the environment, leaving
the nation’s air and water supplies severely polluted, and its remaining forests
and wild animals threatened.
Since the early 1960s, France has
undertaken a variety of initiatives to conserve and protect its environment. A
cornerstone of this effort was the creation of a system of parks and reserves.
Today, about 10 percent of the French national territory enjoys some type of
protected status. This includes six national parks, several dozen regional
nature parks, and more than 100 smaller nature reserves. In addition, numerous
measures are in place to reduce air pollution, water pollution, and soil
erosion.
Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov contributed the
Land and Resources section of this article.
III | PEOPLE AND SOCIETY |
The population of France is 64,094,658
(2008 estimate). It is the fourth most populous nation in Europe, after Russia,
Germany, and the United Kingdom. France is western Europe’s largest nation in
total area and is sparsely populated by European standards, with an average
population density of 100 persons per sq km (259 per sq mi). The population is
distributed unevenly within France. The most crowded area is Paris in north
central France and the surrounding urban region, where population density
exceeds 921 persons per sq km (2,386 per sq mi). The region of Limousin in the
hill lands of central France, with 42 persons per sq km (109 per sq mi), and the
mountainous Mediterranean isle of Corsica, with just 30 persons per sq km (78
per sq mi), have the sparsest settlement. France is overwhelmingly urban: Three
of every four people live in cities and towns.
France’s annual rate of population growth
of 0.58 percent is low compared to most of the world. In 1800 France was the
most populous nation in western Europe. During the late 19th and early 20th
centuries, the birth rate in France declined relative to that of the rest of
Europe, and the French population grew slowly. By the mid-20th century the
population of France had fallen behind that of Germany, the United Kingdom, and
Italy. (France’s population narrowly surpassed Italy’s in the 1990s). The slow
growth of the French population can be partly attributed to the bloody wars of
the Napoleonic era in the early 19th century and the two world wars in the 20th
century. The early and wide-scale adoption of birth control by the French people
also slowed population growth. Immigration, especially from Europe and North
Africa, was a major source of French population growth during the 20th century.
The population of France is projected to gradually begin declining sometime
during the early 21st century.
The age structure of France changed
dramatically in the late 20th century, with elderly people accounting for an
ever larger share of the total population. The segment of the population between
the ages of 0 and 14 declined from 26.4 percent in 1960 to 18.6 percent in 2008,
while the number of people aged 65 or older increased from 11.6 percent to 16.3
percent. The number of older people is growing in France, as it is in most
industrialized nations, as a result of the low birth rate and medical advances
that have prolonged life. Life expectancy in France is now 84.2 years for
females—one of the highest expected longevities in the world—and 77.7 years for
males. France’s infant mortality rate (the number of infants per 1,000 who die
before the age of 1) is 3.4, one of the world’s lowest.
A | Principal Cities |
The capital and largest city of France is
Paris, with a population of 2,153,600 (2005 estimate). Located on the shores of
the Seine, Paris dominates France economically, politically, and culturally. It
is the nation’s leading industrial center, and most key services, including
banking and finance, are concentrated there. Paris is the seat of the national
government and home to France’s most prestigious educational and cultural
institutions. About 10 million people live in the Paris metropolitan area, more
than 15 percent of the country’s total population.
France’s second largest city is Marseille
(820,900) on the Mediterranean coast. Marseille is a major seaport and a
diversified manufacturing center. Founded by Greek mariners in the 6th century
bc, Marseille has long served as
an important commercial and trading city. Today, Marseille is socially and
ethnically diverse, with a large immigrant population. The third largest city is
Lyon (466,400) in east central France. Lyon is an industrial center located at
the junction of the Saône and Rhône rivers. It is famous for its fine textiles,
although other manufactures, including chemicals, automobiles, and petroleum
products, are now more important. The urban area surrounding Lyon is the second
largest in France, after greater metropolitan Paris.
Other major cities include Toulouse
(435,000), a major manufacturing and trade center in southwestern France; Nice
(347,900), a resort city on the French Riviera; and Nantes (281,800), a seaport
on the Atlantic coast that is noted for shipbuilding, food processing, and other
industries. Strasbourg (272,700) is the principal French port on the Rhine River
and is also a major industrial center. Bordeaux (230,600) is a major seaport in
southwestern France and the principal exporting center for one of the great
French vineyard regions. Montpellier (244,300) is a commercial and manufacturing
city in southern France. Lille (225,100), an industrial city in northern France,
is situated amid a cluster of cities that have a combined population exceeding 1
million. According to 1999 population estimates, more than 25 additional French
cities had populations surpassing 100,000.
B | Ethnic Groups |
The predominant ethnic stock in France is
mixed, the result of thousands of years of ethnic mixing. A succession of
migrating and invading groups, including Celts, Romans (see Roman
Empire), and Germanic peoples, have left their ethnic imprint among the French
people. The very name for the nation, France, comes from the Germanic
Franks, who invaded the area as the Roman Empire collapsed.
The French government has long pursued an
active campaign of assimilating ethnic minorities. The expansion of the French
state, completed by the mid-17th century, brought centralized rule over diverse
peripheral ethnic groups. As late as the French Revolution in 1789, less than
half the population spoke French. After the revolution, the French government
sought to build a unified nation-state based on a common language. The “law of
the soil” (droit du sol), a key part of this effort, held that residency
and ethnic identity were inseparable—that is, if a person lived in France, he or
she was French. Only in recent years, under the prodding of the European Union
(EU), did France extend any noteworthy rights or privileges to ethnic
minorities. Instead, every effort was made to absorb them into the French
mainstream, with considerable success.
B1 | Indigenous Ethnic Minorities |
The indigenous ethnic minorities of
France inhabit ancient homelands, all of which lie on the nation’s frontiers. In
the far northern part of France live a people of Flemish descent, in and around
the marshland town of Dunkerque in the historic region of Flanders. Flemings,
many of whom speak a dialect of Dutch, harbor no separatist sentiment and have
largely been assimilated. In the western peninsular region of Brittany live the
Bretons, a people of Celtic descent (see Celts). Many Bretons seek
cultural autonomy and resent French dominance. They present an overtly Celtic
image to visitors, incorporating bagpipes and Celtic harps into their local
musical traditions. Dozens of Breton-language schools have opened in Brittany
since the early 1990s.
In southwestern France, where the
Pyrenees and Atlantic Ocean meet, live the French Basques. Many French Basques
share the separatist sentiments of the Basques across the border in Spain, but
the French Basque country has not experienced the terrorist violence that has
occurred for decades in Spanish territory. At the eastern end of the Pyrenees,
in the Mediterranean region, is the Catalan homeland. French Catalonians share a
language (see Catalan Language) and culture with the peoples of eastern
Spain, where Catalan autonomy has been achieved and separatist sentiment is
common. The French Catalonians, however, are not nearly so numerous, and they do
not desire to secede from France. In recent decades, bilingual French-Catalan
signs have become common.
In the Alsace-Lorraine area of eastern
France live the Alsatians, a people whose native tongue is a dialect of High
German. This ancient frontier area has been the object of disputes between
French and Germanic rulers since the Middle Ages, and control over the region
has changed hands many times. Since the end of World War II (1939-1945) the
region has belonged to France. A desire for cultural autonomy is widespread in
Alsace, but there is little sentiment for joining Germany. On the French-ruled
island of Corsica in the Mediterranean live a people of Italian ancestry.
Corsica’s most famous son, Napoleon Bonaparte (see Napoleon I), had an
Italian surname. A movement seeking independence for Corsica has been active
since the 1970s.
B2 | Immigrants |
Immigrants account for about 7.5
percent of the total population of France. French immigrants come from diverse
places, including Europe, North and Central Africa, the Americas and the
Caribbean, and Asia. The largest immigrant group in France consists of people
from the largely Islamic nations of North Africa, including Algeria, Morocco,
and Tunisia. Many Muslims from Turkey have also immigrated to France. An
estimated 4 million Muslims, or followers of Islam, live in France, mainly
within the nation’s largest cities.
France has a long history of
immigration. A strong tradition of readily accepting immigrants as citizens
dates to the French Revolution, which popularized new notions of citizenship and
universal rights. During the 19th century, the French government recruited many
immigrants to work the nation’s farmlands and in its expanding coal, steel, and
textile industries. Until the mid-20th century, immigrants came largely from
other Christian European countries, including Belgium, Italy, Poland, Portugal,
and Spain. Most of these immigrants were rapidly assimilated into the French
population and culture.
Immigration significantly increased
after World War II (1939-1945), when the nation’s postwar economic expansion
generated an enormous need for workers. By the 1950s the main source of
immigration had shifted from European countries to the largely Islamic countries
of North Africa, the heart of France’s former colonial empire. In the mid-1970s
France began to tighten its immigration policies in response to a slowing
economy.
By the late 1970s immigration had
become a controversial social issue in France. Many people worried that large
numbers of recent immigrants appeared unwilling to adopt French customs and
culture. Unlike earlier generations of European immigrants, the newcomers were
often distinguishable by their skin color and Islamic religion, as well as by
their food, dress, and music. Nationalist political movements, such as the
National Front, emerged to promote anti-immigrant policies, including
repatriation. These groups argued that immigration threatened French culture and
social cohesion.
By the 1980s, heated political debate
had arisen over the wearing of traditional Islamic head coverings by girls in
public schools. In 2004 the French government passed legislation prohibiting
students in primary and secondary schools from wearing conspicuous religious
symbols. Although no specific religious symbols were mentioned in the
legislation, many Muslims viewed the law as targeting the wearing of
headscarves. Hostility toward immigrants has led to discrimination, social
tensions, and episodes of violence.
C | Language |
French is the official language of France
and is spoken by the vast majority of people in the country. Modern French is a
dialect of the langue d’oïl, a form of the French language that
originated in northern France. This dialect developed in the Île de France, a
historic province that includes Paris and much of the surrounding Paris Basin.
Beginning in medieval times, the language of the Île de France gradually began
to supplant other French dialects. Today it enjoys overwhelming dominance in
French daily life, including in commerce, education, government, and culture.
In addition to French, regional languages
are spoken in many areas. The most widely spoken regional language is Occitan,
also called the langue d’oc (Languedoc), which is prevalent in southern
France. Perhaps 5 or 6 million people speak Provençal, the major dialect
of the langue d’oc. Virtually all of these speakers speak the dominant French
language as well. The languages spoken north and south of the Loire River began
diverging in the early Middle Ages and by the late 13th century had emerged as
distinct languages. The langue d’oc is rooted in a Latin-derived regional
culture that was once much more Mediterranean and Roman-influenced than the
German-influenced culture of northern France. The French state’s historical
drive to create a unified French language, in part by requiring state primary
schools to teach in the language of the Île de France, has succeeded in
assimilating the langue d’oc. In 1993, in a show of greater tolerance, the
French government permitted state schools to teach regional languages, including
the langue d’oc.
Several other regional languages are
spoken in France. About 1 million people living in Alsace speak a dialect of
High German. Perhaps 600,000 people speak Breton, a Celtic language based in
Brittany. (See also Breton Literature). About 250,000 people speak
Catalan in the Pyrenees region. Some 80,000 people speak Basque, another
language based in the Pyrenees. Flemish, a Dutch dialect used in the French
portion of Flanders in the north, is spoken by perhaps 60,000 people. Corse, an
Italian dialect used on the island of Corsica, is spoken by about 100,000
people. Many of France’s various immigrant populations also retain their
separate languages, including Arabic and Turkish.
D | Religion |
Roman Catholicism is the dominant
religion in France. More than 80 percent of the French population officially
identifies with this faith, although only a minority claim to be practicing
Catholics. About 5 percent of the population practices Islam, France’s second
most popular religion. A small minority, about 2 percent of the population, is
Protestant. Many Protestants fled France during the 16th and 17th centuries to
escape Catholic persecution, and few parishes survived. About 1 percent of the
population is Jewish (see Judaism). More than 10 percent of the people
claim no religion.
Secularization has made deep inroads in
France, greatly diminishing the role of the once-powerful Catholic Church. The
extent of secularization varies from one region to another. The most highly
secularized regions are the Paris Basin and the Mediterranean coast. The largest
percentages of practicing Catholics live in rural areas, including Flanders to
the north, Brittany to the west, Alsace to the east, and the Basque country in
the southwest. The great pilgrimage town of Lourdes in the southwest, at the
foot of the Pyrenees, draws millions of visitors annually.
The French Jewish community, although
small, has long played an important role in the nation’s economy and culture. An
estimated 530,000 French citizens are Jewish, accounting for about one-third of
the total Jewish population in Europe. In recent decades, many Muslim immigrants
from former French colonies in North Africa have settled in France, leading to a
significant expansion of the Islamic faith there. Immigrants have also brought
other religions to France, including Buddhism and Hinduism.
The church and state have been officially
separated in France since 1905. During the 19th century, the Christian and
Jewish religions were subsidized by the state. Popular opposition to the
Catholic Church, and to church control of public education, resulted in
legislation prohibiting the payment of public funds to Catholic, Protestant, and
Jewish clergy. This legislation, and subsequent measures, led to the withdrawal
of official state recognition of any religion.
E | Education |
The French constitution guarantees all
permanent residents a basic education. School attendance is compulsory for
students aged 6 to 16, and all public schools up to the university level are
free. Higher public education is free for all students who qualify. There are
also about 10,000 private schools and colleges in France, most controlled by the
Roman Catholic Church. About one in six students under the age of 16 attends
private schools. The adult literacy rate in France is 99 percent, one of the
world’s highest.
Public education in France is highly
centralized. The centralization of state control over school administration
began in the early 19th century under Napoleon I. Prior to the French Revolution
in 1789, most schools were administered by the Roman Catholic Church. Many of
the main features of the modern educational system were adopted in the late 19th
century, under the leadership of Education Minister Jules Ferry. A series of
laws, enacted between 1881 and 1886, provided for free, compulsory public
education entirely under government control. Among later modifications were the
establishment of free tuition in secondary and technical schools, the separation
of church and state in education in 1905, and the extension of compulsory school
attendance to the age of 16 in 1959.
Today, the central government’s
administrative role is strongest in primary and secondary education.
Metropolitan France is divided into 27 educational districts called
académies. Each district is under the jurisdiction of a rector, who is
accountable to the ministry of education. The ministry is responsible for
maintaining schools, hiring and allocating staff, defining academic programs and
curricula, and other matters. The ministry also supervises private schools.
As a result of student unrest in 1968, in
which strong demands were made for greater decentralization in higher education,
the government created an independent ministry of universities. Prior to 1968,
the universities were organized into facultés, or schools, according to
the subject taught, and were directly administered by the ministry of education.
Afterward, they were reorganized into autonomous multidisciplinary universities,
and students and faculty were given a voice in university administration. Under
the reform, most of France’s large universities were restructured into smaller
units. The University of Paris, the largest, was split into 13 independent
universities, 3 of which were formed from the oldest unit, the Sorbonne (see
Paris, Universities of).
The French educational system is
competitive. After two or three years of optional preschool activities, students
attend a primary (elementary) school from age 6 to 11. Secondary education is
divided into two phases. In the first phase, students attend a collège
(middle school) until the age of 15. During the second phase, students either
take academic courses in general lycées (secondary schools) or take
technical and vocational courses in separate institutions called professional
lycées. Students attending professional lycées typically earn a professional
certificate or diploma after one to three years of study. The general lycée
program lasts three years and ends with a comprehensive nationwide examination
for the baccalauréate degree, which is required to enter the
universities. The baccalaureate examination is rigorous; only two-thirds of
those taking the test typically pass it the first time.
The university sector has gradually
expanded to offer a wider range of educational opportunities and serve an
increasing number of students. In 1966 several instituts universitaires de
technologie (technological institutes, or IUTs) were founded. These schools
depart from the general studies of the traditional university and specialize in
technology subjects. Community colleges, called antennes universitaires,
have been established in medium-sized towns such as Blois, Troyes, Tarbes,
Beauvais, and Bayonne. In 1991 the government adopted an ambitious program
designed to enlarge the system of higher education. By the early 2000s there
were 100 IUTs and 87 universities in France. Besides the Universities of Paris
I-XIII, noted French institutes of higher education include the Universities of
Aix-Marseille I-III, the Universities of Lille I-III, the Universities of Lyon
I-III, the Universities of Nancy I-II, and the Universities of Strasbourg
I-III.
Alongside the universities is an elite
network of graduate schools, known as the grandes écoles. Admission to
the grandes écoles is limited by special competitive examinations. Founded by
Napoleon Bonaparte (see Napoleon I), these prestigious schools train
executives for the highest positions in business and government. Among the best
known of these schools are the École Polytechnique (Polytechnic School), founded
in 1794 to instruct military professionals, and the École Nationale
d’Administration (National School of Administration), a training ground for
government leaders.
In a unique category are the Collège de
France, founded in 1530, and the Académie Française (French Academy), founded in
1635. The Collège de France invites eminent scholars from all over the world to
lecture publicly on their research. Membership in the Académie Française is
limited to 40 of the nation’s most prominent citizens, the immortels. The
Académie was established in 1635 to uphold the highest standards in the French
language and literature, and it is responsible for the publication of the
standard grammar and dictionary of the French language. It is the oldest of the
five learned societies that make up the prestigious Institut de France.
F | Social Structure |
The French Revolution swept away many of
the ancient legal privileges enjoyed by the nobility and the clergy and
established the principle of legal equality among all citizens. Yet the
revolution did not erase sharp distinctions among social groups, nor did it
fundamentally alter the distribution of wealth. France still retained a rigid
social structure in the early 20th century, with little mobility among social
groups. The social strata included peasants, craft and factory workers,
shopkeepers, merchants, civil servants, intellectuals, landowners, and petty
nobility.
The old social order changed considerably
after World War II, as the postwar economic expansion brought growing affluence
to an ever larger share of the French population. The vast expansion of the
middle classes reduced inequality of wealth and blurred the lines between many
social groups. Today power, success, and money are more important than birth in
determining a person’s social status.
Another sweeping change in postwar France
is the growing role of women in society. Beginning in the early 1970s, women
began entering the workforce in increasing numbers, many taking jobs in the
expanding service sector. Today women constitute 45.5 percent of all French
workers. However, women tend to be concentrated in low-paying jobs, and they are
more likely than men to be unemployed. In recent decades women have also played
a growing role in politics. Women won the right to vote in 1944; today they
account for 53 percent of the French electorate. Many women have pursued
successful careers in politics, but their representation in the national
parliament is still lower than in most other nations in the European Union
(EU).
Many social divisions remain visible in
France. A privileged elite composed mainly of leading politicians, senior civil
servants, business leaders, and wealthy families still retains a strong grasp on
the levers of power. The middle classes are highly stratified. Among
white-collar workers, two different groups have emerged: the successful,
upwardly mobile senior executives and professionals with expanding spending
power and stable jobs, and a growing mass of people in clerical, retail, and
food-service jobs for whom unemployment and lower living standards have become
increasingly the norm. Blue-collar workers remain, to some extent, economically
and socially segregated; only a small proportion of university students come
from blue-collar households. The number of blue-collar workers has steadily
declined in recent years as the economy has shifted from jobs in industry to
those in the service sector.
G | Way of Life |
For centuries the French have taken pride
in the sophistication of their culture, the beauty of their spoken language, and
their diverse accomplishments in literature, the arts, and sciences. Even French
cuisine and clothing fashions have long been a source of national pride. During
the second half of the 20th century, as French society grew increasingly middle
class and consumer oriented, a new set of attitudes and pursuits appeared
alongside these elitist cultural attitudes. Material comforts, such as homes,
new appliances, and automobiles, became synonymous with a high standard of
living.
Despite the concentration of the French
population in urban areas, nearly 60 percent of French people live in houses,
rather than in apartment buildings. Most dwellings are comfortable and have
modern conveniences. In 1962 less than 20 percent of French housing had central
heating. By the 1990s nearly 80 percent had central heating, at least one
telephone, and access to hot water. Housing is in short supply, and housing
costs, as a share of household budgets, have risen in recent decades. Outlays
for housing absorb about one-fifth of all household spending.
The French enjoy a wide range of sports
and recreational activities. Millions of people belong to sports clubs, the most
common of which are devoted to soccer, tennis, a bowling game called
boules, and basketball. The most popular professional sports are soccer
and bicycle racing (see Cycling). The monthlong Tour de France, the
world’s most famous and prestigious bicycle race, has been held annually since
1903. Horse racing at Longchamps and Auteuil in Paris and automobile racing at
Le Mans also draw large crowds. The French Open tennis tournament at Roland
Garros Stadium in Paris attracts international attention.
Many French people enjoy eating,
drinking, and socializing at sidewalk cafes, which are prevalent in most cities
and towns. The cinema is also very popular, drawing some 15 million patrons each
year. Music concerts are well attended throughout France, and many provincial
towns host their own music, theater, and dance festivals.
The French are famous for their cuisine,
and fine food remains an important part of the French way of life. Thousands of
regional dishes are popular in France. Beloved ingredients include generous
amounts of garlic, olive oil, butter, cream, and local cheeses and wines. French
dishes that have risen to national and international prominence include a
seafood soup called bouillabaisse, crepes, quiches, andouillette
sausage, and a goose-liver paste called pâté de foie gras. Breads and
pastries are a daily staple and are widely available at local bakeries, known as
boulangeries.
The traditional French meal pattern is to
eat a light breakfast, a large lunch, and a somewhat lighter dinner. French
wines are often served with lunch or dinner. In recent decades fast food has
grown in popularity, especially among young people, and elaborate meals are
increasingly reserved for special occasions. The movement toward convenience in
eating is also evident in the growing consumption of frozen and prepackaged
foods.
The French are devoted to holidays and
vacations. In addition to the Christmas, New Year’s Day, and Easter holidays,
the religious feast days of Mardi Gras in the spring, Pentecost in May or June,
Assumption Day on August 15th, and All Saint’s Day on November 1st are
celebrated across France. The national holiday, Bastille Day on July 14th,
commemorates the fall of the Bastille in the French Revolution. Most French
workers are entitled to five weeks of paid vacation annually, and travel abroad
has become increasingly popular. August is the most popular month for vacation,
leading to enormous congestion in resort areas at that time of year.
H | Social Issues |
Despite the generally high living
standards enjoyed by many French citizens, the nation has not escaped serious
social problems. One of the most pressing issues is the apparent formation of a
permanent underclass. During the 1990s, unemployment consistently exceeded 10
percent of the workforce—a high rate by the standards of the more prosperous
countries of the European Union (EU)—and it declined only marginally in the
early 2000s. The unemployed include blue-collar workers unable to find work in
an economy increasingly dominated by services and high-quality manufactures;
immigrants, especially from countries in North Africa; and large numbers of
women and young people. Unemployment rates are highest in the old coal- and
steel-producing regions of northern France and along the Mediterranean coast.
Strikes and labor unrest are common in France. Student protests are also
prevalent and bear some relationship to the difficulty young people have in
finding good jobs.
A serious social issue related to the
persistence of high rates of unemployment has been a rise in crime and violence,
particularly among youth. During the 1990s the number of people aged 13 to 18
jailed for violent crime nearly tripled. Youth violence and other criminal
activity are often associated with gangs in the tough, low-income housing
projects that ring many French cities. Most of these complexes were originally
built in the 1960s and 1970s to help solve housing shortages, but they soon
became homes for the disadvantaged and underprivileged. Immigrants tend to be
concentrated in these housing projects, and unemployment usually far exceeds the
national average. Major riots erupted in some of these complexes in the 1980s
and 1990s. Some critics put part of the blame for the rise in crime and youth
violence on the French state, blaming the government for failing to integrate
immigrant populations into French society.
Racism is an enduring social problem in
France. The most significant expressions of contemporary racism are
anti-Semitism and anti-immigrant racism. Most of the violence directed against
Jewish people in recent decades has been symbolic, such as anti-Semitic graffiti
and the desecration of synagogues and graves. Immigrants, especially those
bearing visible signs of ethnic and cultural difference, have also been targets
of racial violence in recent years. The anti-immigrant National Front, led by
Jean-Marie Le Pen, blames immigrants, particularly people from North Africa, for
high unemployment and urban violence in France. National programs are in place
to address racism, including the diversification of France’s police force, but
many underlying problems remain.
Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov contributed the
People and Society section of this article.
IV | CULTURE |
The culture of France has profoundly
influenced that of the entire Western world, particularly in the areas of art
and letters, and Paris has long been regarded as the fountainhead of French
culture. France first attained cultural preeminence in Europe during the Middle
Ages; later, the wealth of the French crown in the 16th, 17th, and 18th
centuries provided a subsidization of art on a scale comparable to that of the
papacy in Rome, attracting to Paris many of Europe’s most talented artists and
artisans. Wealth also created a leisure class, which had both the time and the
means for developing elegance in dress, manners, furnishings, and architecture.
French styles still pervade much of Western culture. In the 20th century French
cinema assumed a leading world position, particularly in the 1960s with the
nouvelle vague (“new wave”) group of film directors, such as Jean-Luc
Godard, Alain Resnais, and François Truffaut.
A | Literature |
See French Literature.
B | Art and Architecture |
France has produced many world-famous
painters, and several influential schools of painting, including impressionism,
were developed here. Among French Mannerist painters of the 16th century were
Jean Clouet and his son François; 17th-century baroque artists included Georges
de La Tour, Nicolas Poussin, and Claude Lorrain. The most renowned French rococo
masters of the 18th century were Jean-Antoine Watteau, François Boucher, Jean
Fragonard, Jean Chardin, and Jean-Baptiste Greuze. Paris became the chief art
center of Europe in the 19th century. Jacques-Louis David, whose highly
influential career began in the last quarter of the 18th century, was most
active in the early 19th century, as were the romantic painters
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Eugène Delacroix, and Théodore Géricault. Noted
realist artists of the mid-19th century were Gustave Courbet, Honoré Daumier,
Jean François Millet, and Camile Corot. The impressionist school, influenced by
Édouard Manet, emerged around 1872; its most important members were the painters
Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre Auguste Renoir. Major French
postimpressionist painters of the late 19th century were Edgar Degas, Paul
Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Paul Signac; also active
in this period were Henri Rousseau and Gustav Moreau. Internationally known
French artists of the 20th century include Henri Matisse, Georges Braque,
Georges Rouault, Marcel Duchamp, Fernand Léger, Pierre Bonnard, and Jean
Dubuffet. The artist Pablo Picasso was born in Spain but settled in Paris in the
early 1900s.
France has also produced many
influential sculptors. Jean Goujon and Germain Pilon were famous 16th-century
Mannerist sculptors; in the 17th century Pierre Puget sculpted in the baroque
style; Puget inspired the 18th-century French rococo sculptors Jean Baptiste
Pigalle and Claude Michel. Leading 19th-century sculptors were François Rude,
Antoine Louis Barye, and Jean Baptiste Carpeaux. The most important 19th-century
sculptor, however, was Auguste Rodin. In the early 20th century Romanian-born
Constantin Brancusi and Italian-born Amedeo Modigliani both worked in Paris.
Noted artists Marcel Duchamp and Jean Arp also sculpted in Paris in the 20th
century.
France is renowned for its great Gothic
churches, built from the 12th to 15th century. Particularly significant are the
abbey church at Saint-Denis, the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, and the cathedrals at
Amiens, Chartres, Paris, and Reims. Splendid Renaissance structures include the
palace at Fontainebleau and the famous châteaux of the Loire River valley. The
outstanding baroque buildings in France are the neoclassicized enlargements of
the enormous royal palace at Versailles and the Louvre, in Paris. Among the
outstanding structures of the 19th century are the Second Empire Paris Opéra
(1861-1875) of Charles Garnier and the wrought-iron Eiffel Tower (1889), the
symbol of Paris. The pioneering 20th-century architect Auguste Perret and the
influential Le Corbusier (a Swiss living in Paris) were noted for designing
daring structures, mainly of concrete and steel.
C | Music |
France has a long and distinguished
musical tradition. From the 11th to the 13th century, chansons de geste
(“song of deeds”), epic poems sung by minstrels, were produced in northern
France, and the troubadours, aristocratic poet-musicians who composed famous
songs that dealt chiefly with courtly love, war, and nature, were active in
southern France.
The most influential French composer of
the 14th century was Guillaume de Machaut, who contributed to the polyphonic
form of composition. In the 15th and 16th centuries, songs, motets, and settings
of parts of the Mass were among the leading French musical compositions.
In the second half of the 17th century,
the Italian-born composer Jean Baptiste Lully created a French operatic style by
combining traditional court spectacle with plots of contemporary French dramas,
set to musical forms from ballet, dance, and Italian opera. In the early 18th
century noted works for harpsichord were composed by François Couperin and Jean
Philippe Rameau; the latter is also known for his operas.
In the late 18th and 19th centuries,
many foreign-born opera composers were active in Paris; these included Christoph
Willibald Gluck, Luigi Cherubini, A.E.M. Grétry, Giacomo Meyerbeer, and Jacques
Offenbach. French-born opera composers of the 19th century included Jacques
Halévy, Charles Gounod, Georges Bizet, and Jules Massenet.
The chief French composer of orchestral
music in the early 19th century was Hector Berlioz. Camille Saint-Saëns became
active in the 1850s, and he later taught Gabriel Fauré, who composed in a wide
variety of forms. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries Claude Debussy
composed noted works in new styles influenced by trends in literature and
painting.
In the early 20th century Maurice Ravel
produced works with more formal outlines. Les Six, a group of neoclassic
composers formed in 1918 and 1919, included Erik Satie, Darius Milhaud, Francis
Poulenc, and Georges Auric. The influential Russian-born composer Igor
Stravinsky worked in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. More recent French composers
include Oliver Messiaen and Pierre Boulez.
D | Libraries and Museums |
Most provincial cities in France have
municipal libraries and museums. The largest concentration of such facilities
is, however, in Paris. Major libraries in Paris include the Bibliothèque
Nationale, with more than 9 million books, and the libraries of the Universities
of Paris. The Louvre, also in Paris, contains one of the largest and most
important art collections in the world. Other Parisian museums of note include
the Musée Nationale d’Art Moderne in the Centre National d’Art et de Culture
Georges Pompidou (see Pompidou Center); the Musée d’Orsay; and the Musée
Picasso with its collection of works by Pablo Picasso. Many of the great
masterpieces of French architecture, such as churches, cathedrals, castles, and
châteaux, are maintained as national monuments.
V | ECONOMY |
A | Overview |
Until the early 20th century, France was
still largely a nation of small farms and family-owned businesses. After World
War II (1939-1945) the French government nationalized numerous business
enterprises—especially in energy, finance, and manufacturing—and it introduced a
series of development plans intended to modernize the economy. These reforms,
along with European economic integration, helped secure a period of sustained
economic growth in the quarter century following the war. Today, France is one
of the world’s leading economic powers. A member of the Group of Eight forum of
highly industrialized nations and of the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD), France is home to the world’s fifth largest economy,
behind the United States, Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom. It is also the
leading agricultural producer in western Europe. In 2006 France’s gross domestic
product (GDP) was $2.25 trillion, and per capita income was $36,699.60.
The postwar economic integration of western
Europe had a powerful influence on the French economy. France was a charter
member of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), a cooperative
organization founded in 1951 to establish a free-trade area for coal and steel
products. This organization merged with the European Economic Community (EEC)
and the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC) in 1967 to form the European
Community (EC).
Today, France is a member of the European
Union (EU), a successor of the EC that promotes economic and political
cooperation among European nations. European Union members share a common
economic area composed of some 400 million consumers. The creation of a single
market required France and other EU members to remove national barriers to the
free movement of goods, services, capital, and people. French businesses long
protected by trade barriers have been forced to become more competitive to
withstand foreign challengers and to take advantage of new opportunities. In
many sectors of the economy, the single market has spurred businesses to
restructure and modernize their operations. France, like many other EU members,
uses the euro, the EU’s common currency.
Successive French governments have
encouraged varying levels of intervention in the economy, including state
ownership and control of key industries. In 1982 the Socialist-led government of
president François Mitterrand initiated a program of extensive nationalization.
At the peak of this program, 13 of the 20 largest firms in France were owned by
the state. The election of a center-right parliamentary majority in 1986,
however, led to a reduction of state ownership. During the 1990s and early
2000s, the government continued the process of privatization, selling off a
variety of state-owned enterprises and reducing its holdings in others. Despite
these measures, the public sector as a share of GDP remains higher in France
than in any other country to adopt the euro. In addition, France’s progress in
opening its domestic markets to foreign competition as required by the EU,
especially in the energy sector, has been slow, inviting criticism and legal
challenges from the EU.
France faces several pressing economic
problems in the early 21st century. One is the nation’s persistently high
unemployment rate. By the mid-1970s, as the postwar economic boom slowed, the
unemployment rate began to rise steadily, surpassing 10 percent in 1985. From
1991 to 1999 the unemployment rate never fell below 10 percent. The unemployment
rate stood at 9.9 percent in 2004. Efforts to lower unemployment, including
government legislation implemented in 2000 to reduce the official working week
from 39 hours to 35 hours, had limited success. As a result, in 2004 the
government announced plans to ease the rules to give employers and employees
more flexibility. The lack of vigorous economic growth has also made it more
difficult for France to maintain the traditionally generous social welfare
benefits available to the country’s citizens. Reforming the welfare state in a
socially equitable manner remains a major challenge for France in the decades
ahead.
B | The Government’s Role in the Economy |
The principle of a mixed economy, in which
both government and private businesses exercise influence over various sectors
of the economy has long been accepted in France. The efforts of French public
officials to shape the economy are often traced back to 17th-century statesman
Jean-Baptiste Colbert. Under Colbert, an economic adviser to Louis XIV, king of
France, the French state centralized control over key industries and regulated
international trade. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, government
intervention in the economy declined. This trend changed after World War II,
when vigorous government planning played a major role in France’s postwar
economic revival. Bold national plans were approved to promote economic growth
and reconstruction of war-damaged industries, communications networks, and other
infrastructure.
After World War II the French state
acquired a number of businesses, created others from scratch, and adjusted the
overall mix of enterprises it owned. Legislation creating a nationalized
railroad system was passed in 1937. Soon after the war ended, air
transportation, major banks, and coal mines came under government control. In
addition, the government became a major shareholder in the automotive,
electronics, and aircraft and air transportation industries, as well as the
primary investor in the development of oil and natural gas reserves. From 1946
until 1981, the public sector changed little in scope. Following the Socialist
Party’s victory in 1981, however, state ownership and control expanded
dramatically. By 1983, about 9 percent of the labor force worked in enterprises
controlled by the state. In 1986 the new center-right government launched a
privatization program. From 1986 to 1988 almost 500,000 people, or about 2
percent of the labor force, ceased to work in publicly owned enterprises, due
mostly to privatization. Since then, the government has gradually reduced its
holdings in most economic sectors, including telecommunications, air
transportation, finance, and insurance.
The first national economic plan was
developed in 1947, under the leadership of French statesman Jean Monnet. An
economic planning agency was authorized to develop a new plan every four or five
years. The agency convened a series of commissions, each composed of
representatives of government, business, and labor, to study the economy and to
discuss ways to achieve growth and production targets. During the early years of
planning, ambitious growth goals were often exceeded. From the mid-1970s to the
early 1980s, however, planning appeared to lose much of its effectiveness as
slow growth, rising unemployment, and inflation became persistent economic
problems. French economic planners found it increasingly difficult to forecast
economic trends as the French economy became more complex and more open to
international influences. Today, national economic planning is no longer a
highly visible feature of French economic policy.
The French government uses various tools to
promote economic growth and stability. Until recently, these included fiscal and
monetary policies, which involve the government’s powers to tax and spend and to
control the supply of money. Fiscal policies generally seek to encourage
economic expansion when economic growth is lagging or unemployment is high. They
also try to encourage economic contraction when demand for goods and services is
high enough to generate inflation (see Inflation and Deflation). Fiscal
policies to promote economic expansion include cutting taxes and increasing
government spending. These policies aim to stimulate demand by giving
individuals and businesses more money to spend. Since the mid-1970s, the French
government has generally pursued expansionary fiscal policies, and government
expenditures have consistently exceeded government revenues. Under the terms of
Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) established by the European Union (EU), France
and other participating EU members pledged to restrain their use of fiscal
policies to keep their budget deficits below 3 percent of GDP. However, France
failed to meet the 3 percent limit in 2002, 2003, and 2004. In 2003 France
received a formal warning from the EU’s European Commission to restrain
government spending. EMU participants are not permitted to use monetary
policies—efforts to adjust the supply and demand for money—to fine-tune their
economies. Since 1999 the supranational European Central Bank (ECB) has set
monetary policy for all EMU participants.
Government revenue in France comes from a
variety of sources. The most important sources include social security
contributions; the value-added tax (VAT, a national sales tax); a special tax on
income, instituted in 1991 and earmarked to finance the social security system;
and the personal income tax. In general, France tends to rely on indirect taxes,
such as the VAT, rather than direct taxes, such as the personal income tax.
France was the first country to implement the VAT, the primary indirect tax used
today throughout Europe. A wealth tax is levied on household assets that exceed
732,000 euros. France is the fourth most heavily taxed nation in the EU, after
Sweden, Denmark, and Belgium.
Public expenditure accounts for a large
percentage of GDP in France—generally more than 40 percent. Principal government
expenditures include social security; compensation of government employees;
interest payments on the national debt; investment in tangible assets, such as
infrastructure and military hardware; payment of pensions; and payments to the
EU. The regional and local governments generate tax revenue themselves, but they
also rely heavily on transfers from the national government. Regional and local
governments maintain the roads, oversee public assistance, and share
responsibility for the educational system.
C | The European Union’s Role in the Economy |
France is a charter member of the European
Union (EU), which was created in 1993 with the ratification of the Maastricht
Treaty. Many economic policy decisions that were once made at the national level
are now made at the EU level, including decisions regarding agricultural policy,
commercial policy, competition policy, and monetary policy.
Under provisions established in the
Maastricht Treaty, France is among a group of EMU members that have adopted a
single, multinational currency, the euro. The euro entered into use in 1999 for
electronic transfers and accounting purposes. On January 1, 2002,
euro-denominated coins and banknotes went into circulation. National currencies
such as the French franc were rapidly withdrawn from circulation in all
EMU countries and replaced by the euro. The ECB was founded to manage the
transition to the euro; since 1999 the ECB has set monetary policy for states
participating in the single currency. National central banks, such as the Banque
de France, are expected to execute the instructions of the ECB.
D | Labor |
The total French labor force in 2006 was
27.3 million people. The structure of employment has changed significantly in
recent decades. In the 1950s the majority of French workers were employed in
industry and agriculture. Industry accounted for 24.6 percent of total
employment in 2004, while the share for agriculture, forestry, and fishing was
down to 4 percent. In contrast, employment in the service sector has grown
steadily since World War II; 71 percent of the French work force was employed in
this sector in 2004. Job growth has been especially strong in business services,
household services, education, health and welfare, and public administration.
White-collar occupations are gradually replacing their blue-collar
counterparts.
The average number of hours worked
annually per worker has declined markedly since the early 1980s. This decline
was especially significant in the automobile industry, in the electrical and
electronic equipment industries, and in the hotel and restaurant industry. Some
of the decline reflects legislated changes. In 1982 the government reduced the
official workweek from 40 to 39 hours and extended the minimum annual paid
vacation from four weeks to five weeks. In 1998 the National Assembly adopted
legislation reducing the official working week from 39 to 35 hours. The rules
took effect in January 2000 for companies with more than 20 employees and in
2002 for smaller companies. However, in 2004 the government—citing concerns that
the mandatory 35-hour work week inhibited flexibility and increased employer
costs—announced plans to ease the rules, despite strong objections from French
trade unions.
Unemployment rates in France were
stubbornly high during the 1990s, averaging 11.5 percent for the years 1992
through 1998. Unemployment fell slightly at the end of the decade following
several years of steady economic growth, but it continues to remain chronically
high. Unemployment rates are highest among young people and women.
France has a relatively low rate of trade
union membership compared to most other industrialized nations in Europe, a
trend reinforced by the declining number of blue-collar jobs. In 1980, 18
percent of French workers belonged to labor unions; by the early 2000s that
number had declined to about 8 percent. Yet French trade unions retain
significant power. They help manage the nation’s welfare system and negotiate
nationwide agreements on wages and working conditions. French trade unions have
maintained their presence in important public utilities, including railways,
subways, telecommunications, and electricity. As a result, trade unions are
often well placed to disrupt the economy through labor strikes.
The largest trade unions in France are
industrial unions (associations that seek to organize all workers in an
industry) rather than craft unions (associations that seek to organize
skilled workers in particular crafts). The principal industrial unions include
Force Ouvrière (FO); the Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail (CFDT);
the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), a communist-led union; and the
Confédération Française des Travailleurs Chrétiens (CFTC), a Roman
Catholic-oriented union. Most French unions profess hostility toward capitalism.
They prefer to lobby government officials for legally mandated reforms rather
than to bargain with business enterprises for voluntary changes.
E | Economic Sectors |
The French economy changed dramatically
during the second half of the 20th century. In the early 1950s industry and
services had emerged as the leading economic sectors, but agriculture, forestry,
and fishing still accounted for more than one quarter of all jobs. Modernization
of agriculture in the decades following World War II reduced employment in that
sector while leading to large gains in agricultural production. Agriculture now
employs a small percentage of the nation’s labor force, even though France
remains the most important agricultural nation in western Europe. In 1950
industry and services each accounted for slightly more than one-third of all
economic activity in France. Today, services—including banking, retailing, and
tourism—account for more than two-thirds of all economic activity. In 2006
services contributed 77.2 percent of the GDP; industry contributed 20.8 percent
of the GDP; and agriculture, forestry, and fishing contributed 2 percent of the
GDP.
E1 | Agriculture |
France is one of the world’s leading
agricultural nations. France has more surface area devoted to agriculture than
any other nation in western Europe—19.6 million hectares (48.5 million acres) in
2005, or 35.7 percent of France’s total land area. Within the European Union
(EU), France is the largest exporter of agricultural products; in world markets,
France is second only to the United States. Important farm commodities in France
include dairy products, wine, beef, veal, wheat, oilseeds, and fresh fruits and
vegetables.
The large volume and diversity of
agricultural products in France is made possible, in part, by favorable natural
conditions. France is endowed with extensive tracts of fertile soils, a
generally moderate climate, ample rainfall in most regions, and an extended
growing season. Regional variations in soil, topography, temperature, and
climate permit farmers to produce a wide variety of crops and agricultural
products. For example, the cooler and wetter northwest region provides plentiful
grasslands for the grazing of cattle and sheep, while the warm, dry
Mediterranean region offers a good environment for growing many kinds of
grapes.
Agriculture in France has changed
considerably since World War II. In 1954 the agricultural sector, which includes
forestry and fishing, employed 5 million people; by 2003 only 900,000 people
worked in the sector. During the same period agricultural output grew
dramatically. Great changes in farming techniques contributed to this growth in
production, including the rapid modernization of French agriculture. Many
farmers have come to rely heavily on machines; irrigation is now widespread; and
the use of fertilizers, pesticides, and other chemical products has risen
dramatically. In addition to modern production techniques, the size of the
average farm has nearly tripled in recent decades, from 15 hectares (37 acres)
in 1955 to 42 hectares (104 acres) by 2001. These changes have driven
ever-increasing yields, productivity, and efficiency.
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP),
provided for in the 1957 treaty that created the European Economic Community
(EEC), had an enormous impact on French agriculture. The CAP created a system of
common prices for agricultural products across the EEC and, later, its successor
organizations, the EC and the EU. The CAP stimulated agricultural production and
improved the incomes of many French farmers. As the foremost agricultural
producer in western Europe, France is the largest recipient of CAP funds.
The most important crops in France are
cereal grains. France is the EU’s largest producer and exporter of cereals.
These cereal crops, especially wheat, corn, and barley, are planted on roughly
half of France’s commercial farmland. The bulk of cereal crop production occurs
in the low fertile plains of the Paris Basin, a vast region in north central
France that comprises the nation’s traditional breadbasket. Sugar beets and oil
seeds, mainly rape seed and sunflower seed, are also grown extensively in the
Paris Basin.
Production of dairy products, including
France’s world-renowned cheeses such as brie, Camembert, and blue cheese, is
concentrated in the northwest and along the eastern border. Beef cattle are
raised mainly in eastern Brittany and the Massif Central. Quality wines are
produced more broadly, in Burgundy, around the city of Bordeaux, in the Rhône
Valley, in Champagne, and along the Loire River. An extensive assortment of
fruits and vegetables is cultivated in the warm Mediterranean region.
E2 | Forestry |
Dense forests once covered much of
France. By the early 19th century, much of the original forest cover had been
cleared for farmland, fuel, and building materials. The extent of tree cover has
increased significantly since then, due in part to active reforestation
programs. In 2005 forests covered 15.6 million hectares (38.4 million acres) of
metropolitan France, 28.2 percent of its territory. France is the third most
forested nation in the European Union (EU), behind Sweden and Finland.
Forest cover is densest in the eastern,
southern, and southwestern portions of France. About two-thirds of the forests
are made up of deciduous hardwoods, including oak, beech, and chestnut. Softwood
species, primarily pine, spruce, and fir, comprise less than one-third of forest
stands; most softwood stands are found in mountain regions. About three-quarters
of the forests are privately owned; the rest are state-owned.
French wood production in 2006 totaled
65.6 million cu m (2.32 billion cu ft). About 60 percent of the harvested wood
is used in the construction industry, 30 percent is used for pulp and paper, and
10 percent is used for firewood.
E3 | Fishing |
France has an extensive coastline, and
commercial fishing has long been an important industry in coastal regions.
French fishing vessels operate widely, plying coastal waters, the fish-rich
North Sea, or the North Atlantic waters of Iceland and the northeastern coast of
North America.
The leading commercial fishing ports in
France are on the Atlantic coast and include Boulogne-sur-Mer, Lorient,
Concarneau, and La Rochelle. Some of the principal fish caught are tuna,
pollock, pilchard (sardines), hake, mackerel, and whiting. The commercial
cultivation of shellfish, including oysters, clams, and mussels, occurs along
the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. France also has an extensive freshwater
fishery.
E4 | Mining |
France has significant deposits of
several minerals important to industry, such as iron ore, bauxite, and uranium.
France is the second largest producer of iron ore in western Europe, behind
Sweden. The nation’s iron districts, centered in the Lorraine basin in the
northeast, once served as a major source of employment. Most iron ore mined in
France contains high levels of impurities, and domestic production has declined
in recent decades as the French steel industry has turned to purer ores imported
from abroad. Bauxite, or aluminum ore, is mined in substantial quantities,
mainly in the southeast. France is one of the world’s largest producers of
uranium, a fuel used in nuclear reactors. Uranium is mined at several sites in
central and western France.
France also has notable deposits of
coal. The coalfields of northern France remained productive into the 1950s and
1960s, but production plummeted as seams were exhausted and extraction costs
climbed. By 1990 coal production ceased in the northern region of
Nord-Pas-de-Calais, the traditional center of coal mining in France. Limited
coal mining continues in central and southern France. Today France imports more
coal than it produces domestically.
Other minerals mined in significant
quantities include potash salts, salt, gypsum, tungsten, and sulfur. Large
amounts of nickel are excavated in New Caledonia, a French territory in the
southwestern Pacific Ocean. French mines also produce small amounts of lead,
zinc, and silver. Small deposits of petroleum are located in the southwestern
Landes region, and nearby natural gas deposits have been tapped since the 1950s.
Quarrying for construction materials such as sand, gravel, stone, and clay
occurs throughout France.
E5 | Manufacturing |
France is one of the world’s leading
industrial producers. Manufacturing in France is highly diversified and serves
as the nation’s primary source of export income. Leading manufacturing sectors
include food products; automobiles, aircraft, ships, and trains; electrical
machinery; mechanical equipment and machine tools; metallurgy; chemicals and
pharmaceuticals; and textiles and clothing.
During the 17th century the French state
promoted mercantilism—manufacturing and trade policies designed to develop the
economy and swell the national treasury with gold bullion. These policies,
established before the age of industrialization, included state support for
high-quality manufactured goods—silk, tapestries, metalwork, porcelain (see
Enamel), and other luxury items. France earned a world reputation for
producing luxury goods.
The Industrial Revolution, which
originated in Britain in the 18th century, influenced industrialization in
France. By the 19th century iron and steel manufacturing, shipbuilding, and
textiles had become important industries. Industrial cities, including Lille,
Lyon, and Mulhouse, grew rapidly. Despite these changes, France remained
overwhelmingly an agricultural nation of small towns and villages at the end of
the 19th century. Industrialization in France was gradual, prolonged, and
steady, rather than swift and spectacular.
Before World War II, France’s
manufacturing sector consisted mostly of small, family-owned firms, many of
which were geared to produce low volumes of finely crafted goods. Manufacturing
grew dramatically after the war and was the major force behind France’s postwar
economic recovery. By the mid-20th century manufacturing had emerged as the most
important sector of the French economy. France became a leading producer of
automobiles, steel, electrical equipment, and chemicals and earned a reputation
for technological innovation.
During the 1960s the French government
encouraged mergers among many domestic manufacturing firms to promote efficiency
and to enhance the sector’s international competitiveness. This policy helped
create a number of large enterprises that dominated their industries
domestically. By the mid-1970s, however, manufacturing output and employment
began to decline as chronic recession took hold, foreign competition
intensified, and the economy shifted toward service-based industries.
Today, food processing is France’s
largest manufacturing sector in terms of employment. France is the world’s
largest producer of sugar beets; the second largest producer of wine, behind
Italy; and the second largest producer of cheese, behind the United States.
Other well-known French foods include meats, breads, and confectionaries.
France ranks fourth in the world in
automobile production and second in the European Union (EU), behind Germany. The
two major auto-manufacturing firms are Renault and Peugeot, which acquired
automaker Citroën in 1974. The French automobile industry was once located
mainly in the Paris metropolitan region, but there are now major facilities in
Alsace-Lorraine in the northeast and in the western Paris Basin.
French firms are internationally known
for technological innovation in aerospace, defense, transportation, and other
specialized industries. French passenger trains and railroad equipment are sold
domestically and abroad, and the French-made TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse)
is among the world’s fastest passenger trains. France produces advanced
commercial and military aircraft, as well as many kinds of military hardware.
France is also a world leader in nuclear energy technology. A large electronics
industry in France produces telecommunications equipment, computers,
televisions, radios, and other items. French mechanical equipment and machine
tools are sold throughout the world.
The manufacture of iron and steel
(See also Iron and Steel Manufacture) remains an important source of
employment in France, although producers are increasingly turning to imported
iron ore. France is also home to a large aluminum industry. The French chemical
industry produces a diverse range of products, including industrial chemicals,
plastics, fertilizers, solvents, beauty products, and pharmaceuticals. The
textile and apparel industries, long famous for cotton, silk, and woolen goods,
remain important. However, production has declined dramatically since World War
II due to intensified foreign competition.
E6 | Services |
The production of services in France
grew dramatically after World War II. In 1945 the majority of French workers
were employed in agriculture or industry; by 1998 the service sector employed 68
percent of all French workers. The service sector covers a broad range of
economic activities, including wholesale and retail trade, transportation, mail
and telecommunications, finance and insurance, real estate, business services,
hotel and restaurant trades, health, education, welfare, and public
administration. Service industries are concentrated in urban areas, especially
the Paris region.
The growth of the service sector has
transformed urban landscapes in France. New office complexes and shopping malls
have proliferated in large cities, and many of the small, traditional retail
shops for which France is famous have disappeared. One prominent example of this
new urban architecture is La Défense, an area of high-rise buildings located
just west of Paris. Begun in the late 1950s, La Défense contains the offices of
many multinational corporations and is one of the largest shopping centers in
France. Similar complexes have altered the central business districts of other
major cities, including Lyon and Lille.
E6a | Wholesale and Retail Trade |
Large wholesale and retail outlets
have come to play a major role in French commerce. Although French department
stores were already famous in the 19th century, French households tended until
recently to purchase most of their goods from small, specialized, family-owned
shops or in open-air markets. France’s first supermarket, a large retail food
store, was opened in France in 1957. France’s first hypermarket, an even larger
retail store, was opened in 1963. Since then, chains of supermarkets,
hypermarkets, and large-scale home-appliance and home-improvement stores have
spread across the country.
E6b | Currency and Banking |
The monetary unit of France is the
single currency of the European Union (EU), the euro (0.80 euros equal
U.S. $1; 2006 average). France is among 12 EU member nations to adopt the single
currency under Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The euro was introduced on
January 1, 1999, for electronic transfers and accounting purposes only, and
France’s national currency, the franc, was used for other
purposes. Euro-denominated coins and bills entered circulation on January 1,
2002, and replaced the French national currency.
France has a large, well-developed
financial system. Banking, finance, insurance, real estate and other business
services accounted for nearly 30 percent of France’s GDP in 1998. France’s major
banks are among the largest in the world. They include Banque Nationale de Paris
(BNP), Crédit Agricole, Crédit Lyonnais, and Société Générale. The French
insurance sector is the world’s fifth largest. In the late 1990s a wave of
mergers, corporate restructuring, foreign investment, and continued
privatization encouraged unprecedented consolidation in the banking and
insurance sectors.
The French government has long taken a
strong hand in regulating the nation’s financial system. In 1945 the four
largest commercial banks were nationalized. Virtually all other commercial
banks, and several major investment banks, were nationalized in 1982, giving the
government control of more than 90 percent of all bank deposits. In 1987 the
government began to privatize its banks, a process that continued into the early
2000s. In 1993 the Banque de France, the French central bank, gained greater
autonomy from the government, a requirement of membership in the EU; the bank
plays an important role in supervising and regulating the French banking sector.
In 1998 EU member countries
established the European Central Bank (ECB), which is located in Frankfurt,
Germany, and is responsible for all monetary policies of the EU. In January 1999
control over French monetary policy, including setting interest rates and
regulating the money supply, was transferred from the Banque de France to the
ECB. After the changeover, the Banque de France joined the national banks of the
other EU countries that adopted the euro as part of the European System of
Central Banks (ESCB).
Most stocks in France are traded on
the Paris Stock Exchange (Paris Bourse). Smaller exchanges exist in other
large cities, including Lyon, Lille, Bordeaux, and Marseille. The stock market
in France remains relatively small compared to other wealthy industrialized
countries. Traditionally, the French stock market played a minor role in
financing private investment, a function dominated by the nation’s banks. This
began to change in recent decades as investment in the stock market increased.
By the late 1990s financial securities accounted for nearly 50 percent of
household financial assets. Today more than 1,000 mutual funds and hundreds of
corporations are quoted on the Paris Stock Exchange. In 1999 the Paris Stock
Exchange agreed to participate in a single electronic trading platform that
includes the other major stock exchanges in Europe.
E6c | Foreign Trade |
France is one of the world’s great
trading nations, and its foreign commerce includes a wide variety of goods and
services. France imports a significant portion of its energy supplies as well as
industrial minerals; machinery; transportation equipment, primarily road
vehicles; and consumer goods. Leading exports of France include electrical and
specialized machinery, passenger vehicles, aircraft, power-generating equipment,
iron and steel, cereal grains, office machines and data-processing equipment,
alcoholic beverages, organic chemicals, and textiles. For much of the period
following World War II, France imported more goods than it exported. During the
1990s the value of French exports began to exceed the value of imports, giving
France a positive balance of trade.
France is a member of the European
Union (EU); about three-fifths of its foreign trade is with other EU member
nations, especially Belgium, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, the
United Kingdom, and Spain. The United States and Japan are also important
trading partners. France plays a leading role in the foreign commerce of some of
its former overseas possessions, including Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Côte
d’Ivoire.
The leading ports in France include
Marseille, located on the Mediterranean coast, and the ports of Le Havre, Rouen,
and Dunkerque on the Atlantic coast. Marseille, which is served by extensive
rail and air transport facilities, is the port of entry for much of the oil and
natural gas imported into France. Le Havre, located at the mouth of the Seine
River on the English Channel, has extensive transatlantic and transchannel
shipping facilities.
France is a charter member of many
international economic organizations, including the International Monetary Fund
(IMF, joined in 1946), the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
(World Bank, 1946), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT, 1948),
which became the World Trade Organization (WTO, 1994), and the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 1961). In addition, France is a
member of the European Union, established in 1993 after the signing of the
Maastricht Treaty. Prior to 1993, France was a founding member of the EU’s
precursor organizations, including the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC),
the European Economic Community (EEC), and the European Community (EC).
E6d | Tourism |
An attractive and varied landscape, a
rich set of cultural resources, and a world-renowned collection of foods and
wines make France a major tourist destination. In 2006 France had 79.1 million
visitors, more than any other nation in the world. Tourism is a leading industry
in France. The French themselves travel widely in their own country, an activity
encouraged by the mandatory five-week paid vacation received annually by most
workers.
The most popular tourist destination
in France is Paris, one of the most visited cities in the world. The city’s
attractions are many, from its colorful neighborhoods, sidewalk cafes, and
famous cuisine to its prestigious cultural institutions and world-renowned
architecture. Monumental landmarks in Paris include the Cathedral of Notre Dame,
the Louvre museum, the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, and the Georges
Pompidou Center. Other popular tourist destinations in France include the
Riviera on the Mediterranean coast, with its numerous hotels and waterfront
resorts, and the French Alps, which provide some of the world’s best skiing and
snowboarding.
F | Infrastructure |
France enjoys a modern and innovative
economic infrastructure. France is at the forefront of Europe’s nuclear energy
industry and is one of the world’s leading producers of nuclear fuels. In
transportation, France has a dense network of highways, railroads, and navigable
inland waterways. It was the first European country to develop high-speed
railway passenger service, and the rapid transit systems of most large cities,
especially Paris, are comfortable and convenient for passengers. In
telecommunications, France pioneered the Minitel, a forerunner of the
Internet.
F1 | Energy |
France is endowed with few natural
energy resources. Coal was the primary fuel of the Industrial Revolution, and
the modest coalfields of northern France provided much of the energy for
France’s early industrial expansion. With the rapid spread of the
internal-combustion engine in the 20th century, petroleum surpassed coal as a
primary energy source. With very little of its own petroleum reserves, France
had to import the vast majority of its petroleum supplies. By the early 1970s
France was importing about three-quarters of its energy, much of it
petroleum.
An oil crisis in 1973 demonstrated the
danger of France’s dependence on foreign oil, and the French government
undertook new initiatives to develop alternative energy sources. Much of this
effort centered on an ambitious program to generate electricity through nuclear
energy. France also diversified the types and sources of imported energy and
promoted energy conservation. These programs significantly reduced France’s
dependence on external energy sources. By 1998 slightly more than half the
energy used in France was produced domestically.
France generated 78 percent of its
electricity in nuclear power plants in 2003; only Lithuania is more dependent on
atomic power. France is the world’s second largest producer of nuclear
electricity, after the United States. Today there are 19 nuclear power
generation sites in France, as well as one of the world's largest uranium
enrichment plants (uranium is a fuel for nuclear reactors). The development of
nuclear power in France has raised relatively few popular protests. Not all
nuclear power projects have met with success, however. In southeastern France a
13-year-old fast-breeder reactor, a type of nuclear reactor that produces
nuclear fuels, was permanently closed in 1998. The plant, located near Grenoble,
was shut down following technical problems, safety concerns, and opposition from
environmental groups.
The remainder of France’s electricity
output is generated by hydroelectric facilities (see Waterpower) and by
thermal installations using coal, petroleum products, or natural gas. In 1966
France opened a tidal power plant on the Rance River in Brittany to harness the
tremendous power of the ocean tides. France produces more electricity than it
uses and is a major exporter of electricity to neighboring countries, including
the United Kingdom, Italy, and Switzerland.
Coal production and use in France
declined significantly in the late 20th century. Coal production peaked in 1958
at 58 million metric tons. By 2003, due in part to declining coal reserves and
rising extraction costs, France produced just 1.7 million metric tons. During
the same year France imported three-quarters of its coal supplies. Declining
coal production was accompanied by declining consumption, as industries and
households turned to other energy sources. By 1998 coal accounted for just 6.4
percent of the energy consumed in France.
Indigenous supplies of petroleum,
located in a series of wells in southwestern France and the Paris Basin, are
extremely limited. France is therefore a major importer of petroleum. In 1998
France imported 98 percent of the petroleum it consumed. Since the early 1970s
the importance of petroleum as an energy source has declined steadily, from 67
percent of all energy used in 1973 to 40 percent in 1998. The sources of
imported petroleum have also changed. In the 1970s France imported nearly
three-quarters its petroleum from the Middle East. Today, France supplements its
Middle East imports with large shipments of petroleum from the North Sea,
Africa, and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Major petroleum refineries
in France are located near Marseille, Le Havre, and Rouen.
Domestic reserves of natural gas are
also small. An important supply of natural gas was discovered in southwestern
France in 1951, but it is likely to be exhausted within the first two decades of
the 21st century. In 1998 France imported 94 percent of the natural gas it
consumed. Natural gas has become an increasingly important energy source.
F2 | Transportation |
France enjoys one of the most highly
developed transportation systems in the world. France has the densest road
network in Europe and an extensive network of railways and navigable waterways.
Its major airports are among the world’s busiest. Paris has long been at the
center of the French transportation system, with the nation’s chief land, water,
and air routes radiating from the capital. In recent decades major road
transportation projects have focused on bypassing Paris and improving
connections between large provincial cities.
France’s road network has grown
increasingly important since World War II: Today it carries three-quarters of
the nation’s freight and more than four-fifths of all passenger traffic. In 2004
France had 951,220 km (591,061 mi) of roads, including thousands of kilometers
of limited-access autoroutes, or superhighways. Compared to other countries in
western Europe, France was slow to develop its superhighway network. In 1960 the
network amounted to just 174 km (108 mi); by 1965, it had grown only to 650 km
(400 mi). Then, in 1970, the government began promoting motorway construction by
granting concessions to private enterprises, which financed their projects by
charging tolls. The superhighway network grew to 6,000 km (3,700 mi) in 1985 and
to 8,600 km (5,300 mi) by 1997.
Railway construction in France began in
the early 19th century; by the end of the century many of the main lines of the
nation’s railway network were in place. Most railway lines radiated out from
Paris, which served as the nation’s transportation hub. Legislation
nationalizing French railroads was passed in 1937. Independent railway companies
and the existing state-controlled railways joined together in the Société
Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français (French National Railways, or SNCF), with
the state owning a controlling share. The railway network reached its peak
length of 42,000 km (26,000 mi) in 1932. Railways declined sharply in importance
in the decades after World War II. Rail’s share of domestic freight traffic fell
from 62 percent in 1958 to 16 percent in 1997. Today, France has 29,000 km
(18,000 mi) of railroad track in use, two-fifths of which is electrified.
Rail passenger traffic remains important
in France. The development of the high-speed TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse)
has led to the construction of several new lines and increased the rate of rail
passenger traffic. TGV can travel at speeds up to 320 km/h (200 mph) on
specially built track, but the trains must travel much slower on conventional
track. The first TGV line, completed in 1981, linked Paris with Lyon. A second
line linked Paris with Nantes and Bordeaux and entered service in 1989. A third
line linked Paris with Lille and was completed in 1993. In 1994 freight and
passenger train service commenced through the English Channel Tunnel (nicknamed
the “Chunnel”), connecting Calais, France, and Dover, England. Today, high-speed
rail lines link Paris and other major French cities to many destinations outside
of France, including cities in England, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, and
Switzerland. TGV lines have proved so successful they have largely replaced
passenger air travel between connected cities. Using the TGV, passengers can
travel between Brussels and Paris in just 90 minutes.
France has 8,500 km (5,300 mi) of
navigable rivers and canals, the longest system in Europe. Many of the canals
linking navigable rivers were built in the 19th century, and few are suitable
for large vessels. Inland water transport of freight has declined in recent
decades as faster and less expensive alternatives have become available. By the
mid-1990s, inland waters accounted for just 2 percent of all freight traffic,
down from 10 percent in 1958.
France possesses a number of large
maritime ports, including Marseille and Le Havre, two of the largest ports in
Europe. Other major ports are Dunkerque, Calais, Nantes, Rouen, and Bordeaux.
Marseille, Le Havre, and Rouen serve as entry points for large amounts of
imported petroleum. Calais is the nation’s major passenger port, handling a
significant volume of English Channel traffic.
The principal international airports of
France are located near Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Strasbourg, and Toulouse.
The two major airports near Paris, Roissy-Charles de Gaulle and Orly, handled 64
million passengers in 1998, making Paris one of the world’s busiest cities for
air travel. Paris is also one of the leading airfreight centers in Europe. The
most important airline operating in France is Air France, a part of Air
France-KLM Group, the world’s largest airline group. Nationalized in 1933, Air
France was partially privatized in 1999, and in 2003 Air France merged with The
Netherlands-based KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) to form a new company called Air
France-KLM. The French government retained a minority ownership share in the Air
France subsidiary.
F3 | Communications |
France has a large and diverse
communications system. The French government plays an important role in the
provision of key communications services, including postal, telephone, and radio
and television services. The free press has a long history in France. Many
national and regional newspapers and magazines enjoy wide circulation and are
important sources of information for France’s population. Most are privately
owned and are not linked to political parties.
During most of the 20th century, mail,
telephone, and telegraph services were managed by the same public agency. In
1991 mail and telecommunications were separated from each other and given to
newly created, state-owned enterprises. Mail service was assigned to La Poste
and telecommunications to France Télécom.
La Poste is one of the largest mail
carriers within the European Union (EU), operating postal services in France, in
several of the nation’s overseas departments and territories, and in Andorra and
Monaco. In addition to delivering mail, La Poste offers retail banking and
courier services. These services, which include savings and checking accounts,
comprise an important part of La Poste’s revenues.
France enjoys a technologically advanced
telecommunications system. France introduced the Minitel, a forerunner of the
Internet, in the early 1980s. It consists of a video display terminal connected
to a telecommunications network (Teletel) and is offered to telephone
subscribers instead of a directory. The Minitel evolved over the years to offer
news, booking services for travel, and mail order and other services. By 1999
France Télécom had distributed an estimated 9 million Minitel terminals to
subscribers across France, most of them in private households. Minitel terminals
remain widely used in France as they permit online access to useful services
without the need for an Internet-linked personal computer. Today, Minitel
services are also available on the Internet.
France Télécom formerly held a monopoly
on telecommunications across France. During the 1990s France stepped up the
deregulation of its telecommunications sector in response to directives from the
European Union, and France Télécom was partially privatized in 1997. Today
France Télécom is pursuing expansion into other European markets, and its
subsidiaries provide Internet services, mobile telephone services, and other
telecommunications services.
Radio and television services are
provided by independent, publicly financed organizations, as well as by private
commercial operators. All television broadcasting is monitored by an independent
regulatory commission, the Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel (CSA). Until the
early 1980s French television consisted of three public broadcasting networks.
The system was largely financed by an annual tax levied on owners of television
sets. The creation of private television was authorized in 1984, and TF1—one of
the state’s three broadcast networks—was privatized in 1987. Today, there are
more than 100 broadcasters of televised programs, including free broadcasting
networks, pay broadcasting networks, cable operators, and satellite channels.
Major radio stations include the public radio networks Radio France and Radio
France Internationale and the commercial stations Europe 1, RTL, and NRJ.
The press in France is well established
and free from government control and censorship. Newspapers reflect a wide range
of political viewpoints. Eight daily newspapers had a circulation of 300,000 or
more, including four in Paris. The major Paris dailies are Le Figaro,
Le Parisien, L’Equipe, Le Monde, and France-Soir.
The major provincial dailies are Ouest-France in Rennes, Le Dauphiné
Libéré in Grenoble, Sud-Ouest in Bordeaux, and La Voix du Nord
in Lille. The country’s leading periodicals include Sélection du Reader’s
Digest, Modes et Travaux, Nous Deux, L’Express,
Paris-Match, and Marie-Claire. The leading arts magazine is Art
et Décoration and the main business periodical is L’Expansion.
William James Adams contributed the
Economy section of this article.
VI | GOVERNMENT |
A | Overview |
France is a presidential republic with a
centralized national government. France’s current system of government, known as
the Fifth Republic, is based on a constitution that was adopted by popular
referendum in 1958. This constitution significantly enlarged presidential powers
and curtailed the authority of parliament. The president, elected by direct
popular vote, is head of state. This official appoints the prime minister, who
is head of government. The French parliament consists of two chambers: the
National Assembly and the Senate. The National Assembly is more powerful than
the Senate, although both chambers share legislative authority. The
Constitutional Council, established by the 1958 constitution, has authority to
supervise elections and referenda and to decide constitutional questions.
Until the French Revolution of 1789,
France was a monarchy, governed by famous kings such as Henry IV and Louis XIV.
The revolution abolished the monarchy but failed to establish a durable
democracy. Power fell to Napoleon Bonaparte, and he eventually created an
empire. Upon Bonaparte’s military defeat in 1815, the countries arrayed against
him restored the French monarchy. The revolution of 1848 abolished the monarchy
once again, and in 1852 Napoleon III, the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte,
established a new empire. This regime crumbled in 1870 when Napoleon III was
taken prisoner by Germany during the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871).
Democracy returned to France under the
Third Republic, a system of government formally established by the constitution
of 1875. A president, elected by a two-chambered parliament, replaced the
emperor, and a cabinet responsible to the parliament exercised legislative
powers. Governing during the Third Republic often proved challenging:
Parliamentary coalitions shifted continually between elections, and cabinets
fell frequently. The Third Republic survived until 1940, when German troops
occupied France during World War II and an authoritarian collaborationist regime
was established at Vichy.
In 1946, after the war ended, French
voters approved the constitution of the Fourth Republic. The new constitution
included several revisions intended to ensure a stable government, but it did
not resolve the nation’s recurrent cabinet crises. France had 26 different
governments during the Fourth Republic’s 12-year existence. In 1958 an
insurrection in Algeria, then under French control, created fear of a coup
d'état in France itself. General Charles de Gaulle, a French resistance leader
during World War II, was invited to form a new government and draft a new
constitution. De Gaulle favored a presidential system with a strong, stable
executive at the center of power. His constitution was overwhelmingly approved
by popular referendum and established the legal basis of the Fifth Republic. De
Gaulle took office as the first president of the Fifth Republic.
B | The Constitution |
The constitution of the Fifth Republic
took effect on October 4, 1958. It created a hybrid form of republican
government based on elements of both presidential and parliamentary systems. The
constitution trimmed the authority of parliament and vested the president with
crucial powers, including the right to dissolve the National Assembly and to
choose the prime minister. Yet the prime minister retained significant authority
as head of the Council of Ministers (commonly called the government) and leader
of the majority party or coalition of parties in the National Assembly.
According to the constitution, national
sovereignty belongs to the people. Under the principle of universal suffrage,
the constitution gives the people the right to exercise their political will in
periodic elections and referenda. All French citizens who have reached the age
of voting eligibility, and who have not been deprived of their civil rights, are
entitled to vote. Citizens can be deprived of civil rights temporarily, or
permanently, if they are convicted of certain crimes. Women gained the right to
vote in 1944. The Fifth Republic’s age of voting eligibility, initially set at
21, was lowered to 18 in 1974.
As a requirement of its membership in the
European Union (EU), the French parliament approved a constitutional amendment
allowing citizens of EU member countries who are residents in France to vote in
elections for seats on France’s municipal councils. The same group may also vote
to fill France’s seats in the European Parliament, the representative assembly
of the EU. Citizens of any EU country can be elected to a French municipal
council or to a French seat in the European Parliament, but they may not serve
as mayors or as assistant mayors.
Constitutional amendments may be proposed
by the president, at the request of the government, or by the members of
parliament. Amendments are adopted after they win approval by both chambers of
parliament and by a subsequent popular referendum, or merely by approval of
three-fifths of parliament.
C | The Executive |
The constitution gives executive
authority to both the president and prime minister. The former is head of state;
the latter, as leader of the Council of Ministers, is head of government. Under
Charles de Gaulle’s leadership, the powers of the presidency completely
overshadowed those of the government. The system forged by de Gaulle remains
largely in place, although the government has gradually gained responsibility
for a range of national policies, especially in the domestic sphere. Under a
precedent set by de Gaulle, all presidents since 1958 have taken primary
responsibility for foreign policy and for national defense.
The president of France is the official
head of state and commander in chief of the armed forces. The president appoints
the prime minister and Council of Ministers and presides over council meetings.
One of the president’s most important powers is the right to dissolve the
National Assembly and call new legislative elections. Article 16 of the
constitution permits the president to assume special emergency powers during a
national crisis. In doing so the president must consult the Constitutional
Council and may not dissolve the National Assembly or prevent it from meeting.
The president is also authorized to take certain policy matters to the people in
national referenda, such as the referendum authorizing ratification of the 1992
Maastricht Treaty, also known as the Treaty on European Union.
The president is elected by direct
popular vote for a term of five years. The president’s term of office was
originally seven years, as established in the 1958 constitution, but voters
approved a referendum in September 2000 to reduce the term of office to five
years. The shorter term took effect with the presidential election in 2002. The
constitutional revision was the most significant since 1962, when a referendum
backed by de Gaulle established direct election of the president by popular
vote. (Before 1962, presidents were elected by an electoral college of
government bodies.) There is no limit to the number of terms a president can
serve.
In general, the president works with the
government to define policy goals and seeks to achieve these goals with the help
of a parliamentary majority. The government is primarily responsible to
parliament, which can check the actions of the government in several ways.
Members of parliament can submit written and oral questions to the government
and organize investigative committees. When the National Assembly adopts a
motion of censure, or when the assembly refuses to approve the prime minister’s
program, the prime minister must tender the government’s resignation to the
president.
Presidential power is tied to the
president’s support in the parliament. When the president has the strong support
of a parliamentary majority, the prime minister tends to serve as a deputy of
the president. When the president’s party is in the parliamentary minority,
however, the president still appoints a prime minister from a party in the
majority coalition. In this power-sharing arrangement, known as
cohabitation, the prime minister and president may disagree about policy
goals and work to limit each other’s influence. The first episode of
cohabitation occurred from 1986 to 1988 under Socialist president François
Mitterrand, after the Socialist Party lost its majority in the National
Assembly. In 1997 President Jacques Chirac lost his conservative majority in the
National Assembly, leading to a period of cohabitation with Socialist prime
minister Lionel Jospin.
D | The Legislature |
The French parliament is divided into two
houses, the National Assembly and the Senate. As the legislative branch of
government, parliament is engaged primarily in the debate and adoption of laws.
Legislation relating to government revenues and expenditures is especially
important. The other principal duty of parliament is to oversee the government’s
exercise of executive authority, although this oversight capacity was restricted
somewhat by the 1958 constitution.
The 577 members of the National Assembly
are directly elected for five-year terms. Candidates for the National Assembly
are elected by majority vote in single-member electoral districts. Runoff
elections are required if no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the
vote. Candidates who win at least 12.5 percent of the first round vote are
eligible to run in second round.
The 321 members of the Senate are elected
indirectly by an electoral college. A law approved in July 2003 introduced a
number of reforms in senatorial elections. The law specified that senators would
henceforth be elected to six-year terms, with one-half of the Senate elected
every three years. Previously, senators were elected for nine-year terms with
one-third of the Senate elected every three years. In addition, the law
increased the number of Senate seats from 321 to 346, to take effect in
2010.
In principle, the National Assembly and
the Senate share equal legislative power. In practice, however, legislative
authority is tilted to the National Assembly, since the Senate may delay, but
not prevent, the passage of legislation. If the two chambers disagree on a bill,
final decision rests with the National Assembly, which may either accept the
Senate’s version or, after a specified period, readopt its own. The Economic and
Social Council acts in an advisory capacity on economic and budgetary matters to
the National Assembly and the government. It consists of representatives from
groups of workers and employers and from professional and cultural
organizations.
The constitution of the Fifth Republic
introduced two distinctive measures intended to streamline the legislative
process. The first measure granted the government the authority to demand an
up-or-down vote on an entire bill or any portion of a bill, in either chamber.
This reduces the opportunity for members of parliament to propose endless
amendments to bills they oppose. The second measure authorizes the government to
win adoption of a bill in the National Assembly without an actual vote. To do
so, the government announces that it considers rejection of the bill to be
tantamount to a vote of no confidence in the government. If opponents of the
bill fail to submit and win a majority vote on a motion of no confidence, the
bill is adopted.
Laws must be promulgated by the French
president to take effect. The president may ask parliament to reconsider a law
or any of its articles, and parliament must honor the request. The president may
also request the Constitutional Council to rule on the law’s constitutionality.
In such cases the law may not be implemented until the court has rendered its
judgment. Prior to the Fifth Republic, laws adopted by parliament were not
subject to judicial review.
The parliamentary year was traditionally
restricted to two separate sessions that ran from October to December and from
April to June. In 1995 the constitution was amended to provide a nine-month
parliamentary session to run continuously from October to June. In addition, the
constitution permits the National Assembly to censure the government in a motion
passed by an absolute majority of assembly members. Sponsors of failed motions
of censure are barred from introducing similar motions during the same
session.
E | The Judiciary |
Prior to the French Revolution in 1789,
judges in France exercised significant legislative and administrative powers.
The revolution stripped judges of much of their power and independence. An
extensive collection of laws drafted under the direction of Napoleon Bonaparte,
known as the Code Napoléon, affirmed the importance of limiting judicial power.
The code, based largely on Roman, or civil, law, directs judges to apply legal
rules passed by legislative bodies to specific cases. This civil law tradition
contrasts with the English common law tradition in which judges rely on
precedents—customs and decisions in previous cases—to resolve cases. The
succeeding French republics maintained the ideal of a subordinate judiciary with
little independent authority.
The judiciary regained some of its
independence and power under the constitution of 1958. The constitution
established a new body, the nine-member Constitutional Council. The council is
authorized to rule on the constitutional validity of national elections,
referenda, legislation, and parliamentary procedures. Members of the council are
appointed for staggered, nonrenewable, nine-year terms; the president, National
Assembly, and Senate each appoint three members. All former presidents also have
seats on the council.
The French judiciary has two main
branches. One branch of courts hears administrative cases (cases
involving disputes over government regulations); another branch hears civil and
criminal cases. Jurisdictional disputes between the two judicial branches are
resolved by the eight-member Tribunal of Conflicts. Sitting judges in the
criminal, civil, and administrative courts cannot be reassigned or terminated
without cause by the executive or legislative branches of government.
Most cases involving administrative law
are heard initially by administrative tribunals. Decisions in these tribunals
may, upon appeal, work their way up through a hierarchy of appellate courts. At
the apex of this system is the Council of State, a tribunal founded by Napoleon
Bonaparte. The Council of State has final appellate jurisdiction in
administrative law and advises the government on the legality of decrees,
regulations, and rulings issued by the executive.
Minor offenses, such as traffic
violations, are usually heard first by a police tribunal. Other criminal cases,
except felonies, are heard first by correctional courts. Felonies are heard by
courts of assizes. Only the latter employs a jury. Most civil cases are heard
first either by a Tribunal of Instance or by a Tribunal of Great Instance,
depending on the amount of money at stake. The Court of Cassation has final
appellate jurisdiction in all matters of criminal and civil law.
Several specialized courts exist to try
crimes of a political nature, should they arise. Cases alleging high treason by
the president of the republic are heard in the High Court of Justice, comprising
24 members of parliament. Cases alleging professional misconduct by members of
the government are heard by the Court of Justice of the Republic.
F | Local Government |
Historically, government authority in
France has been highly centralized. For centuries the French monarchy sought to
centralize economic and military power to control rebellious members of the
nobility in the provinces. The French Revolution of 1789 dismantled the monarchy
but retained a highly centralized national administration, centered in Paris.
Today this system remains largely in place. Reforms introduced in recent decades
have transferred some powers to the three levels of government below the
national level: the 22 regions, 96 departments, and more than 36,000 communes.
However, many of France’s major policy decisions are still made in the nation’s
capital.
F1 | Moves Toward Decentralization |
Under pressure from growing demands
for increased regional and local control, the French government took some steps
toward devolution (decentralization) of authority in the 1960s and 1970s.
One important step, in 1970, was the establishment of 22 administrative regions,
creating a new layer of subnational government. Then, in 1982, President
François Mitterrand initiated a major effort to transfer real decision-making
powers and budgetary authority to locally elected officials. Since then,
regional and local governments have gradually gained control over a limited
range of economic, social, and cultural matters.
In another significant move toward
devolution, the French parliament approved constitutional changes in March 2003
intended to pave the way toward much greater local autonomy. The changes
authorized France’s regions and departments to experiment with new powers in
areas such as education, health, transportation, and environmental policy, and
they gave local governments the power to hold referendums on matters of local
concern. However, the extent to which local authorities embrace further
decentralization, which in part hinges on the central government’s willingness
to adequately finance devolved responsibilities, remains to be determined.
F2 | Communes, Departments, and Regions |
Among the three levels of local
government, communes are the smallest. Communes range in size from tiny villages
to sections of large metropolitan areas. At the next level of government are the
departments, many of which take their names from mountains, rivers, and other
local geographical features. The departments are grouped into regions, the top
level of subnational government. Each region, department, and commune has a
directly elected council and executive.
The commune, an important component of
French democracy, dates to pre-Revolutionary France. Each commune has a mayor
and municipal council. The mayor, who is elected by the council, is responsible
for preparing meetings of the council and for implementing its decisions. For
certain purposes, including registration of births, marriages, and deaths, the
mayor also represents the national government. The council determines the
commune’s budget and local taxes and makes decisions regarding municipal
services. Individual communes often band together to provide certain municipal
services cooperatively. Before 1982 communes were strictly supervised by
representatives of the national government.
Departments vary in population from
tens of thousands of people to more than 2 million. Each department is
administered by a general council, which elects its own president. The council
votes for a budget; provides departmental services, such as health and welfare;
and drafts local regulations. A representative of the national government
attends council meetings and is authorized to take steps to ensure public order,
safety, and security. Before 1982, a prefect appointed by the national
government exercised extensive authority within the department and played a key
role in centralizing decision-making authority in the hands of the national
government. Today the powers of the prefect are limited to ensuring that
departmental policies do not conflict with national legislation.
The regions correspond roughly to
France’s historic provinces. The primary focus of regional government is
economic and social planning. Compared to the other levels of subnational
government, the regions deliver few services to residents and employ few public
officials. Each region is administered by an elected regional council. The
president of the council, elected by the council from among its members, serves
as the region’s executive. A representative appointed by the national government
speaks on behalf of the national government at council meetings and directs
national government services in the region.
The city of Paris, the capital and
seat of the most important national institutions, was formerly administered
under a system designed to ensure tight central control. There was no mayor.
Instead, a prefect of Paris and a prefect of the police, both appointed by the
national government, exercised control. Under legislation passed in 1975, Paris
became a department governed like any other, except that supervision of the
police continued under a prefect appointed by the central government. Paris was
permitted to have a municipal administration, similar to other French cities,
with a mayor chosen by an elected council. The membership of the council, known
as the Conseil de Paris, is determined by elections in 20 arrondissements
(districts). In 1977 Jacques Chirac became the first mayor of Paris under the
Fifth Republic.
G | The Overseas Territories and Departments |
France’s remaining overseas dependencies
are the last vestiges of a once-vast colonial empire. By the early 20th century
the French empire included colonies in Africa, Asia, the Americas, and the
Indian and Pacific oceans. These dependencies enjoyed varying degrees of
integration into the French polity. Algeria, for example, was treated almost as
if it were just another part of metropolitan France. Resistance to French rule
in the colonies grew after World War II (1939-1945), first in Indochina, then
Algeria, triggering long and bloody military conflicts (see First
Indochina War and Algerian War of Independence). France’s forced withdrawal from
these territories preceded a wave of decolonization throughout its empire. From
1954 to 1962 most of France’s overseas possessions sought and ultimately gained
formal independence. Since 1962, several additional territories have sought and
received independence, including the Comoros Islands in 1975, French Somaliland
(now Djibouti) in 1977, and New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) in 1980.
During the first decades of the Fifth
Republic, France’s overseas dependencies were known collectively as the French
Community. Members of the community cooperated in matters of foreign policy,
defense policy, and economic policy. The French president played an important
leadership role in community affairs. The wholesale disappearance of its former
colonies, however, prompted France in 1995 to repeal the constitutional
provisions that established the French Community.
Today France maintains four overseas
territories, four overseas departments, and two special status areas. The
overseas territories enjoy substantial autonomy over internal affairs, although
France provides defense and oversees their legal and criminal justice systems.
In contrast, the overseas departments and special status islands are much like
departments in metropolitan France; they are administered by elected councils
and by a prefect who represents France. Combined, these overseas regions
contribute 22 representatives to the 577-seat National Assembly in Paris.
The overseas territories are French,
which includes the island of Tahiti; New Caledonia; the Wallis and Futuna
islands in the Pacific Ocean; and French Southern and Antarctic Lands. The
overseas departments are Guadeloupe, a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea;
Martinique, a Caribbean island; French Guiana, situated on the northern coast of
South America; and Réunion, an island group in the Indian Ocean. The special
status areas are Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, an island collectivity off the coast
of Newfoundland and Labrador, and Mayotte, an island that chose to remain tied
to France when the rest of the Comoros opted for independence.
H | Political Parties |
Political factions have long competed for
power in France. The origins of organized political parties in France can be
traced back to the Third Republic. Today French parties span the full political
spectrum, from far left to far right. During the Third and Fourth republics,
numerous poorly organized political parties competed for power. Individual
parties rarely succeeded in winning a parliamentary majority, and coalitions of
parties were needed to form governments. Political alliances shifted
continually, leading to weak, unstable governments.
The introduction of a strong presidential
system during the Fifth Republic greatly reduced the number of political
parties. Many parties merged or joined coalitions with other groups to enhance
their political influence. Since the election of Charles de Gaulle, the Fifth
Republic’s first president, most political parties have served mainly as
organizations to mobilize support for particular presidential candidates. As the
identities of the candidates change from one election to the next, so the
parties change their names and alter their platforms. Party politics in the
Fifth Republic are more stable and coherent than they were under earlier
republics. Compared with political parties in other Western democracies,
however, most French parties remain weakly organized with small, often passive,
memberships.
There are several important political
parties and coalitions in France. On the right is the Union for a Popular
Movement (UMP), a coalition initially named the Union for the Presidential
Majority, which had formed in 2002 to promote the reelection of President
Jacques Chirac. The UMP was created by the merger of the Rally for the Republic
(RPR) and by a bloc of leaders from the Union for French Democracy (UDF).
Founded by Chirac in 1976, the RPR espoused a modern form of Gaullism, a
political philosophy that, among other things, championed a strong national
government and an aggressive foreign policy. The Union for French Democracy
(UDF) was originally closely tied to former French president Valéry Giscard
d’Estaing. The UDF, which continues as an independent political force, supports
European integration and free-market policies. On the extreme right is the
National Front (FN), led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, and the National Republican
Movement (MNR), founded by Le Pen’s former deputy, Bruno Mégret. The FN and MNR
espouse nationalist, anti-immigrant platforms.
On the left of the political spectrum is
the Socialist Party, founded in the early 20th century and reformed by François
Mitterrand. Under the leadership of Mitterrand, who held the presidency from
1981 to 1995, the Socialist Party pursued a moderate socialist program and
promoted closer economic and political cooperation within the European Union
(EU). The French Communist Party, once a powerful political bloc, has seen its
share of the vote decline steadily in recent decades. In the 1950s and 1960s the
French Communists typically won 25 percent of the vote in national elections;
today the party receives less than 10 percent of the vote. Environmentalist
parties, including the Green Party, have grown in importance, capturing about 5
percent of the vote in the 2002 elections to the National Assembly.
The French electoral system influences
the behavior of political parties in legislative races. A candidate for a seat
in the National Assembly must compete in two rounds of voting, unless the
candidate claims more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round. Typically,
the two leading candidates who meet in the second round represent parties on the
left and right. Other parties on the left and right often withdraw their
candidates from the second round to improve the chances of candidates on their
side of the political divide. Agreements between parties often specify in
advance which party will withdraw in favor of the other. Sometimes, such
agreements between parties are concluded even before the first round of voting.
These agreements can promote electoral alliances, and sometimes even shared
platforms among parties.
I | Social Services |
France established a comprehensive system
of social security in 1946, after World War II. Social security is a right of
citizenship in France: The constitution explicitly guarantees a minimal standard
of living and health care to all French citizens. France spends about 25 percent
of its annual gross domestic product (GDP) on social security, significantly
more than is spent in the United Kingdom or United States. Nearly 100 percent of
the French population is covered by the social security system.
Universal, compulsory social insurance
provides income to retirees, survivors of retirees, people unable to work, the
unemployed, the sick, and families with dependent children. It also reimburses
much of the cost of health care. More broadly, the social security system
defrays virtually all of the cost of higher education and subsidizes some
housing costs, especially for people with low incomes. France has a national
minimum wage, which is adjusted periodically to account for changes in the cost
of living.
The social insurance system is financed
largely from payroll taxes, with a smaller percentage contributed from the
national government’s general budget. The largest categories of expenditure are
retirement and survivorship pensions. France’s aging population—a demographic
shift underway in many industrialized nations—has raised concerns about the
government’s ability to meet ever-rising pension costs. Expenditures on health
care, maternity and family benefits, and unemployment benefits are also
significant.
J | Civil Service |
Nearly 20 percent of the French labor
force is employed in public administration at the various levels of government.
Professional, highly trained civil servants staff most public sector jobs.
Public sector employees usually must pass competitive civil service entrance
examinations. Other examinations permit successful candidates to enter elite
institutions of higher learning to prepare them for careers in the civil
service. These institutions include the Ecole Nationale, founded in 1945, and
the Ecole Polytechnique, founded in 1794.
The French civil service consists of
strict hierarchies at the national, regional, and local levels. Each level is
associated with a particular set of public jobs and a particular path of career
advancement. The elite corps, which staff the national government’s highest
technical and administrative positions, are known as the grands corps de
l’Etat. Most civil servants are members of unions.
K | Defense and Foreign Policy |
France has one of western Europe’s most
powerful military forces. France tested its first nuclear weapon in 1960 and
maintains an independent nuclear force capable of striking from land, air, and
sea. Military expenditures as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) have
gradually declined in recent decades, due to modernization of the armed services
and a heavy dependence on nuclear weapons. The French army is staffed by an
all-volunteer professional force. Compulsory national service, a feature of
French life for more than two centuries, was formally abolished in 2001. In 2004
France’s total armed forces numbered 254,895 troops; 133,500 were serving in the
army, 43,995 were in the navy, 63,600 were in the air force, and the remainder
were in the strategic nuclear forces or central staff positions.
The president of France is commander in
chief of the armed forces and supreme head of defense policy; the president
alone is authorized to order the use of nuclear weapons. The president works
with the prime minister and Council of Ministers, along with Defense Council and
Restricted Defense Committee, to develop defense polices. The minister of
defense, under the prime minister’s authority, executes defense policies,
including military operations and the administration of the armed services.
France was a founding member of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a regional defense alliance, in 1949.
Seeking a more independent military posture, France withdrew all of its forces
from the integrated command of NATO in 1966 but remained a member of the
alliance. France rejoined the military structure of NATO in 1995 and assumed a
seat on NATO’s Military Committee that year. However, France chose to remain
outside the alliance’s formal chain of command and to retain sole control of its
nuclear weapons, known as the force de frappe.
A strong advocate of European cooperation
in defense, France supports strengthening the Western European Union (WEU), the
security arm of the EU. In 1992 France and Germany created a 35,000-person joint
defense force called the Eurocorps, to be placed under the WEU’s command. To
alleviate concerns within Europe and the United States that the Eurocorps could
undermine NATO’s security role in Europe, France and Germany agreed to establish
formal ties between the corps and NATO’s military command.
A major goal of French foreign policy
since World War II has been the preservation of France’s status as a great
power. Toward this end, France transformed itself from a colonial ruler to a
leading advocate of European integration. During the Cold War, France attempted
to arbitrate between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics (USSR). France has tried to retain a leadership role in Africa by
building good relations with its former colonies. As one of five permanent
members of the United Nations (UN) Security Council, France is a frequent
volunteer for international peacekeeping operations; French troops have
contributed to UN peacekeeping operations in Cambodia, Somalia, Central African
Republic, and the states of the former Yugoslavia.
L | International Organizations |
France is a charter member of the United
Nations, and holds one of five permanent seats on the UN Security Council.
France was founding member of European Union (EU) and its several precursor
organizations, including the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the
European Economic Community (EEC), and the European Community (EC). France is a
member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the World Trade
Organization (WTO), the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
(World Bank), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE),
and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
France is party to numerous international
treaties. Important examples include the European Convention on Human Rights,
the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Conference on Security and
Cooperation in Europe. Key treaties France has refused to sign include the
Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. After
conducting nuclear tests in the Pacific in 1995, France announced the completion
of its testing program and its willingness to work with Russia, the United
Kingdom, and the United States on behalf of a comprehensive test ban treaty
(see Arms Control).
William James Adams contributed the
Government section of this article.
VII | HISTORY |
A | Overview |
France has enjoyed a clear sense of its
own identity in the modern period, but this identity took a very long time to
develop. The term France did not refer uniquely to the territory now
identified with the French nation until the end of the Middle Ages. The French
language took a standardized form only in the 17th century. As late as the 19th
century, a quarter of the population residing in France did not speak standard
French. Roman Catholicism, the religion of the vast majority of French people
today, was also adopted very slowly. Some historians argue that the majority of
French people did not practice Catholic rituals and accept Catholic doctrines in
their orthodox form before the 18th century. The French state took centuries to
build. Until 1789 the French people lived under some 400 separate codes of civil
law. They were better described as subjects of a king than as citizens of a
nation. Similarly, not until the 19th century did a true national economy form
out of several regional ones. The history of France, then, is not the story of a
fixed entity over thousands of years. Rather, it is the history of many
processes that, more by coincidence than plan, turned an increasing number of
people into Frenchmen and Frenchwomen in the last few centuries.
Geography has played a major role in
the development of the nation. France, today referred to as the “hexagon”
because of the country’s roughly hexagonal shape, is located at the western end
of Eurasia. France is the only European nation that borders on both the
Mediterranean Sea and the northern edge of Europe, and it is the only one that
faces both central Europe and the Atlantic Ocean. All these exposures have
influenced the development of France’s economy, government, and culture. Its
location has forced France to protect itself on both land and sea. For this
reason, it developed a strong army and, in modern times, a respectably sized
navy. France’s long coastlines and several long navigable rivers allowed easy
access to many parts of the hexagon long before the coming of rail
transportation. The absence of high mountain ranges within the interior also
facilitated political and economic unification.
Yet the history of the French nation
cannot be reduced to its geography. Natural forces were less important in
cementing together the French hexagon than were cultural and, especially,
political forces. France was effectively unified for the first time by the
ancient Romans. The Romans incorporated it, along with other bordering
territories, as Gaul within their sprawling empire in the 1st century bc. Once the Roman Empire disintegrated
in the 5th century ad, the region
was united to the rest of western and central Europe by its growing attachment
to the Roman Catholic Church.
In the Middle Ages, a series of royal
dynasties laid claim to what would become France. But they could not back their
claims with an effective administration for many centuries. The Valois and
Bourbon dynasties in the early modern period developed a larger military and
civilian bureaucracy, which enabled the monarchy to pacify the region and extend
France’s boundaries. As part of their efforts to build a state, these dynasties
helped establish a specifically French culture.
In 1789 the monarchy was overthrown in
one of the world’s greatest revolutions. The French Revolution opened up a
century and a half of political instability as defenders battled opponents of
the revolutionary heritage. Despite this internal strife, the nation remained
robust enough to develop a modern industrial economy, build and lose a vast
colonial empire, fight in two world wars, become a nuclear power, and establish
itself as a major center of the arts and sciences. France is now negotiating to
integrate itself politically and economically with the rest of Europe as it has
not done since antiquity.
B | The Foundations |
Modern French identity is rooted in the
ancient world, chiefly in Celtic and Roman civilizations. Seen through the lens
of time, the Celtic inheritance has the more romantic glow, and the French
retain a sentimental attachment to it. The Celts provided the point of origin of
French history and its first common culture, but the Romans laid down the first
lasting foundations of any significance. Without its Roman past, France and
French culture would almost certainly have developed differently.
B1 | Prehistory and Settlement of the Area |
Relatively little is known about the
first peoples living in the area now called France. In the period following the
arrival of modern humans (Homo sapiens) in Europe around 40,000 bc, a variety of migratory peoples
circulated in the region. Fine paintings in the Lascaux caves dating from the
Old Stone Age, around 15,000 bc,
give striking evidence of a relatively sophisticated culture (see
Paleolithic Art). The people who made these paintings were itinerant and
depended on hunting and gathering for food. By about 6000 bc, people in what is today France had
begun to develop a sedentary culture based on agriculture. This process
fundamentally altered the entire French region by about 3000 bc and allowed the population to grow to
about 4 million to 5 million people by 1000 bc. Metalwork was introduced around 1400
bc.
In the 8th century bc, waves of northern peoples entered
the region. The most important of these were the Celts, who spread over most of
France by 400 bc, mixing with
other peoples already settled there. Although the Celts never unified the region
politically, they left some traces of their culture. A Celtic word meaning
“hero” or possibly “Celts” was the origin of the name Gaul. Gaul was the
common name for the region of France in antiquity, and it was associated with
the Latin word gallus, meaning cock. Later, the cock became the symbol of
the French nation.
The Celts and the peoples who lived
among them had developed a thriving culture of some 6 million to 8 million
people at the time of the Roman conquest in the last century bc. This large pre-Roman population was
sustained by intensive agriculture, which benefited from the use of a heavy,
iron-tipped plough. Commerce also enriched the population, much of it stimulated
by and traded through the Greek colony of Massalía, which was founded in 600
bc on the site of present-day
Marseille. Trade led to the development of urban centers, which were also used
for religious ceremonies. The Celtic religion was polytheistic. Priests called
Druids presided over the followers and met in yearly conclaves (see
Druidism).
Politically, the region was divided
into hundreds of relatively independent units with constantly shifting borders.
These units averaged 1,500 sq km (580 sq mi) in size and were grouped into about
60 larger federations. Units were also tied by tribal affiliations and strategic
alliances. However, power relations among the hundreds of units were constantly
changing, and no formal political structure emerged that could coordinate them
in united action.
This disunity made Celtic Gaul
vulnerable to incursions by the Greeks and then the Romans. Greek culture
penetrated Gaul from Massalía. The Gauls encountered Roman culture as Rome
expanded into the western Mediterranean and confronted Carthage during the Punic
Wars in the 3rd and 2nd centuries bc. Massalía was inevitably drawn into
the military conflict, usually on the side of the Romans. At the end of the 2nd
century bc, Massalía called on
Rome for protection against Celtic tribes, and Rome occupied the city. A
political settlement was worked out that maintained Massalía’s independence and
gave Rome territory in what is today called Languedoc and the upper Garonne
valley. During the 1st century bc,
all these territories, including Massalía, were incorporated with the Roman
province of Narbonensis. From there, Rome expanded northward, ending the
independence of Celtic Gaul.
B2 | Roman Gaul |
Rome was prompted to expand north by
two developments. First, Germanic and Celtic tribes began threatening the
borders of the empire, eliciting a Roman military response. Second, Julius
Caesar, the governor of the Roman province that included Massalía, schemed to
advance his political career by making large conquests in Gaul. In 58 bc Caesar began military operations to
subdue the area west of the Rhine River.
Caesar exploited divisions among the
tribes, but once Rome threatened to dominate them, the tribes united behind
Vercingetorix, chief of the Arverni tribe. In 52 bc Vercingetorix surrendered to Caesar
following the successful Roman siege of Alesia, and he was taken prisoner.
Vercingetorix was exhibited in chains during Caesar’s triumphal entry into Rome
in 46 bc, after which he was
executed.
Meanwhile, Roman troops eliminated
the last vestiges of resistance. As a result of Caesar’s Gallic Wars, which
lasted until 51 bc, more than 1
million people died, and almost that many were sold into slavery after the
conquest. Following Caesar’s conquest of Gaul, the Romans divided the area north
of Narbonensis into three provinces: Aquitania, Lugdunensis, and Belgica. These
provinces corresponded roughly to the three parts of Gaul that existed at the
time of Caesar’s campaigns, and which he described in On the Gallic
Wars.
Narbonensis developed somewhat
differently than did the three northern provinces. It had been under Roman
domination for over half a century before the time of Caesar, and it was
absorbed into the empire relatively quickly. To further this process, Caesar
settled members of his legions in four colonies in Narbonensis shortly after the
conquest.
The three northern provinces adopted
Roman institutions more slowly. Although the Romans eventually established
colonies in these provinces as well, they forestalled opposition to their rule
by disturbing the preexisting order as little as they thought necessary. The
Romans permitted the old Celtic elites to maintain positions of power so long as
they followed Roman orders. The Romans also imposed a moderate, if not low, tax
burden.
The three northern provinces, each
with its own governor, were subdivided into units called the civitates.
Like the provinces, the civitates largely followed political divisions that
predated the Roman conquest. The civitates all elected representatives to
a joint Gallic Council, which coordinated administrative policy and sent common
grievances to Rome. The Romans also built an excellent system of roads and
waterways in the provinces. Although built largely for military purposes, these
improvements also helped to unify Gaul.
A system of courts and administration
based on Rome’s highly developed system of law, internal pacification, and a new
transportation system encouraged the growth of cities and the expansion of the
economy. Cities mushroomed in many regions of Gaul. They were built on the model
of Rome itself, often financed by Roman capital. They featured typically Roman
buildings such as public baths, marketplaces, city halls, and temples. A
considerable number of these structures survive today in various stages of
decay, particularly in southern France, which was most heavily Romanized. The
economies of these cities benefited from activities connected with public
administration and the law, but their chief sources of wealth were trade and
goods manufactured by artisans. In the countryside, agricultural production was
carried on mainly in the villas—large estates owned by a few wealthy people and
worked by tenant farmers called coloni.
The governing elite in the cities
were the first to adopt Roman institutions, which then slowly spread to the
countryside and the lower classes. Latin gradually replaced the old Gaulish
languages, even if the Latin commonly spoken in the street was a vulgarization
of “purer” forms. Similarly, Roman pagan cults and worship of the emperor slowly
drove out the old Celtic religious practices of the Druids. In the 2nd century
ad, religions from the eastern
part of the Roman Empire, including Christianity, began to take root. Following
the general cultural pattern, Christianity was first practiced in cities, each
under a bishop, and spread gradually to the countryside. Christianity’s impact
outside urban areas was minimal until long after Roman rule collapsed.
Nonetheless, Roman authorities resisted the spread of the new faith and in some
instances tried to repress it.
The decline of Roman Gaul after ad 200 was part of the complex process
that led to weakening of the grip of the Roman Empire everywhere in the west.
The population declined due to plague, and people migrated to the cities. These
events crippled agricultural production—the main source of wealth in almost all
premodern societies. As agricultural production fell, so, too, did state
revenues from taxes. Furthermore, the empire was no longer expanding and could
not depend on plunder for fresh supplies of slave labor and material wealth, as
it had for centuries. Landlords tried to legally bind their tenants to the soil,
while emperors embarked on administrative and tax reforms. But in the end, the
economic decline was not reversed.
In the 3rd century, Germanic tribes,
especially the Franks and the Alemanni, began penetrating the eastern boundaries
of Roman Gaul and settling down without much disruption. These new arrivals may
at first have actually strengthened Roman rule, because they provided a
workforce that was badly needed to boost agricultural output and secure the
borders of the empire. However, not all such penetration was peaceful. To
counter the growing pressure from some of these tribes in the 5th century, the
Romans made the Franks, and later the Burgundians and Visigoths, their
foederati, or allies. This strategy allowed Roman Gaul to escape collapse
but caused Rome to gradually lose control. The assignment of military
responsibilities to these allies who were spreading through the four provinces
of Gaul meant that Roman Gaul was not so much conquered from without as it was
Germanized from within.
The Roman occupation of Gaul had an
overwhelming impact on later French history. It gave Gaul its first collective
political identity. Dozens of France’s modern cities were founded in Roman
times, including Paris (then called Lutetia). Modern France is literally built
on Roman origins inasmuch as millions of French people today drive on highways
paved over Roman roadbeds. Rome left behind its legal system, which heavily
influenced the course of French jurisprudence, as well as its artistic
traditions, most conspicuous in Paris’s Arc de Triomphe. The French language is
derived from Latin, although it has been enriched by Germanic and other
infusions. In modern times, the French imagined that the spread of French
political influence and culture throughout the world was a continuation of the
civilizing mission they had acquired from Rome in ancient times.
B3 | Merovingians and Carolingians |
By the end of the 5th century, Gaul
was rapidly becoming a land of Germanic tribes, who mixed with the much larger
number of native Gallo-Romans. Of these tribes, Franks dominated in the north,
Burgundians in the east, and Goths in the southwest. But many other peoples
lived in the area as well, including Jews, Greeks, and Syrians. They made
post-Roman Gallic society highly cosmopolitan. The nature of the interchange
between the Germanic tribes and the Gallo-Romans is not well understood, but
apparently no violent shock of opposing cultures occurred. First, some of the
Germanic tribes, including the Franks, had lived for centuries on the outskirts
of Roman civilization. They had become partly Romanized before they settled
within the limits of the old Roman Empire. They were familiar enough with Latin
to use it when they drafted the first written Germanic law codes. Second, the
incoming Germans seemed inclined to settle on previously unoccupied land,
generally allowing the Gallo-Romans to keep theirs. Finally, intermarriage was
common; hence, most tribal distinctions disappeared by the 8th century.
The coming of the Germanic tribes
marked the onset of a period known as the Middle Ages (roughly 350-1450). During
the early Middle Ages, from about 350 to 1050, trade, literacy, and law and
order declined among the Gallo-Romans. Historians once painted this period in
the black terms of barbarism, but today they are much less willing to do so.
Historians of traditionally marginalized groups, such as women and Jews, point
out that in certain respects the condition of these groups improved after ad 500. Women acquired more control over
property as the result of Germanic laws. Jews, whose civil status had declined
when the Roman Empire was Christianized, generally faced less persecution under
the Germanic kings. Paradoxically, the condition of both women and Jews worsened
once again in the 11th century, when a more orderly society was
reestablished.
The Franks conquered almost all of
what had been Roman Gaul and gave the region a semblance of political unity.
Under their leader, Clovis, of the Merovingian dynasty, the Franks conquered the
lands of the Alemanni to the east, including much of present-day Germany, and
those of the Goths in present-day southwestern France. Only Brittany, in
present-day western France, and the Mediterranean coast remained outside
Frankish control. Clovis, who ruled from 481 to 511, was a capable, occasionally
ruthless military leader, but he understood the importance of symbols and
ideology in strengthening his rule. He converted to an orthodox form of
Christianity, that is, a form of Christianity approved by the Roman Catholic
Church. At that time most Germanic kings followed a form of Christianity, called
Arianism, that the Catholic Church condemned as heretical. Clovis’s adoption of
Catholic orthodoxy placed him in a special relation to the pope, the bishop of
Rome who was the head of the Roman Catholic Church. It also made Clovis more
appealing to the growing number of orthodox Roman Christians he had conquered.
These included the bishops, who wielded considerable influence in their
localities. In addition, bishops were closely connected to powerful local
magnates, strongmen who commanded enough retainers and war supplies to exert
power over a region. From this point on, rulers in the west relied heavily on
the use of Roman Catholic imagery and associations to expand their influence and
eventually to build nations.
Although the arrival of the Franks
was only minimally disruptive to the Gallo-Roman peoples, Merovingian rule did
cause some changes in power relations. First, the center of power shifted to
northern Gaul, whereas under the Romans, the center of power had rested in
southern regions closer to Rome. Northern domination of the south continued into
modern times with the rise of Paris as the capital of the nation. Second, as the
economy weakened, cities declined, allowing power to slip to the countryside.
Third, political rule became more personalized. The retreat of the Roman armies
had left in place a variety of local magnates. The magnates exerted power over
their localities through clients who owed some form of loyalty to them. The
Merovingians allowed many local magnates to stay in power, and they established
close ties to at least some of these magnates, most of whom owed them
considerable loyalty and tribute. These personal ties did not prevent the
development of rivalry and even military conflict among the magnates. Ordinary
people turned increasingly to the local magnates for protection, submitting
themselves to their rule.
The Merovingians considered their
kingdom a personal possession. Following Germanic practice, Clovis deeded his
kingdom to his four surviving sons, who divided it among themselves at his
death. Although in later years the kingdom was temporarily unified, the
Merovingians never developed effective means of imposing centralized
control.
During the 7th century, power within
the royal government began to shift from the often ineffectual kings to
increasingly influential court figures known as the mayors of the palace. This
position was frequently held by the Arnulfing family, later and better known as
the Carolingians. This family had strong ties to the great nobles of the kingdom
and gradually strengthened the position of mayor of the palace. By the early 8th
century, the Carolingians had become the real, if not the official, head of
government.
Charles Martel became mayor of the
palace in 714 and consolidated military control over outlying regions of the
kingdom. To gain support for his operations, Charles Martel distributed church
lands among his retainers. This action furthered the interpenetration of the
church and the state that had begun in early Merovingian times. These two
institutions were so deeply joined that they did not become fully disentangled
in France until the 20th century. When he died in 741, Charles Martel was buried
in the abbey of Saint-Denis near Paris, which later became the burial site of
many French kings.
Charles Martel’s sons, Pepin the
Short and Carloman, succeeded him. Carloman retired to a monastery in 747,
leaving Pepin to rule alone. Pepin had to put down revolts among the magnates
but was eventually able to strengthen his position. By 751 he had largely
abandoned the title of mayor of the palace in favor of the Latin title
princeps (source of the title prince). Pepin was ready to end the
pretense of serving a king. The last Merovingian was bundled off to a monastery
that year, and Pepin became the first Carolingian monarch. He was acclaimed as
king by an assembly of Frankish nobles and anointed by Saint Boniface, the
English missionary known as the Apostle of Germany.
Two developments made Pepin’s coup
d’état possible. First, the Carolingians had accumulated vast estates, which he
used to pay off supporters. Second, the church was interested in legitimating
Pepin’s usurpation of the throne. The pope consecrated Pepin as king in 754 in
return for much-needed military support against the Lombard tribes who
threatened papal security in Rome. The church’s blessing was decisive in making
Pepin’s coup a success. The Frankish magnates could accept Pepin as king from
considerations of greed and power. However, only the church’s support could
effectively remove the stain of usurpation that marked Pepin’s seizure of the
royal title. The consequences were profound for both France and the papacy.
Pepin expanded Frankish rule farther
south into Aquitaine, reaching perhaps as far as the Garonne River and Bordeaux,
although the kingdom’s political center remained in the north. Pepin capitalized
on his relationship with the church and ruled his freshly annexed territories
through a network of abbots who were politically loyal to him. The church
suffered spiritually from its increasing use by secular authorities, but Pepin’s
reign coincided with a movement to reform the church, which his successor would
push much further. Under Pepin’s rule, the movement sought to standardize the
liturgy and the organization of the clergy throughout the kingdom.
Pepin was succeeded in 768 by his two
sons, Charles (later known as Charlemagne) and Carloman, who divided the kingdom
between themselves until Carloman’s death three years later. Although Carloman’s
portion should legally have passed to his sons, Charlemagne wielded enough
political power to bend the still flexible Frankish succession law and
procedures to his advantage. He seized the inheritance of his nephews and
reunited the kingdom. This usurpation provided Charlemagne with the resources
for building his empire—a political achievement unmatched by any of his
Carolingian predecessors or successors. Eventually he ruled lands stretching
from the Pyrenees Mountains to the Elbe River.
Charlemagne ruled most of his empire
through officers known as counts, who received land—much of it plundered—in
exchange for their services. To secure their loyalty, the counts were obliged to
swear oaths of fidelity—sometimes sworn on holy relics to make the oath a
religious obligation. The counts had wide-ranging responsibilities, from
maintaining roads to supervising the judiciary. They also administered oaths to
a variety of officials, including clerics, as a way of reinforcing loyalty to
Charlemagne. Charlemagne understood well the importance of not trusting any one
group of officials too much. Thus, he sent another set of imperial agents,
called the missi dominici, to comb through the empire to eliminate
corruption and disloyalty among the counts.
It is unclear how well Charlemagne
was able to control developments at the grass roots using this system. He was
frequently obliged to put down revolts against his rule. The Saxons proved
particularly hard to subdue, and their persistent resistance to Carolingian rule
prompted Charlemagne to unleash ever more bloody repression against them.
Charlemagne found the church to be
one of his best weapons for maintaining control, and he further integrated
churchmen into his imperial system. Thus, he leaned heavily on bishops as well
as the counts to carry out his orders and appointed clergymen to serve as missi.
But if political considerations underlay much of Charlemagne’s treatment of the
church, his political policies were also rooted in genuine religious conviction.
He donated large tracts of land to churches and monasteries, worked hard on
standardizing the liturgy, supported missionary efforts, and supervised the
morals and education of the clergy. The results of these efforts are hard to
determine for want of evidence. But Charlemagne’s attempts to improve the morals
and education of the clergy led to his promotion of the arts and scholarship in
a movement that has been called the Carolingian Renaissance. The Carolingian
Renaissance was less a break with the past than an extension of it, for learning
was by no means dead in the kingdom when Charlemagne took power.
By the end of the 8th century,
Charlemagne had made his empire reasonably secure militarily and had enriched it
with plunder. He then devoted considerable effort to expanding the empire’s
intellectual resources. Reportedly unable to write himself, Charlemagne
nonetheless developed an exceptional respect for scholarship and the arts.
The Carolingian Renaissance occurred
in schools attached to cathedrals and monasteries and in Charlemagne’s court,
headquartered in Aachen (in French, Aix-la-Chapelle), in present-day Germany.
The court attracted major scholars from around Europe, even from beyond the
borders of the empire. Most notable was Alcuin, an English scholar, who set up
an educational program. Scholars congregated at the court in part to use its
large library. Scholars of the Carolingian Renaissance were concerned mainly
with art, literature, and theology. Although these scholars and artists were not
highly original, they kept learning alive, partly by recopying ancient
works.
The climax of Charlemagne’s rule has
traditionally been considered his coronation as emperor of the Romans by Pope
Leo III on Christmas Day 800. But historians then and now disagree sharply on
what happened on that occasion and its significance. Charlemagne was in Rome in
late 800 as part of an effort to restore the pope’s power in Rome, which was
threatened by a rebellion. The pope hoped to restore his political fortunes by
crowning Charlemagne and thereby associating himself more closely with the major
political force in Europe. According to one account, the coronation was a
surprise to Charlemagne, and one he did not altogether welcome. Scholars now
tend to think he knew about the coronation beforehand and that he was happy
enough to accept the imperial title.
Some historians have tried to
represent the coronation as a turning point in medieval history and as a key to
Charlemagne’s notion of a Christian empire. However, neither Charlemagne’s ideas
nor his policies seem to have changed very much as a result. The Carolingians’
legitimacy had rested on the church’s sanction for nearly half a century by this
time, and Charlemagne’s elevation from king of the Franks to emperor of the
Romans seems only to have followed well-established precedent.
Moreover, Charlemagne’s disposition
of his empire suggests he was still thinking about it in traditional Frankish
terms. Rather than try to maintain its unity after his death, Charlemagne
planned to divide the empire among his three sons, Louis, Carloman, and Pepin.
But two of these sons died before Charlemagne, and Louis inherited the whole
empire when his father died in 814.
Charlemagne’s reign quickly became
encrusted by legend, which scholars, without denying its very real achievements,
are still trying to detach from the reality. Charlemagne’s impact on the
development of a French national consciousness was limited. He stimulated the
growth of cultural and political institutions throughout his empire. But
Charlemagne did not directly promote either a specific French or German
identity; such terms had little meaning in his period. The name
Francia—precursor of France—was used, but it referred to the
entire Carolingian empire outside Italy (northern and central Italy fell under
Charlemagne’s control after he defeated the Lombards in 773-774), not a more
limited region within the empire.
The reign of Louis I from 814 to 840
has traditionally been viewed as the gateway to disintegration and decline of
the empire. But scholars now point out that Louis was more effective than his
father in making the administration work and did more to preserve the imperial
idea. Louis’s chief problem was the endemic conflict among the magnates. Toward
the end of Louis’s reign, this conflict became enmeshed in the struggle among
his sons—Lothair, Louis, and Charles the Bald—over the division of the empire.
In 842, two years after Louis’s death, two of his sons, Charles and Louis,
allied against Lothair.
In 843 the three sons reached a
fragile settlement over their respective inheritances in the Treaty of Verdun.
According to this treaty, Charles was to rule a western kingdom, including
Aquitaine; Louis was to rule a kingdom east of the Rhine; and Lothair was to
rule a central kingdom, consisting of lands lying between the two other kingdoms
plus Italy. Lothair would receive the imperial title but would have no effective
control over Charles and Louis or their lands. See Lothair I; Charles II
(Holy Roman Empire).
This treaty was less significant for
the development of the French nation than is often supposed. It did help to set
France’s ultimate boundaries, inasmuch as Charles acquired a claim over most of
what would later become modern France. At the time, however, it achieved little
in terms of national unification. The term Francia continued to refer to
regions ruled by Charles and by his brothers. Charles’s inheritance was commonly
called West Francia and Louis’s was called East Francia. Only centuries later
did Francia denote present-day France alone. Furthermore, the brothers
continued to fight over the terms of the treaty.
Sandwiched between West and East
Francia, Lothair’s portion (Lotharingia) proved extremely hard to consolidate,
and imperial authority rapidly declined there. For a long time, West Francia
followed a similar course. Brittany, which had been a Frankish dependency, began
to move beyond royal control, while Aquitaine, a region that had been under
Frankish rule for only a century, gradually reasserted its autonomy under
Charles’s rule. This trend was reinforced by cultural and linguistic
differences. In the north—the old Frankish homestead—Germanic law and an early
version of the French language, the langue d’oïl (so called because of
the pronunciation of the word for yes), prevailed. In the south,
including Aquitaine, the predominant tongue was the langue d’oc, which
was closer to classical Latin than was the langue d’oïl. Roman law also
exercised a much greater influence in the south than in the north.
Charles’s reign was further disturbed
by the incursions of the Vikings, a marauding people from the north who
plundered many regions of western Europe beginning in the late 8th century.
Historians are now less impressed than they once were with the destructiveness
of the Vikings, pointing out that conflicts among the magnates might well have
caused just as much damage to lives and property. Still, the Vikings were at the
very least a destabilizing force in Charles’s kingdom and dealt an unwelcome
blow to an already shaky regime.
The most critical weakness of
Charles’s regime—one that would continue for centuries—was the uncertain loyalty
and independence of the powerful magnates, who clustered in two major factions,
the Carolingians and the Robertians, so called because of their association with
Robert the Strong, count of Neustria. Charles had less booty to offer his nobles
than did Charlemagne and sought to gain political leverage by playing off one
aristocratic faction against the other. In this effort, he received considerable
assistance from the church, which Charles protected in return for the church’s
spiritual and material support. Beginning in Charles’s reign, the church started
routinely anointing Frankish kings as a part of royal ceremony. This ritual
added luster and authority to the king’s title, but it also offered bishops of
the church an invitation to intervene in state affairs in God’s name. Charles
also tried to secure a stronger political base by turning eastward to secure the
imperial title. In 875 he managed to obtain it and kept it until his death two
years later.
Despite Charles’s vigorous efforts to
bolster his authority, his reign can only appear in retrospect as the prelude to
one of the most disordered centuries of French history. Aristocratic factions
had gained strength during the early and middle decades of the 9th century.
These factions dominated the politics of West Francia for a long time, making
the crown more a political football than the secure possession of any one
dynasty.
Carolingian kings ruled until 888
when Odo, also known as Eudes, son of Robert the Strong of the powerful
Robertian faction, became king of West Francia. The Carolingians recovered the
crown when Charles the Simple was crowned in Reims in 893 as Charles III. But
the title he temporarily regained for the Carolingians had become an
increasingly empty one. Power had shifted decisively to the magnates. In 911
Charles was sufficiently pressed by the conquering Viking chieftain Rollo to
recognize the Vikings’ conquest of the lower Seine River in an area later known
as Normandy. In return Rollo professed loyalty to Charles and promised to
convert to Christianity. The territories of Burgundy and Aquitaine, already
moving beyond the king’s control, became virtually independent states in the
following decades. In 922 Charles was deposed by the Robertian faction.
The Carolingians regained the royal
title in 936 and ruled without interruption until 987. But they were faced with
a growing challenge from the Robertians, who were ably led by Hugh the Great and
his son Hugh Capet. Hugh Capet wielded sufficient influence among the magnates
to overthrow the Carolingians definitively in 987, much as the Carolingians had
overthrown the Merovingians more than two centuries earlier. One usurpation had
given birth to another.
The 9th and 10th centuries have been
viewed as the time when feudalism—a system of land tenure and political
authority in which a lord granted the use of land in return for political and
military services—took shape. Research has now made this idea obsolete as a
general description of an enormously complex situation. It is now clear that
property was held on a great variety of different legal bases. Much land,
especially in the south, was held by magnates and others in the form of
alods—that is, land granted without services due to the king or a
magnate. Other territories were held in exchange for feudal services, including
military service, and over the Middle Ages these obligations became more
formalized and sanctioned by custom. Nonetheless, it is hazardous to generalize
about the relationship between the king and the magnates. This relationship,
like land tenures, was extremely variable in form and guided by no clear
constitutional principles. In reality royal power always depended largely on the
king’s ability to form strategic alliances with the dominating factions. The
factions fought for their own interests and sacrificed little for the king or
the nation.
The growing weakness of the late
Carolingians may have been aggravated by a number of factors: the invasion of
the Vikings; a decline in economic production; insufficient supplies of booty to
buy support. But the crisis of the Carolingian state was above all a crisis of
state management: Like the Merovingians, the Carolingians allowed the magnates
to form constellations of power. Eventually the Carolingian rulers succumbed to
the aggressive leaders of these constellations.
C | The Growth of a National Identity |
Hugh Capet’s establishment of the
Capetian dynasty changed little in the political, social, or economic structure
of West Francia. The monarchy had exercised little power since the days of
Charlemagne. For another two centuries, it remained weaker than the contemporary
governments of the Holy Roman Empire in Germany and Norman-dominated England.
Historians have suggested that the French crown’s very weakness helped preserve
it—its relative insignificance made it less attractive as a target for
acquisition by the magnates.
Nonetheless, the Capetian monarchy was
the thread that bound together the region that would gradually become known as
France. Beginning in the late 10th century, the French monarchy felt the force
of several critical developments that affected western Europe generally: a
resurgent Catholic Church, a growing economy, and better-organized states. As
the landscape of medieval Europe changed, the Capetians worked tirelessly to
master it. They were most likely guided by short- and intermediate-term
political advantage rather than any deliberate policy of nation building. The
unintended result was the emergence of an embryonic French nation by the late
Middle Ages.
C1 | A Weakened Monarchy: The Early Capetians |
The Capetians had usurped their title
in 987, and because of this usurpation their dynastic right to rule remained
weak for some time. Until the 13th century, the Capetian kings tried to improve
the chances for a smooth and uncontested succession. Thus, before they died, the
kings had their intended successors acclaimed as king by the magnates and
crowned by church officials. This process was so important that for three
centuries the Capetians dated the beginning of their respective reigns not from
the death of the previous king but from the moment of their coronation. The
Capetians’ dependence on other institutions, principally the church, for their
authority was one major reason effective centralized government required
centuries to build.
Hugh Capet, who ruled from 987 to
996, accomplished little as king beyond keeping the royal title alive and out of
the hands of the remaining Carolingian claimants. He avoided military
confrontation when possible; he counted more on his negotiating skills and the
backing of the church to shore up his shaky position. Hugh’s immediate
successors—Robert II, known as Robert the Pious (996-1031), Henry I (1031-1060),
and Philip I (1060-1108)—did little better.
Indeed, some historians believe that
royal authority, flimsy as it was in 987, shrank even more during the first
century of Capetian rule. The magnates, who in reality governed most of the
kingdom, did pay homage to the king and swore fidelity to him upon becoming his
vassals. But by themselves these formalities meant little until the 12th
century. Far more important were the strategic alliances that the kings made
with the magnates. The magnates would typically live up to their feudal
obligations to pay homage and to provide counsel and military service only when
such alliances had been struck. Until the 12th century, only a few scattered
territories around the Île-de-France, the region centered around Paris, made up
the king’s domain—the variegated bundle of rights to exploit and administer land
directly and to collect taxes. However, the king had much greater power over
appointments in the French church, particularly the ability to appoint
bishops.
C1a | Serfdom |
A weak monarchy made it easier for
the magnates to consolidate their hold on the lives and properties of their
underlings. Although slavery, a vestige of the Roman Empire, slowly disappeared,
serfdom arose in its place, especially in the north, where land held as alods
became less common than in the South. Serfs were legally bound to live and work
on specific territories and were required to pay their lords in the form of
money, or, more typically, labor services, including work on the lord’s lands.
Limited though their liberty was,
serfs should not be confused with slaves. In exchange for their services, they
retained precious rights, including the right to exploit land and the right to
their lord’s protection. Legally, they could not be sold, and if lordship of an
estate to which serfs were attached changed hands, the new lord was expected to
respect the traditional rights of the serfs. In an age when law and order was in
short supply and economic opportunities were limited, the concrete rights of the
serfs to work the land and to protection undoubtedly appeared more important to
most people than the abstract condition called freedom. Serfdom became an
inheritable legal condition in the 10th and 11th centuries.
Paradoxically, at the same time,
the economic forces that would eventually undermine serfdom were gathering
strength. First among these forces was a steady growth of population, which
increased demand and prompted greater production. The population of the area
constituting present-day France grew from an estimated 5 million to 6 million
people in 1000 to 18 million to 21 million by the early 14th century. As the
population grew, people cleared forested areas to increase the amount of arable
land, a process that also expanded supplies of timber. Timber was especially
important for the medieval economy as a source of energy and building material.
In addition, agricultural productivity increased. This increase was due to a
warming climate that lengthened the growing season, modest technological
improvements, such as heavier plows, and the three-field system, which allowed
land to lie fallow for one of every three years, rather than one of every two
years. Finally, trade expanded, enabling peasants to cultivate cash crops to
exchange for other products in the great markets, such as the fairs of
Champagne. Trade and cash crops encouraged the development of regional
specialization.
Trade also promoted the growth of
towns and cities. Paris was the most spectacular example. It grew from between
15,000 and 20,000 people under the Carolingians to between 150,000 and 200,000
people by 1300. The growth of trade and urban areas encouraged the decline of
serfdom. By the 13th century, the population had reached the saturation point in
some areas of the countryside, so not all laborers could be productively
employed. Some serfs ran away to the towns and cities in search of work, and
lords were not inclined to chase after them because their labor was not much
needed. Indeed, given the high death rates in the unhealthful cities, urban
populations could grow only if people migrated to cities from the
countryside.
C1b | Resurgent Church |
The revival of the economy
coincided with a major movement to reform the Church. During the early Middle
Ages, the church had lost a great deal of its independence. Many of the church’s
most critical offices and sources of income were controlled by the magnates, who
used them for their own political purposes. Beginning in the early 10th century,
a movement to free the church of control by laymen emerged from the Benedictine
monastery in Cluny (see Benedictines). By the end of the 11th century,
1,500 monasteries supported Cluny’s reforms, and in the 12th century, the
austere Cistercian order joined Cluny’s reform efforts (see Cistercians).
Nearly from the start, the papacy had maintained close ties to the Cluniac
movement. Popes such as Gregory VII (1073-1085) tied the reform movement to the
authority of the papacy over secular rulers.
The reformers sought to recruit the
ablest people, not the wellborn, to fill high church offices, and, as a result,
they strengthened the church as a whole. During the High Middle Ages from about
1050 to about 1300, the Church expanded its presence in society. The number of
monastic orders multiplied, and the church promoted arts, education, and
scholarship and encouraged the use of canon law and ecclesiastical courts.
C2 | Growth of Royal Power: The Later Capetians |
The resurgent economy and church
contributed to the slow growth of royal power starting in the reign of Louis VI,
who became king in 1108. The expanding economy eventually allowed the kings to
tap into new sources of wealth, and they were able to build armies and a new
bureaucratic administration. The rising influence of the church and Christian
religion strengthened the religious basis of the Capetian monarchy. Henceforth,
French kings were crowned in formal ceremonies at Reims, where Clovis had been
baptized. They acquired the title Most Christian King. The French kings claimed
to have the power to cure a disease related to tuberculosis called scrofula. The
Capetians also benefited from the Crusades, the military campaigns called by the
church to recapture the Holy Land from the Muslims. Participation in the
Crusades enhanced the Capetians’ prestige. It also allowed them to redirect the
warring tendencies of the magnates outside the country; approximately half of
the magnates participated in the Crusades. Despite occasional differences and
disputes, the Capetians were on much better terms with the papacy in the 12th
and 13th centuries than were the dynasties ruling England or Germany.
Louis VI and Louis VII, who ruled
between 1137 and 1180, pacified their domain, which had been overrun by
marauding bandits during the reigns of their predecessors. But the real
challenge they faced was the rising power of the Plantagenet dynasty. This
aristocratic family had strong bases in both England and France. Henry II, who
became the first Plantagenet king of England in 1154, had been duke of Normandy.
He had also acquired a claim to all of Aquitaine when he married Eleanor of
Aquitaine in 1152. Eleanor had been married to Louis VII, but he had annulled
his marriage to Eleanor for her alleged adultery. In the 1180s the Plantagenets
also came to control Brittany.
Louis VII’s son, Philip Augustus,
ruled as Philip II from 1180 to 1223. He maintained surprisingly cordial
relations with both Henry II and his successor, Richard I, until the 1190s, when
the rising Plantagenet threat erupted in conflict. Philip broke with Richard
while both were on the Third Crusade. Richard was able to gain the upper hand
until his death in 1199, but Philip gained the advantage after Richard was
succeeded by his brother, John.
By 1206 Philip had overrun Normandy,
Maine, Touraine, Anjou, Poitou, Auvergne, and Brittany. In 1214 he won a
crushing victory over John and his allies at the Battle of Bouvines and then
nearly invaded England. With the Plantagenets suppressed, the battle determined
which dynasty predominated in France for the next two centuries. In that regard,
it was a critical event in the long history of national consolidation, even
though another desperate struggle with the ruling house of England lay in the
future. During Philip’s reign, the royal domain expanded several fold in size,
and for a time, the Capetians were the dominant power in Europe.
Louis VIII, king between 1223 and
1226, continued to build the royal domain. Philip II had already allowed a group
of knights led by Simon IV de Montfort to attack the Albigenses, members of a
heretical Christian sect in the south of France. The campaign against them was
blessed by the pope. Louis VIII himself went south to capitalize on Montfort’s
bloody assaults and placed all Languedoc, where the sect was strong, under his
rule. Although Louis died in 1226, he had established the right of the Capetian
kings and their families to rule over much of the south. He had incorporated
into the Capetian sphere of influence areas that had been virtually autonomous
since the 9th century.
Under Louis IX, who ruled from 1226
to 1270, the Capetians added luster to their power. Louis, a faithful son of the
church, was so personally pious that he was eventually made a saint by the
church. A committed Crusader, he was a prominent collector of holy relics, which
he housed in the luminescent church of Sainte-Chapelle built in Paris under his
direction. But he was also an effective administrator. He extended and enforced
law and order through the royal courts and the legal system. He stabilized the
currency and built the royal bureaucracy. His prestige was so high that for
centuries he was held up as a model king, and his sainthood strengthened the
cult of the king as a godlike figure.
Louis IX’s successor was Philip III,
who became king in 1270. He was a far weaker and paler king, whose reign was
dominated by factions. He was followed in 1285 by Philip IV the Fair, who was
very different. Philip was the most brutal of the Capetians in using the growing
power of the monarchy to bludgeon his enemies. Although generous to religious
foundations, Philip came to blows with the papacy in defense of his right to tax
church property. He thereby jeopardized the monarchy’s historic alliance with
Rome, one of the principal sources of its success. During this struggle,
Philip’s agents broke into the papal residence and sacked it. Soon thereafter,
the papacy moved to Avignon, where it stayed for nearly a century. To many
contemporaries, the papacy’s agreement to relocate indicated that it had fallen
under the control of the French kings, and the papacy’s prestige suffered.
Philip IV risked destroying the
alliance with Rome over finances because royal power was coming to depend on
money. Philip took other measures to gain revenue, including destroying the
Knights Templar—a rich crusading order—and expelling the Jews from France. In
both cases, the king seized the assets of his victims. In addition, Philip
debased the currency. He was succeeded by the last three Capetians—Louis X
(1314-1316), Philip V (1316-1322), and Charles IV (1322-1328).
C3 | Legacy of the Capetians |
Aside from building the royal domain
and uprooting the Plantagenets, the Capetians contributed to the formation of
the French nation by developing a set of core political institutions, many of
which would last until 1789. Among them was a local administration composed of
judicial officials variously called prévôts, baillis, and
sénéchaux. In Paris, which gradually emerged as the country’s capital, a
central administration began to develop. Administrative and judicial duties that
had previously been performed by the royal council were assigned to other
bodies, such as the parlements, courts with wide-ranging jurisdiction,
and the more specialized Chambres de Comptes, which heard fiscal cases.
Loosely associated with these courts was the Estates-General, an assembly
composed of representatives from the three estates, or legally defined social
classes: clergy, nobility, and commoners. These representatives were elected
throughout the realm. The Estates-General counseled the king and consented to
important initiatives of the crown. The crown also developed a rudimentary tax
system. This system enabled the crown to tap the expanding wealth of the nation,
although taxes were always controversial and often fiercely resisted.
When it functioned, this machinery
and the institutions of the church no doubt reduced the levels of violence and
disorder that had existed in earlier periods. Yet these administrative
mechanisms were also used to exclude and to repress. The king and the papacy
tried to enforce religious orthodoxy, which led to the bloody repression of
nonorthodox believers such as the Albigenses. The rights of Jews, who were
associated with heretics and lepers, eroded, and they were eventually expelled
from the kingdom. Homosexuals and prostitutes also appear to have suffered
increasing persecution. And although it is risky to generalize in this matter,
some evidence suggests that the general reform movement of the church wresting
control of church lands from lay lords caused their families to try to keep
their remaining properties intact by granting women smaller shares of family
estates than they had received during the Early Middle Ages. In sum, processes
that led to the building of the nation were hardly cost-free.
D | France in the Late Middle Ages |
In 1328 the Valois dynasty replaced the
Capetians. By this time, the royal government that controlled the territories
constituting “France” was arguably the most powerful in Europe. During the next
century, two major crises tested its creativity and endurance to the limit. One
was the socioeconomic crisis of the 14th century, which resulted from the
inability to meet the material needs of an expanded population and from the
effects of the plague. The other was a political crisis that emerged from the
Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453) between the Valois and the English royal house, a
conflict that grew into a French civil war. This war indicates that a strong,
pervasive national sentiment had not yet emerged.
D1 | The Plague |
In the late 1340s, bubonic plague
struck France and most of western and central Europe (see Black Death).
Bubonic plague was caused by bacteria carried by fleas. It spread rapidly
through the cities and towns of medieval France, where the population was not in
a strong condition to resist the disease. Already by the late 13th century,
available resources were not sufficient to supply the growing French population,
forcing farmers to cultivate even relatively infertile land to meet the demand
for food. Productivity generally declined with the onset of colder weather,
which meant a shorter growing season. Lumber, a critical resource in the
medieval economy, became scarcer as forests were cleared. Famine recurred
frequently after 1300, when the population reached its peak. Lower living
standards gradually slowed the growth of population, which stagnated over the
first half of the next century.
In 1348 the plague swept northward
through France from Marseille. A quarter to a third of the French people died
during the next two years. Plague remained endemic for the next 350 years and
contributed to further declines in the French population. By the middle of the
15th century, plague and war had wiped out most of the population increases of
previous centuries. Some areas did not again reach pre-plague population levels
until the 18th or 19th century.
The plague also had complex economic
and social consequences, about which there is considerable historical debate. It
does seem to have contributed to the decline of serfdom and the emergence of a
commercial economy, in which goods are exchanged for profit, often over long
distances. As the population declined, so did demand for goods and the price of
land. But wages rose because labor, which had been plentiful and cheap, suddenly
became scarce. Landlords and other employers now had to bid for labor on a more
competitive basis. Agricultural labor became even more expensive and difficult
to hire as people migrated to the cities. The rising price of labor enabled
peasants and workers to spend more money on luxuries such as meat and
proportionately less on grain. Serfs may have used the greater demand for labor
to win their freedom, thereby accelerating the decline of serfdom that had begun
a century earlier.
In the end, however, the peasants
were not able to retain most of their gains from the higher price of labor. Much
of their gains went to the state, which, pressed to pay for the Hundred Years’
War, imposed higher taxes on the peasantry. To pay the taxes, the peasants often
needed to obtain loans from urban moneylenders to whom they had to pay interest,
further depressing their prosperity. In addition, landlords raised peasants’
rents where they could. Peasants’ grievances fueled a revolt in the 1350s,
called the Jacquerie (after the name Jacques that nobles commonly
gave to peasants). The Jacquerie was followed by more revolts between 1379 and
1383.
The plague seems to have had a deep
psychological impact on late medieval French society, intensifying the sense of
the fragility of life and the omnipresence of death. This awareness of death
provoked a variety of reactions. Some people abandoned traditional moral
constraints and turned to the unrestrained pursuit of pleasure. Others focused
more on the apparently imminent judgment of their souls and the need to repent
for their sins, which some people believed were responsible for the plague.
Finally, the plague unleashed a round of accusations against those whose
presence in the community was resented for other reasons. Jews in particular
were accused of poisoning wells and conjuring with evil spirits to bring on the
plague.
D2 | The Hundred Years’ War |
The despair wrought by the plague was
enhanced by the devastation of the Hundred Years’ War, which dominated the
French political scene for more than a century, from 1337 to 1453. The war
originated in the Plantagenets’ efforts to make good on their claims to French
territory. Indeed, the Plantagenets suggested that they had a claim to the
French crown because the mother of the Plantagenet king of England, Edward III,
was Isabella, daughter of the French king, Philip IV. To counter this claim, the
Valois floated the idea that the Salic law, dating back to early Frankish times,
prohibited women from inheriting the French throne and from passing on the right
to inherit the throne to their sons. Although denounced by the Plantagenets and
others as a historical fiction, the Salic law became one of the firmest, most
widely respected French constitutional traditions.
The Hundred Years’ War began in
Flanders and soon moved to other areas, notably Gascony, which the Plantagenets
controlled before the war, and Normandy. During the reigns of Philip VI and John
II the Good between 1328 and 1364, the Plantagenets clearly had the upper hand,
winning major victories at Sluys in 1340, Crécy in 1346 (Crécy, Battle of), and
Poitiers in 1356. Faced with military setbacks, the effects of the plague,
peasant and urban uprisings, and his own capture, John signed the Peace of
Brétigny in 1360, in which he ceded a third of his kingdom to Edward III.
Under Charles V, who ruled from 1364
to 1380, the Valois regrouped. The crown was assisted by Bertrand du Guesclin,
an able military leader who pushed back the Plantagenets on the battlefield. The
Valois also benefited from conflicts within the English royal house. By 1380
most Plantagenet gains had been wiped out.
But under Charles VI, who became king
in 1380, the French position again deteriorated, as did the king, who suffered
from periodic bouts of insanity beginning in 1392. Two competing aristocratic
factions, the Armagnacs and the Burgundians, sought to dominate Charles, and
they brought France to the verge of civil war. Both factions solicited support
from the English, who clearly benefited from their rivalry. In 1415 the new king
of England, Henry V of the house of Lancaster, landed in France and defeated
French forces at the Battle of Agincourt, which secured Plantagenet control of
areas north of the Loire. Four years later, the English allied with the
Burgundians, who forced Charles VI to give his daughter in marriage to Henry V
and to sign the devastating Treaty of Troyes in 1420. This treaty disinherited
Charles’s son, the future Charles VII, and recognized Henry’s claims to the
French throne. Although many future historians would denounce it as an act of
betrayal, contemporary reaction to the treaty was by no means uniformly hostile
in France, especially north of the Loire. Paris, in particular, supported the
Anglo-Burgundian union until late in the war, and the university and the
Parlement of Paris, the presiding sovereign court, recognized Henry V as their
legitimate king when Charles VI died in 1422.
From the 1420s on, however, the tide
once again turned in favor of the Valois for several reasons. First, the English
sometimes treated their French subjects with brutality and made heavy financial
demands on the French. The English had to extort even more money from their
French subjects than did the kings of France because resources coming from
England were inadequate. Second, the war—a dynastic conflict that had become a
civil war—gradually changed again, into a war of national liberation. Although
the notion of a French nation remained embryonic, the French tended to blame the
hardships of the war on the English. Royal propagandists exploited this
tendency, emphasizing the need for a king who was “one of our kind.” Third, the
Anglo-Burgundian alliance began to develop ultimately fatal strains. After 1435
the Burgundians threw their weight behind the Valois, decisively shifting the
balance of power.
Finally, there was the mission of
Joan of Arc, a young woman so romanticized in her own and later times that even
today it is hard to dispel the mythology spun around her. Joan was born to
relatively comfortable peasants from Lorraine. She was dismayed by the hardships
her people had suffered in the war and sought an end to the conflict. She tried
to reinvigorate the Valois dynasty so that it could remove the English from
French soil. Contrary to the popular image, Joan of Arc was never a military
commander, but she did help inspire a fighting spirit among the troops of the
dauphin Charles, the eldest son of the king and the heir apparent.
Charles, the disinherited Valois
prince, had remained morose, lethargic, and uncrowned before Joan arrived on the
scene in 1428. In 1429 Joan helped lift the English siege of Orléans, which
opened the way for the dauphin to be crowned as Charles VII at Reims, the
traditional site of royal coronations. The coronation was critical at this
juncture, because it undercut Charles’s disinheritance in the Treaty of Troyes
by emphasizing the divine, rather than the legal, basis of royal authority.
Seized by the English, Joan was tried
for heresy and witchcraft. The English wanted not only to justify her execution
but also to make the French believe the coronation had been the work of the
devil. Upon her conviction, which was a foregone conclusion, she was burned at
the stake in Rouen in 1431.
Partly as a result of Joan’s mission,
partly as a result of the other factors indicated above, Charles was able to put
the English on the defensive until the end of the war. France was nearly cleared
of English forces by 1453, when the fighting finally ceased. Despite the
armistice, the English and the French viewed each other as mortal enemies for
many centuries.
D3 | Foundations of the Old Regime |
The Hundred Years’ War not only bled
France white materially, it nearly extinguished the Valois dynasty. But the
Valois were able to use the war as the springboard for another century-long
round of building royal institutions, expanding their power in the process. This
expansion of power underlay the emergence of the Old Regime, a complex structure
of political and social institutions dominated by an increasingly absolute
monarchy.
D3a | Population Growth |
Once the conflict was over, the
French population rebounded. Historians generally agree that from the 1450s
until around 1620, the French population expanded considerably. This growth was
probably due to a drop in the average age at marriage, which meant more
marriages and births. The death rate also declined, especially among children,
as epidemics became less frequent. The population of cities such as Lyon,
Bordeaux, and Rouen grew between 50 and 100 percent from 1500 to 1600. By the
late 16th century, the population of Paris reached about 300,000, and the French
population as a whole once again stood at the high level of the early 14th
century.
Production methods changed
relatively little during this period. But rising domestic demand and increasing
foreign trade through France’s coastal cities promoted product diversification.
These changes can be seen in the growth of textile trades in northern France and
the expansion of commercial wine production in the south.
The growth of the labor supply
eventually depressed wages. In addition, larger families meant that estates were
divided into smaller, less viable homesteads. Increasing demand drove up prices
over the long term. The standard of living gradually declined, and population
growth leveled off about 1620.
D3b | Strengthening of State Institutions |
The resurgence of population and
economic growth were accompanied by the political revival of the state. The
scope of royal justice widened as parlements (royal courts) were established in
Toulouse in 1443, Grenoble in 1456, Dijon in 1477, Aix-en-Provence in 1501,
Rouen in 1515, and Rennes in 1551. In addition to hearing cases and overseeing
local administration, the parlements were charged with registering, or
officially adopting, royal edicts. Kings expected registration to be more or
less automatic, since in their view the procedure did not involve anything like
legislative approval. But the parlements sometimes used such occasions to
protest against edicts they found objectionable by issuing formal dissents
called remonstrances. In addition to expanding the judiciary, the royal
government also compiled local customary laws and extended the system of royal
administration by establishing baillis and sénéchaux, royal administrators who
supervised the prevots, in areas that now fell within the expanding royal
domain. To meet the demands of war, the crown expanded its military capacity by
recruiting mercenaries.
In periods of war, the crown needed
to expand its taxing power, and it did so by levying extraordinary wartime
taxes, including indirect (sales) taxes and the taille, a tax paid by nonnobles
on their personal wealth. These taxes were gradually levied on a more routine
basis. To gain consent for them, the crown summoned a variety of local and
regional assemblies, in addition to the kingdom-wide assembly, the
Estates-General. In general, these assemblies approved royal initiatives,
facilitating the expansion of royal power. At the same time, however, the
assemblies ventilated grievances against the king, and they sometimes refused to
consent to fresh taxes. For these reasons, the monarchy gradually sought to
dispense with assemblies, arguing that the king’s right to tax unilaterally had
become customary. But this right continued to be contested, as were the amount
and nature of the taxes themselves.
This opposition was one factor that
prevented the monarchy from establishing a uniform tax code before the French
Revolution (1789-1799), despite its rising power. Another was that the monarchy
granted permanent exemptions from some taxes to certain groups and bodies for
both political and fiscal reasons. Nobles were free from paying the taille on
the grounds that they provided military service to the king. Some localities
were similarly exempt because at some time in the past they had bought a
permanent exemption through a single large contribution. Some provinces were
partially shielded from taxes because they retained the right to negotiate the
size and nature of their tax burden with the crown through their provincial
assemblies. The Catholic Church, a major landholder in the kingdom, also
acquired tax advantages. Rather than pay the standard rate, the church was
permitted to make a “free gift” to the crown. This amount was much smaller than
what the church would have owed if it paid taxes like other groups. Such
exemptions meant that the tax system was far from equitable and weighed most
heavily on those who lacked the political influence to gain exemptions, notably
the peasantry.
To cover the costs of government,
the crown sold state offices, a practice known as venality of office. By the
early 16th century, an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 offices had been sold; by the
late 16th century, the number had increased to about 15,000; by the 1660s, to
about 50,000. By the late 18th century, about 70,000 offices were venal, meaning
that roughly one percent of all adult Frenchmen owned one. Although not all
state offices were venal, some of the most important positions, including
judgeships in the parlements, were. Venality limited the crown’s ability
to control the quality of its own officials. Offices were resold to the highest
bidder, and the crown could not fire officers without repaying the capital they
had invested in their offices, a luxury that the state could hardly ever
afford.
Yet by selling offices, the crown
increased the loyalty of its servants: Normally few officials would revolt
against a state they partially owned. Moreover, venality allowed the monarchy to
make money. The crown not only profited from the initial sale of offices but
also acquired further revenue by annually charging officeholders a sixtieth of
their office’s value to ensure inheritability. Established in the early 17th
century, this charge, called the paulette, yielded more revenue than did
indirect taxes. In addition, venality occasionally resulted in officeholders
being forced to lend the state money. Venality was crucial for the state because
it provided an administrative apparatus at relatively low cost. Venality was
also the most important mechanism for ennobling wealthy commoners. Some of the
costliest offices not only paid yearly dividends gauged on their value but also
conferred noble status if held by a family for four generations.
D4 | From the Hundred Years’ War to the Wars of Religion |
Profiting from a somewhat healthier
economy and a more muscular royal administration, the monarchy built on the
momentum it had acquired at the end of the Hundred Years’ War to expand control
over remaining noble enclaves. In 1461, the year Louis XI became king, the
Valois-Burgundian alliance collapsed. The duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, was
attempting to reconstitute the kingdom of Lotharingia. He made another alliance
with the English and also allied with French nobles who were antagonistic to the
new French king. This faction organized a league, to which Louis was forced to
make concessions in 1465. In 1467 Charles the Bold succeeded Philip, and in 1472
he led an Anglo-Burgundian force against Louis. Louis responded by buying off
England and forming his own coalition of powers that were threatened by Charles.
Although Louis was slow to capitalize on his strategic advantage as king,
Charles was killed in battle in 1477. Louis might have annexed all of Charles’s
large inheritance, but in the end, Charles’s sole heir, Mary, wedded Maximilian
I of the Habsburg family, giving the Habsburgs a major claim on her
inheritance.
D4a | Growth of the Royal Domain |
The settlement of the conflict
produced mixed results. Mary’s marriage to Maximilian allowed the Habsburgs to
annex the Low Countries and left France with a ragged eastern border. There
conflicting sovereignties produced a string of conflicts with German powers in
succeeding centuries. At the same time, the settlement definitively neutralized
the threat to French security from Burgundy. The Burgundian territories were
dismembered, and the French crown annexed the western regions. Louis also
consolidated his hold on areas inside France, such as Guyenne and Normandy,
which had been allied with Charles.
Moreover, the royal domain
continued to grow after the Burgundian settlement. In 1481 Provence and the Var,
areas in the south of France, were added. In 1491 Charles VIII, who reigned from
1483 to 1498, married Anne of Brittany, thereby preparing for that province’s
absorption into the royal domain in 1532. These territories fell under Valois
control according to a variety of terms. Many were allowed to keep their
provincial estates (regional assemblies elected by members of the clergy,
nobility, and commoners), thereby limiting the extent to which later French
kings could integrate the kingdom.
D4b | The Italian Campaigns |
With Burgundy dismantled and the
domestic lords held in a tighter grip, the later Valois looked to expand abroad.
Charles VIII set off on a military campaign in 1494 to vindicate dynastic claims
in Italy. The campaign was initially successful, but ultimately an anti-French
coalition forced Charles to withdraw from Naples. Charles left Italy to organize
another expedition but died before he could undertake it.
The reign of Louis XII from 1498 to
1515 was, in some respects, a replay of Charles’s. To secure the Breton
succession, Louis married Charles’s widow, Anne of Brittany, after a scandalous
divorce from his first wife. He then embarked on another round of Italian wars,
during which he, like Charles, had to abandon Naples. In 1513, again like
Charles, Louis had to leave Italy altogether in the face of a coalition of
anti-French forces led by the pope.
A third round of the Italian wars
commenced when Francis I ascended the throne in 1515. Francis immediately
captured Milan, but at the same time Spain occupied Naples. Spanish interest in
Italy, which stemmed in large part from Aragonese claims on Sicily and Naples,
gave the Italian wars another dimension. In 1519 the Spanish king, Charles V, of
the Habsburg dynasty, became Holy Roman emperor, thereby extending his
territorial claims to include Germany and the Low Countries. The Habsburgs
threatened to encircle France, forcing the French to look to other powers as
allies, including England and eventually the German Protestants and the Muslim
Turks. The Habsburg threat would remain the focus of French foreign policy for
the next 200 years.
The tide of the Italian wars at
first turned against Francis, who in 1525 was captured at the battle of Pavia.
Francis was ransomed the following year, after he renounced lands claimed by
Charles V. Once set free, Francis rescinded his renunciation, and during the
rest of his reign, he gained the advantage.
Under Henry II, who ruled from 1547
to 1559, the tide turned once again. The Italian wars ended with the definitive
Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis of 1559. Under the treaty, France acquired Calais and
three bishoprics in Lorraine—Toul, Metz, and Verdun. But in return, Henry
renounced claim to all his Italian possessions, including parts of Savoy and
Tuscany that had been effectively united with other Valois territories. Thus
ended 60 years of costly and politically fruitless Italian intervention.
D4c | The French Renaissance |
Culturally, the Italian
intervention was far less sterile. The Renaissance had been flowering in Italy
for some time before the Italian wars. Humanism, a Renaissance movement that
focused on the study of ancient texts, had already appeared in southern France
during the early 15th century. But the Italian wars exposed many more French
people to Renaissance styles of art, architecture, literature, and
scholarship.
Francis I became one of Europe’s
leading patrons of the arts. He supported the humanistic endeavors of major
classicists, such as Guillaume Budé. Under the influence of his sister, Margaret
of Navarre, he protected scholars, such as Lefèvre d’Étaples, who were attacked
because their work was associated with new currents of Protestant religious
reform. Francis also brought to France artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and
Benvenuto Cellini. The result was a fusion of Renaissance and late French Gothic
styles, as exemplified in the jewel-like royal residences Francis built along
the Loire.
Francis and Henry II also
patronized the group of French poets called the Pléiade, whose members used and
defended French as a literary language (see Pleiad). The crown cared
little about the linguistic practices of most French subjects. However, it did
not want European elites to view French regard for Italian classicism as a sign
that France was culturally or politically inferior. Partly for this reason, the
crown stipulated in 1539 that henceforth French was the sole legal language of
the state and kingdom. By this time, high culture had clearly become the
business of the state.
Also notable in this period was the
growing use of the printing press. The effects of the print revolution were slow
to reach the nonliterate classes. However, printing did contribute to the
outbreak of the Reformation, a religious revolution that challenged the
supremacy of the pope and resulted in the creation of Protestant churches.
D4d | The Reformation in France |
In 1517 Martin Luther, a German
theologian and religious reformer, began a campaign to reform what he perceived
to be widespread abuses in the church. He was quickly excommunicated. In
succeeding years, he developed a new Protestant theology and church, which
inspired other reformers to do likewise. The Protestant Reformation had a
gradual, but growing, influence in France. On October 18, 1534, in what is known
as the affair of the placards, reformers posted broadsides attacking the
sacraments of the church all over Paris and other northern cities. By this time,
Protestantism had spread well beyond humanist intellectual circles.
In France, Protestantism existed in
many forms, some of them Lutheran in inspiration. But it was most heavily
influenced by the work of John Calvin, a French lawyer and humanist who had
formulated a systematic Protestant theology. Calvin had gone to Geneva,
Switzerland, where he built a model Protestant society. From there, itinerant
ministers carried his message back into France. Many Protestant congregations
began to form, which gave organization to the growing Protestant community. For
reasons that are unclear, the members of these congregations became known by the
1560s as Huguenots.
Protestantism in France grew among
many different classes, including peasants and nobles, varying in its appeal
depending on local conditions. It was especially strong among literate people of
the middle classes who lived in a wide southern arc stretching through Guyenne,
Languedoc, Provence, and Dauphiné. While Protestantism was clearly advancing
during the 16th century, it remained a minority movement among all classes. At
its height, only about 10 percent of the total population were Huguenots.
The attitude of the French state
toward Protestantism was schizophrenic. Francis I was originally inclined to
protect intellectuals suspected of Protestant leanings. But he gradually became
more hostile as the new religion’s disruptive effects became more evident after
the affair of the placards. In the 1540s, persecution turned violent. Following
heresy trials, thousands were executed or condemned to row the galleys (large
vessels with as many as 150 rowers). Overall, however, the enforcement of
orthodoxy remained spotty and did little to change religious practice.
The church’s attempts to suppress
Protestantism in France were met with resistance. Since the 14th century, the
French state had promoted the notion of a Gallican Church that followed Rome
only on doctrinal matters, a notion that had provided a convenient justification
for the crown’s growing control over the bishops. Gallicanism, which would play
a major political role in coming centuries, was particularly strong among the
members of the parlements, who considered oversight of the French church to be
their responsibility. Hence, the measures taken by the Council of Trent to
reimpose orthodox doctrine through the enhanced authority of the pope had less
impact in France than elsewhere. The Jesuits, the new monastic order devoted to
reconquering Europe for the Catholic Church, at first gained only limited entry
into France.
At the same time, the Counter
Reformation did have its impact in France. It inspired efforts to reform the
clergy and to launch new spiritual movements within the French church. Over the
long term, the monarchy supported the Counter Reformation’s goal of reuniting
the nation in a single Catholic faith.
Under Henry II, persecution of
Protestants intensified but was no more effective than before. Protestant
churches and organizations continued to mushroom across the kingdom during the
1550s. Religious divisions were reinforced by political ones, as aristocratic
factions, acting on both religious and secular motives, sought to expand their
power and their access to state patronage. The major factions included the
Guises, strong pro-Catholics with claims to the French throne; the Montmorency,
with ties to both Catholics and Protestants; and the Bourbons, who gradually
assumed leadership of the Protestants.
The growing crisis was aggravated
in 1559 with the sudden death of Henry II in a jousting accident. Henry left
behind his widow, Catherine de Médicis, and four young sons as chief custodians
of an increasingly besieged monarchy. Upon his father’s death, the eldest son,
Francis II, became king. Morally and physically weak, the 15-year-old king fell
under the influence of the Guises. In 1560 Protestant leaders organized what is
known as the conspiracy of Amboise in order to kidnap the king and free him of
Guise control. The Guises thwarted the conspiracy and executed hundreds of its
members.
When Francis died the same year,
his mother, Catherine, became regent, acting in the name of the new minor king,
Charles IX. Catherine sought to reconcile the various factions, but concessions
to the Protestants only further inflamed the Guises. The next ten years saw
three civil wars punctuated by fragile truces. The period was marked by civil
violence committed by ordinary citizens on both sides.
In 1572 Catherine gave her daughter
Margaret of Valois (better known as Margot) in marriage to a leading Protestant
Bourbon, Henry of Navarre (see Henry IV). The marriage exacerbated
Catholic fears of a Protestant coup d’état. On August 24, 1572, dozens of
Protestant leaders were butchered in the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew’s Day,
apparently on orders of Charles IX. During the succeeding months, thousands more
Protestants were murdered across France in an uncoordinated effort to purify the
realm of heretics. Although devastating to the Protestants and their leadership,
the massacres did not end their cause but only drove them to adopt more extreme
positions. They began to claim a right to resist royal tyranny, a right rooted
in an imagined Frankish constitution.
When Henry III, the third son of
Henry II and Catherine de Medici, was crowned in 1574, the conflict was
immediately renewed and became progressively more embedded in a Europe-wide
struggle. England and the Netherlands favored the Protestants, while Spain
supported the Guises. In 1584 the Guises signed an alliance with Spain, in which
the two partners promised to enforce the decrees of the Council of Trent in
exchange for material support. This alliance was sparked by a looming succession
crisis. When the duc d’Anjou, the last remaining brother of the childless Henry
III, died, Henry of Navarre, a Protestant who was a very distant relation to the
Valois, became the next heir to the French throne. In response, a group of
Catholic nobles formed an alliance known as the Holy League. Its goal was to
reunite France in a unitary Catholic faith and prevent Henry of Navarre from
becoming king. While the league established itself in provincial France, a group
of officials and clerics formed the Sixteen, a committee dedicated to advancing
the league’s goals in Paris.
The Sixteen threatened royal
authority. It made a show of force during the Day of Barricades on May 12, 1588,
when Henri I de Lorraine, 3rd duc de Guise, led a revolt against the king. Henry
III was obliged to sneak out of Paris, leaving the city and state in the grip of
the widely supported Sixteen. Henry III acceded to many league demands. But when
the league forced him to call a meeting of the Estates-General, he struck back
by assassinating the duc de Guise and another Guise leader during the meeting.
The league then seized control of many cities. Meanwhile, league pamphleteers
openly argued that the monarchy depended directly on the will of the people and
that the people had the right to kill monarchs who violated divine laws. After
allying with Henry of Navarre in 1589 to counterbalance the power of the Guises,
Henry III was assassinated on August 1 by Jacques Clément, a monk associated
with the league.
Like the assassination of the
Guises, the death of Henry III resolved nothing. The appalling civil war and its
violence dragged on for years, abetted by the intervention of Spanish troops on
behalf of the league and intensified by peasant revolts against the state and
the lords. Henry of Navarre was recognized as king by his supporters but not,
for the moment, by many others. Acknowledging that as a Protestant he could
never vindicate his claim to the throne, Henry converted to Catholicism on July
25, 1593. On February 27, 1594, he was crowned king at Chartres.
The league denounced Henry’s
conversion as insincere and hence invalid, but most French people accepted it,
and thereafter opposition to Henry died out. League leaders were concerned that
popular violence might get out of hand. Thus, they were willing to put down
their arms in exchange for handsome state grants of money and offices. The
French government was able to achieve a relatively cost-free settlement with
Spain in the Treaty of Vervins in 1598.
To settle the Protestant issue,
Henry issued the Edict of Nantes on April 13, 1598. The edict granted
Protestants a limited right to practice their faith, and it temporarily gave
them the right to maintain control of certain fortified cities. The edict was so
contested that it was not registered in the parlements for many months.
The edict has been widely
misunderstood. It was not intended as a step towards religious toleration or
pluralism, neither of which had much support. Rather, it was a concession made
to end violence in the short run with the purpose of imposing religious unity in
the future. Far from being a step toward secular politics, the edict was
grounded in the concept of a unified Gallican Church as God’s instrument. It was
surrounded with fresh assertions of the divine source of royal authority. These
assertions were intended to counteract claims—made by both Protestants and
Catholics at various times—that the power of the monarchy derived from the
people.
Leaguers had reason to be
dissatisfied with the outcome. The league lived on in the form of political
factions and in movements to enforce the decrees of the Church during the
Counter Reformation. But Protestants had better reasons to be fearful of the
future, and their fears proved to be well founded. The Catholic-Protestant
struggle continued, though at a lower level of conflict.
E | The Bourbon Monarchy and the Ascent of France |
The late 16th century was an age of
economic stagnation, characterized by a declining standard of living, social
anarchy, and grotesque violence. It earned a reputation as one of the most
wrenching periods in French history. Yet apart from exacerbating religious
divisions, the Wars of Religion had no major long-lasting economic or social
effects on the nation, which survived intact and without significant territorial
losses. The Wars of Religion had their greatest impact on the state. Henceforth,
the new Bourbon dynasty could point to the chaos of the religious wars as
evidence that only a powerful, indeed absolute, monarchy, deriving its authority
from God, could contain the virulent antisocial tendencies of private
individuals. The additional threat of encirclement posed by the Habsburgs
encouraged the Bourbons to build a state so large that, for certain periods
during the next two centuries, France loomed as the dominant nation in
Europe.
To understand this period, it is
critical to recognize that even defenders of absolute monarchy sharply
distinguished between absolute regimes and arbitrary regimes. In absolute
regimes princes did not share power with institutions such as representative
assemblies. But an absolute king could not legitimately violate the laws of God
or nature or the fundamental laws that governed succession to the throne and
ensured the integrity of the realm. By contrast, in arbitrary regimes—what
became known around 1700 as despotisms—the state was subject to no law.
Absolutists argued that in exercising
sovereignty, an absolute king could make and impose new statute law on his
subjects for their own good. Absolutists held that people had most to fear from
each other and that only if the monarchy wielded unchecked power could they
enjoy true freedom—that is, security in their lives and property.
In fact, absolute monarchy was never
close to being perfectly realized in France. The crown always had to make
compromises and cut deals with local institutions and elites, much as Henry IV
had to come to terms with the Holy League. Although the nobility might have
occasionally resented royal policies, they found much to gain from the absolute
state. They looked to the state to find the means to support their own,
sometimes extensive, networks of dependents.
E1 | France Under the Early Bourbons |
E1a | Henry IV |
Henry IV’s most obvious task after
1598 was to pursue the process of pacification in a still bitterly divided
France. This process began at home. To ensure his succession, Henry had his
childless marriage to Margaret annulled in 1599 and then married Marie de
Médicis, an Italian princess. Marie, who was sympathetic to the Holy League,
bore him three sons and three daughters in the next ten years.
To bring order to the state, Henry
imposed his will on the parlements and other state agencies. Through the efforts
of his superintendent of finance, Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully, he
restored France’s fiscal health. He made tax collection more efficient,
established the paulette—a tax that allowed venal (purchased) offices to be
inherited—and reduced the interest rate on state loans. He also improved the
state’s credit rating by resuming state payments on the debt, which had lapsed
for more than a decade. By avoiding major military conflicts, Henry kept
financial demands on the state at a minimum. As a result, he was able to lower
general taxes.
Tax reductions and the restoration
of peace helped generate a mild economic boom, which contrasted sharply with
conditions in previous years, when hunger, wolves, and freebooting military
bands stalked the countryside. France’s recovery and Henry’s buoyant personality
made him popular with his contemporaries, and despite his many mistresses and
nine bastard children, Henry was held up as a model king for centuries. The ugly
aftershocks of the Wars of Religion were far from spent, however. On May 14,
1610, Henry was assassinated by François Ravaillac, a Catholic zealot who had
been inspired by the Holy League.
E1b | Louis XIII and Richelieu |
Henry’s death left the state in the
unsteady hands of Marie de Médicis. She was appointed regent for her eldest son,
Louis XIII, who was nine years old. Marie leaned in the direction of the
parti dévot (devout party), a loose regrouping of league elements plus
the Jesuits and other monastic orders. Benefiting from a widespread resurgence
of Catholic devotion in Europe, the dévots favored renewed efforts to
eradicate Protestantism. They thus supported an alliance with the Habsburgs,
champions of the Counter Reformation who had also been partners with the Holy
League.
After relying upon more moderate
ministers, Marie turned to dévot Concino Concini as her chief adviser. The
result was Louis’s marriage to Anne of Austria, daughter of the Spanish king,
and his sister’s marriage to Anne’s brother. Concini’s rise irritated many
nobles, some of whom began courting the Protestants. A meeting of the
Estates-General in 1614 failed to resolve outstanding issues. This failure is
one reason why the Estates-General did not meet again until 1789.
In 1617 Louis seized control of the
state. He had Concini imprisoned and later killed, exiled his mother to Blois,
and recalled many of Henry IV’s advisers. But these measures hardly helped the
Protestants, for Louis now took the initiative against them. Between 1620 and
1622, he personally led several military campaigns against Protestants, with the
result that by 1625 all Protestant strongholds, except La Rochelle, had
collapsed.
In 1624 Armand Jean du Plessis, duc
de Richelieu, was appointed to the royal council. Acting much like a prime
minister, he immediately became a commanding figure and soon formed a lasting
partnership with Louis. Strongly influenced by the Holy League, Richelieu was a
protégé of Marie de Médici and supported further measures against the
Protestants. In 1628 La Rochelle, a Protestant stronghold fortified by the
English, was successfully assaulted. This success paved the way for the
long-sought unification of the kingdom and imposition of the Catholic faith.
After 1629 Richelieu left the Protestants alone, and during succeeding decades
they were victimized far less than they had been during the previous century.
But their situation again deteriorated in the 1660s under pressure from the
monarchy.
Richelieu’s restraint against the
Protestants infuriated the dévots, and so did his foreign policy. Because the
Habsburgs threatened France’s eastern and southwestern borders, Richelieu
concluded that France had to support the Protestant German princes, who since
1618 had been battling the Catholic Habsburg alliance in the Thirty Years’ War.
Richelieu resorted to force abroad only gradually. In the 1620s he fought for
French interests in Savoy against the Spaniards, but France did not openly
declare war on Spain and the Habsburg Holy Roman emperor until 1635.
The war went badly at first. In
1636 Spanish forces invaded eastern France—the second Spanish intervention in
France in 50 years. But Spain was eventually driven out, and the French went on
the offensive in the late 1630s. By Richelieu’s death in 1642, France had
conquered Alsace in the east and Roussillon in the south. Under Richelieu’s
successor, Jules Cardinal Mazarin, France made peace with the Holy Roman Empire
in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 and with Spain in the Treaty of the Pyrenees
in 1659. These treaties recognized French acquisitions in Alsace, Artois,
Picardy, Lorraine, and Roussillon. They also established the legal basis for
continued French interference in the empire. Henceforth, France had the
authority to thwart any Habsburg effort to expand imperial control of Germany.
Of all the major participants, France clearly lost the least and gained the most
from the Thirty Years’ War. From 1659 to 1713 France dominated Europe in much
the same way that Spain had a century earlier.
Religious conflict and foreign war
provided the occasion and the excuse to build the French state. Following no
preconceived, coherent plan, Richelieu extended many well-established practices,
but he also promoted bureaucratic procedures that were more modern. Thus, he
created a large clientele of officials immediately loyal to him. He increased
the number of venal officeholders, who in some years provided as much as 40
percent of all royal revenues. At the same time, he made important innovations.
For example, he regularized the use and extended the responsibilities of
nonvenal administrators called intendants, who oversaw the monarchy’s
operations within provincial districts known as généralités.
Richelieu was very much aware of
the cultural dimensions of building the state. He established the Académie
Française (see French Academy), an organization of 40 literary
scholars responsible for standardizing the French language. The Académie
produced the official French dictionary. Richelieu was also a master
propagandist who employed a stable of writers to justify French policies at home
and abroad.
Richelieu’s achievements and his
policies won him important enemies, particularly among the dévots, of whom he
had once been a member. In 1630 a group of dévots—including Marie de Médicis;
the king’s brother Gaston, duc d’Orléans; and the minister Michel de Marillac
and his brother, Louis de Marillac—lobbied Louis to dismiss Richelieu. After
wavering temporarily, Louis instead turned on the dévots during the Day of Dupes
in November 1630. Michel de Marillac was imprisoned and his brother was
beheaded. Gaston went into temporary exile, while Marie left France forever.
Gaston was involved in two more coups directed against Richelieu—one in 1632 and
one in 1642—but neither was any more successful than the first. Richelieu died
in 1642, master of France, and his patron and partner, Louis XIII, died a year
later.
E2 | Louis XIV |
Richelieu and Louis left behind a
monarchy more imposing than it had ever been. But they also left behind a heavy
burden, particularly since the new king, Louis XIV, who reigned from 1643 to
1715, was only four years old at his accession, and France once again fell under
a regency.
E2a | The Regency |
Regency government almost always
meant weak royal authority. This regency also suffered from the fact that it was
headed by two foreigners—the king’s Spanish mother, Anne of Austria, and Jules
Cardinal Mazarin, an Italian-born protégé of Richelieu. Although Mazarin was a
wily strategist, he and Anne faced awesome tasks. They had to prosecute the
as-yet-unconcluded wars with the Holy Roman Empire and Spain. They also had to
deal with spreading resistance to rising taxes imposed to pay for war. During
Richelieu’s administration, direct taxes had nearly tripled. Refusal to pay
taxes and peasant revolts directed against the state’s fiscal policies had
become commonplace by the 1630s. Despite rising revenues, Mazarin and Anne had
to cope with an impending state bankruptcy. At the same time, they had to handle
a growing conflict between venal officeholders and the intendants. Finally, they
had to deal with the legacy of Richelieu’s heavy-handed policies and uneven
distribution of state patronage, which had alienated powerful members of the
nobility. The nobility now sought to cash in on the government’s apparent
weakness.
E2b | The Fronde |
At virtually the same time that
France was concluding its involvement in the Thirty Years’ War, the revolt known
as the Fronde erupted in Paris. The crisis began when the monarchy ordered the
Parlement of Paris to register a package of fiscal measures, including tax
hikes. If the parlement failed to register the package, the monarchy threatened
to suppress payments on the parlement’s venal offices and revoke the
paulette, the tax that allowed venal offices to be inherited. The
parlement not only protested against the package, it also demanded the reduction
of the intendants’ powers and the approval of the parlements to new taxes. When
the monarchy arrested one leading member of parlement, mass demonstrations broke
out in Paris, forcing Anne and her family to leave the city. A compromise that
favored the parlement was reached in March 1649.
But disorders that had festered for
years in the countryside now exploded, as the return of plague and hunger
revived memories of the not-so-distant Wars of Religion. Leading nobles,
including Gaston, Louis de Bourbon prince de Condé, and Armand de Bourbon prince
de Conti, joined the conflict and struggled for position. In the chaos,
thousands of pamphlets, the Mazarinades, were circulated in Paris,
attacking the cardinal and foreigners in general. Mazarin withdrew to Cologne in
1651, from where he continued to direct Anne until he returned the next year.
Condé assumed leadership of anti-Mazarin forces and made an alliance with
Spain.
At this point, the parlement
withdrew to a more moderate position, and Paris turned against Condé. Condé’s
internally divided faction failed to develop a coherent alternative to royal
absolutism and lost ground on the battlefield. The Fronde slowly collapsed in
1652, allowing Louis XIV to return to Paris. Louis had celebrated his 13th
birthday a year earlier and could thereby legally assume responsibility for the
state. Although the Fronde petered out, resistance continued for some years.
This resistance took the form of tax strikes and religious opposition to
Mazarin. This opposition was based in Paris and led by Jean Francois Paul de
Gondi, Cardinal de Retz, and a dissident Catholic movement, the Jansenists
(see Jansenism). Despite his travails, Mazarin, who died in 1661, had
proved a worthy successor to his patron, Richelieu.
The Fronde clearly illuminated
fault lines in the structure of the French monarchy that made it more brittle
than it sometimes seemed. Yet it had little permanent effect on the state. If
anything, the Fronde, like the far more devastating religious wars, gave further
impetus to the growth of state power by demonstrating the need for a strong
monarchy to maintain order.
Louis XIV was fortunate to come of
age just as the armed insurrection of the Fronde was crumbling and France’s
principal foreign enemies since the early 16th century—Spain and the Holy Roman
Empire—were in sharp decline. Historians debate whether Louis took full
advantage of these opportunities. But it is clear that during his long reign,
France assumed a leading position in Europe, both politically and
culturally.
E2c | Foreign Policy |
After Mazarin died and the king
assumed personal responsibility for running the state, Louis’s foreign policy
led France into four wars: the War of the Devolution (1667-1668); the Dutch War
(1672-1678); the War of the League of Augsburg (1689-1697), also called the Nine
Years’ War; and the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714). These wars were
increasingly long and costly and generated anti-French propaganda. They earned
Louis a reputation for reckless, overweening ambition and cruel tyranny that he
has never entirely lost. Most modern historians now take a more balanced view.
Louis did bully and threaten weaker powers, such as the Dutch, and occasionally
terrorized an area, as in 1688 and 1689 when he devastated the Palatinate, the
area west of the Rhine River in Germany. But he was also capable of moderation.
It now appears that—aside from achieving personal glory—his primary goal was
not, as opponents alleged, to conquer Europe, but rather to secure France’s
vulnerable borders.
The main such area was the
long-contested, ragged eastern border with Germany and the Netherlands. Here,
Louis made possibly his most critical blunder when he abandoned the old Dutch
alliance against the Spanish and unnecessarily threatened and then attacked the
Netherlands in 1672. The Dutch responded by striking new alliances at various
times with Sweden, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, and England. In 1689 England
joined dynastically with the Netherlands under William of Orange. These
alliances eventually wore down French forces and contained French
ambitions.
The succession in Spain became a
critical issue in 1700, when the Habsburg king of Spain, Charles II, died
without a direct heir. Before he died, he deeded the Spanish throne to Louis’s
grandson, Philip, duc d’Anjou. Louis could hardly refuse the chance to break the
old Habsburg vise around France. He accepted Charles’s will, although he thereby
aroused great fears in England and the Netherlands that France and Spain would
eventually merge into one superpower. War might have been averted, but Louis
precipitated it by reasserting Philip’s rights to the French throne before
Philip assumed the Spanish throne and by moving aggressively in the Spanish
Netherlands (roughly present-day Belgium).
The result was the War of Spanish
Succession, in which France suffered a string of humiliating defeats. Only at
the end of the war did France manage to restore some military balance. The
Treaty of Utrecht, signed in 1713, and subsequent treaties gave international
recognition to Philip’s accession to the Spanish throne (Philip V (of Spain)).
But Spain relinquished its rights to the Spanish Netherlands and its Italian
possessions, which went to Austria. To win international recognition, Philip had
to renounce his rights to the French throne, although he soon renounced this
renunciation. France had acquired the eastern province of Franche-Comté earlier,
and the Treaty of Utrecht confirmed France’s acquisition of Alsace and
Strasbourg.
Although hardly overwhelming in
scale, Louis’s territorial acquisitions were important and prepared the way for
further rounding out France’s eastern frontier. The transfer of the Spanish
throne from Habsburg to Bourbon hands was arguably even more significant. It
removed a base of hostile operations on France’s southern border that had long
caused trouble. It also led to the formation of an advantageous diplomatic and
military alliance with Spain during the 18th century. Thus, France did benefit
from Louis’s foreign and military policies, even if these wars cost heavily in
terms of lives, money, and ultimately European public opinion.
E2d | Domestic Policies |
Louis XIV’s domestic policies are
harder to evaluate. The pursuit of war put heavy financial demands on the state.
In response, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who managed the state’s finances until he
died in 1683, pushed through a series of financial reforms. However, he was not
able to correct the fundamental weaknesses of the state’s fiscal system. He
streamlined the process of tax collection by creating the unified General Tax
Farm, an organization composed of collectors of indirect taxes, and by making
the intendants responsible for gathering direct taxes, which he tried to make
more equitable. Colbert was a mercantilist—that is, someone who believed that
the wealth of the world was more or less fixed and that to increase its revenues
the government should actively work to expand production, enhance exports, and
limit imports. Among his reforms, he lowered internal tolls, raised tariff
barriers to imported goods, and established and granted state monopolies to
commercial and manufacturing enterprises (see Mercantilism). Although
most of these state companies failed, Colbert did bring a temporary order to
state finances. This order was disrupted after Colbert’s death, when Louis’s
wars also became longer and more expensive.
By the end of Louis XIV’s reign,
the monarchy was so financially squeezed that it adopted one desperate, old, and
dubious fiscal measure after the other in attempts to cover expenses. These
included contracting massive loans, selling venal offices merely to raise
revenue, and tampering with the currency. But the crown also experimented with
new, more promising initiatives. These initiatives included the
capitation—the first nearly universal tax levied according to status and
income—and the Council of Commerce, an advisory board on trade policy that
included merchants.
E2e | French Colonial Empire |
By the late 17th century, a French
colonial empire began to take shape. Although some French traders and fishermen
had ventured overseas earlier, the French colonial empire effectively began
under Francis I. He supported French voyages of exploration along the Atlantic
coast of North America and in the Canadian interior. Sponsored by trading
companies enjoying state monopolies, the first permanent French settlements were
made in the Americas under Henry IV. The explorations of Samuel de Champlain led
to the founding of Québec City in 1608 as a fur-trading post. Competition with
England arose immediately, and in 1613 the English attacked a French encampment
in present-day Maine. Both powers allied with opposing factions among the Native
American tribes, thereby amplifying the conflict (see New France).
Under Louis XIII, the first French
colonies in the Caribbean were established in Martinique and Guadeloupe. At
first these colonies relied on indentured white servants for labor in the
sugarcane fields, but gradually they shifted to African slaves. Colbert sought
to breathe new life into colonial trade and settlement by amalgamating
established trading companies and by forcing the pace of migration to the
colonies. Neither the unified trading companies, including the French East India
Company (see East India Company) based in India, nor the settlement
policies were noticeably successful. Although French explorers continued to
widen French claims in North America, the French population of Canada in the
1680s stood at only about 10,000. Partly for this reason and partly because the
French navy was weak, England was able to seize Nova Scotia and the
asiento—the right to sell slaves in the Spanish colonies—from France by
the early 18th century.
E2f | Louis’s Absolutism |
The authoritarian quality of
Louis’s rule has often been exaggerated. Louis certainly did enhance the cult of
royal authority. He did this most conspicuously through his belligerent foreign
policy and the grandiose court he built at Versailles, which he located away
from the people and political pressures of Paris. Versailles and its lifestyle
elevated the private person of the Sun King, as Louis was called. Thousands of
courtiers focused attention on his every activity from morning to night. The
nation’s best and brightest intellectuals and artists were enlisted to enhance
Louis’s glory in historical writing, music, poetry, art, and architecture, all
of which flourished under his reign. So brilliantly did Versailles shine that
knowledge of French culture and language became common among elites across
Europe. Louis also increased surveillance of and control over his subjects by
building up the military, creating a Parisian police force, and tightening the
system of book censorship.
At the same time, Louis normally
sought to rule by way of negotiation and compromise, not by intimidation and
command. Although the Parlement of Paris lost its right to protest before
registering royal edicts in 1672, Louis often consulted the parlement when
advancing his initiatives. Similarly, in dealing with local matters, Louis’s
government did not undermine the wealth and status of traditional French elites.
Rather, it enhanced these elites to the point of sharing tax revenues.
Versailles itself, although a showcase for the crown, also served the interests
of the courtiers. They came there not only to watch Louis dress, but also to
earn pensions, win government appointments, and gain public confirmation of
their privileged status. Moreover, the Versailles court was only one pillar of
aristocratic social life. Another was Paris, where aristocrats mixed more freely
with middle-class intellectuals and socialites in informal, private gatherings
called salons, which prominent women held in their homes.
E2g | Final Years of Louis XIV’s Reign |
After the late 1680s, Louis’s reign
became increasingly troubled. The burdens of war and increasing debt weighed
more and more heavily. At the very end of his reign, a wave of deaths in the
royal house left a single, sickly five-year-old great-grandson as Louis’s sole
direct and legitimate heir. Religious problems also resurfaced. Early in his
personal reign, Louis had put pressure on the already declining Protestant
community by restricting Protestants’ worship and access to jobs. In 1681 he
forced Protestant families to lodge troops called dragonnades in their
homes. Finally, in 1685 he issued the Edict of Fontainebleau, repealing the
remaining provisions of the Edict of Nantes. The dévots were now getting closer
to realizing their dream of a nation united in faith. Most Protestants either
converted, while sometimes secretly practicing Protestant rituals, or left
France.
Although it was generally well
regarded in France at the time, the harsh anti-Protestant campaign was costly.
France lost productive merchants and artisans, but more important, the campaign
gave propaganda opportunities to France’s enemies. Bitter French Protestant
exiles joined with writers subsidized by England, the Netherlands, and Germany
to assault Louis’s character and regime as tyrannical and despotic for violating
French liberty and the rights of other nations. These charges would be repeated
endlessly against the monarchy until the French Revolution.
Louis also reignited problems with
the Jansenists. During the 1650s, the Jansenists had been implicated in the
Fronde. Louis’s government regarded them with suspicion, especially after two
Jansenist bishops favored the pope’s position in a major dispute with Louis in
the early 1680s. When Louis sided with the upper clergy against the local
priests in the 1690s, the Jansenists began to build what proved to be a critical
alliance with the parlements, which claimed jurisdiction over the Gallican
(French Roman Catholic) Church. Like the Jansenists, the members of the
parlements resented the authority of the high clergy.
In one of the major blunders of his
reign, Louis sought to crush Jansenism. In 1713 he arranged for the pope to
issue a papal bull, Unigenitus, which condemned ideas allegedly contained
in a work by a prominent Jansenist theologian. Unigenitus enraged many
members of the parlements and others as well because it suggested that the pope
was once again interfering in the affairs of the Gallican Church.
A highly dangerous lineup of
opponents was about to cause major damage to the monarchy, which had already
suffered at the hands of Protestant pamphleteers. When Louis died in 1715, his
once glorious regime had already begun to tarnish.
F | From Glory to Revolution |
F1 | Louis XV |
Louis XIV’s death allowed the French
to breathe somewhat more freely, but the regime of the new king, Louis XV, who
ruled from 1715 to 1774, confronted serious problems. Louis XV was only five
years old when he succeeded Louis XIV, and France once again faced a regency
government. To gain approval from the Parlement of Paris for full authority as
regent, Philippe II, duc d’Orléans restored the parlement’s right to protest
royal edicts before registering them. Although this right was soon restricted,
the parlements would continue to oppose many royal edicts, especially those
dealing with Jansenism and taxes.
The most critical and urgent issue
facing the new regime was the impending bankruptcy of the state. After trying
more modest expedients to add revenue, the duc d’Orléans backed the riskier
proposals of a Scottish financial wizard, John Law. With royal permission, Law
founded a private bank, the Banque Générale, in 1716. Two years later, it was
transformed into a state institution, the Banque Royale. Law also established a
speculative commercial company to invest in French colonies. This company, the
Compagnie de l’Occident, was later joined with the bank and other royal
concessions, which together became known as the System. Law expanded the money
supply by issuing ever-increasing amounts of paper money through the bank. This
measure, he hoped, would reduce the cost of government borrowing and stimulate
the economy. But the bank issued too many new bank notes in an effort to sustain
share prices in the Company with cheap credit, and confidence in the
profitability of the Company declined. The System collapsed in 1720.
This failure made it more difficult
to establish another state bank later on, which the French government badly
needed to obtain cheap credit. It also gave critics grounds for charging that
the regime was becoming a despotism, because Law had used many high-handed,
coercive measures to promote his bank. In fact, however, Law’s System probably
gave the economy a much-needed jolt by freeing investors of debt and prompting
new commercial investment, but these benefits were not recognized at the time.
In the aftermath of Law’s failure, the regime dealt with its fiscal problems
through partial bankruptcy, whereby the government renounced part of what it
owed to its creditors.
Louis came of age in 1723, officially
ending the regency. But he was only 13 and continued to rely on the duc
d’Orléans, who died a few months after Louis’s 13th birthday. Orléans was
followed by the duc de Bourbon, who was dismissed in 1726 and succeeded by
Louis’s old tutor, André Hercule de Fleury, a cardinal who served as virtual
prime minister until 1743.
F1a | Foreign Policy |
Fleury tried to restore the
nation’s strength by avoiding wars abroad and pacifying domestic disputes, such
as those over Jansenism. After Louis XIV’s death, the regency had scaled back
the military to reduce costs. Fleury wanted to maintain this policy, at least
until the state was fiscally stronger. Under his regime, France, which for a
time was uncharacteristically allied with England, took the lead in calming
international tensions. But during the mid-1730s, France became engaged in the
War of the Polish Succession and thereby acquired rights to the provinces of Bar
and Lorraine, which passed into the French royal domain in 1766.
Despite Fleury’s efforts to stay on
good terms with England and Austria, an anti-Austrian party in the government
pushed France into participating in the War of the Austrian Succession
(1740-1748) as an ally of Prussia against Austria, the Netherlands, and Britain.
Initially the war did not go well. Austrian troops ravaged eastern France, and
Charles Edward Stuart, a claimant to the British throne who had the unsteady
support of France, failed to topple the Hanoverians, the British royal house.
But France eventually succeeded on the battlefield, capturing a number of cities
in the Netherlands. Partly because of fiscal pressures, partly because Fleury
had trained Louis XV not to act the conqueror like Louis XIV, France settled for
much less than it might have gotten in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which
ended the war in 1748. France returned its conquests in the Netherlands and
agreed to exile the highly regarded Charles Edward. The treaty precipitated an
outbreak of public protest, and the monarchy’s popularity declined.
F1b | State Finances and the Economy |
In addition to rising costs due to
war, the state faced growing expenditures for domestic programs. These programs
included building roads, reconstructing public buildings, and keeping tighter
surveillance over urban populations, especially the poor. Despite these
initiatives, the government was able for a time to roughly balance the budget.
After the Law debacle, the monarchy experimented with a variety of new taxes to
tap the wealth of a broader segment of the population, although political
pressures prevented full implementation. The state also required peasants and
day laborers to work a shift each year on state road crews.
After the War of the Austrian
Succession broke out in 1740, however, the government was forced to borrow
increasingly large sums, and by 1748 it had already added 200 million
livres to its debt. (The livre was worth about 7.25 grams of
silver in 1700 and declined to about 4.5 grams by 1785.) This debt would have
certainly been higher had the economy not begun to improve and the tax base
widened.
Economic expansion resulted in part
from the growth of population, which had stagnated around 1560 and grew little
if at all for the next century and a half. In 1715 the population stood at about
23 million; in 1745 it was about 25 million; by 1789 it reached around 28
million. These moderate increases can be explained in part by a decline in the
death rate, which was in turn due to a reduction in plague and war-related
deaths. Modest improvements in food production and better transportation of
grain to areas hard-hit by famine also contributed to population growth. Famine,
which occurred often during the 17th century, was less severe and frequent
between 1710 and 1789. Manufactures grew, and by 1789 their value roughly
equaled the value of all agricultural products. Moreover, between 1716 and 1789
foreign trade tripled, enriching in particular major port cities, such as
Marseille, Bordeaux, and Nantes.
The fastest growing sector of the
economy was colonial trade, which increased tenfold during the 18th century. The
major source of colonial wealth was the French Caribbean possessions, including
Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti), which had nearly half a million slaves by
1789. Although France lost most of its possessions in North America, including
Canada, to Britain in 1763, it kept its valuable colonies in the West Indies for
several more decades.
The benefits of this economic
growth were not spread evenly. Poorer peasants and communities far from major
trade routes gained little. Inflation, which caused prices to double between
1720 and 1789, ate up the wage increases of many workers. But urban populations,
especially the middle class, flourished. The middle class benefited from new
ways to earn a living (in trade and the professions) and spent more on a growing
variety of products that made life more comfortable and interesting. These
ranged from medical devices and services to books and newspapers.
F1c | The Enlightenment |
During the 18th century, literacy
grew throughout France—faster among peasants than among urbanites. By 1789
roughly a third of the French nation was literate enough to sign their names,
and demand grew for inexpensive editions of classics and new works. Publishers
struggled to meet demand by using cheaper paper, smaller print, and flimsier
bindings. Best-selling works that had been censored for religious, political, or
moral reasons were often printed abroad and smuggled across the border.
The increase in literacy helps
explain the emergence of the intellectual movement called the Enlightenment. At
the core of the Enlightenment was the philosophes, a group of
professional writers and scientists who advocated reform. They frequented salons
and often worked under the auspices of the royal academies in Paris, which was
gradually replacing Versailles as the cultural center of France. The philosophes
wrote works both for the growing public and for state-sponsored publications and
agencies. Their influential critiques of traditional knowledge and society were
most fully developed in the multivolumed, multiauthored Encyclopédie,
which became an international best-seller.
The politics of the philosophes
were diverse, reflecting divergent interests and attempts to persuade different
audiences. Their core political value was liberty, but they disagreed on how to
best promote it. Some philosophes, like Charles Louis de Montesquieu, believed
liberty would be best protected by maintaining the traditional rights of
individuals and corporate groups and by expanding the role of the parlements.
Others, like Voltaire, believed a strong monarchy was liberty’s best defense. On
the margins of the movement were more radical thinkers, such as Jean Jacques
Rousseau, who widened the political imagination by proposing models of
democracy.
As reformers, not revolutionaries,
most philosophes tried to strengthen the state by modernizing and liberalizing
it. But their vigorous assaults on religious and political orthodoxy offended
conservatives. Their books were frequently censored, and occasionally a
philosophe served a prison term. Without intending it, the philosophes
inadvertently fostered the French Revolution by discrediting old authorities and
pushing the pace of reform.
F1d | Growing Crisis |
By the 1750s the Enlightenment had
reached high gear. At the same time, the monarchy was becoming increasingly
entangled in controversy. A gradually escalating crisis in the state made the
French people open to new possibilities. This crisis had many sources. First,
the battle over the anti-Jansenist papal bull Unigenitus was fought
repeatedly during the early and mid-18th century, despite Fleury’s efforts to
quell the conflict with moderate anti-Jansenist policies. The Jansenists
published an underground newspaper and hundreds of pamphlets, and made multiple
parlementary protests in an effort to mobilize public opinion against the crown.
Jansenist publications represented the crown as despotic because it had
repressed those appealing to the Paris parlement against the hated papal bull.
Although the controversy around Unigenitus had diminished by the 1760s,
many Jansenists continued to agitate against the monarchy in later crises.
Second, French foreign policy
raised profound questions about the monarchy’s competence. In agreeing to the
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, the monarchy threw away its hard-won
conquests in the War of the Austrian Succession. Then in 1756 the crown reversed
France’s historic diplomatic position by allying with Habsburg Austria. In the
ensuing Seven Years’ War, France was humiliated by its archenemy Britain and
Britain’s new ally, Prussia, leading many to think that France had lost its
“natural” position as Europe’s leading power. Louis XV did not help matters when
he instituted a policy regarding succession to the Polish crown that he kept
secret from most officials, including his own foreign minister.
Third, the state’s finances were
beginning to crumble again. The Seven Years’ War cost France an immense 1.5
billion livres, of which one-third was paid from new taxes but two-thirds was
paid through borrowing. Creditors became increasingly unsure the state could
repay them and, for this reason, charged higher interest rates. Taxpayers
grumbled over their rising tax bills.
Fourth, Louis’s personal conduct
made it all too easy to attribute the state’s mounting problems to the onset of
a true despotism, in which decisions were made by sinister figures behind the
throne. Louis took up with a series of mistresses, most notably the marquise de
Pompadour, to whom he appeared more devoted than he was to the nation. Although
the extent of Pompadour’s personal power is unclear, she did provide a rallying
point for some of the king’s ministers. The dévot faction at court opposed
Pompadour and tried to get Louis to dismiss her by carrying out a publicity
campaign blaming her for causing many of France’s problems. Pompadour kept her
position until her death in 1764, but the publicity campaign made Louis appear
weak and vacillating. This impression was confirmed by his tendency to change
ministers abruptly, and it helped discredit the monarchy.
Louis’s reputation as a despot
peaked during the last years of his long reign. In 1770 Chancellor René Nicolas
de Maupeou abolished the parlements. Their objections to royal policies had
elicited uncharacteristically strong restatements by the crown of its absolute
authority. The result was an outpouring of pamphlets that condemned not only
Maupeou but also the king. Louis was caught in the crossfire between members of
the parlements, who sought more limits to royal power, and the dévot faction,
who wanted to maintain absolutism in its traditional form. By the end of his
reign, he had managed to turn his sobriquet, the Well-Beloved, into a
satire.
F2 | Louis XVI |
The public hoped for more from the
reign of his grandson, Louis XVI, who became king in 1774. Not wanting to appear
a despot, he quickly reinstated the parlements, to much public rejoicing. But
Louis was an unimpressive emblem of the monarchy in an age when public opinion
carried increasing political weight. Awkward and seemingly slow-witted, he
became an object of derision for his incapacity to consummate his marriage to
Marie-Antoinette for seven years. More important, the king was thought to be
dominated by his Austrian-born wife, whose conspicuous spending was increasingly
resented.
Under Louis XVI, France had only one
major success in foreign affairs, the American Revolution, which France
supported with men and money to weaken Britain. But in eastern Europe, France
lacked the means to effectively prop up its old allies, Poland and the Ottoman
Empire, against rising threats from Russia. Austria, France’s supposed ally,
frequently sided with Russia, causing the French to become increasingly hostile
to the 1756 alliance and to Marie-Antoinette. Her Austrian origins and
connections aroused doubts about her loyalty to France. Meanwhile, Prussia
humiliated France by snuffing out a French-supported revolt in the
Netherlands.
F2a | Financial Problems |
But the monarchy’s main problem lay
closer to home, namely its finances. The American Revolution added another 1.5
billion to 2.0 billion livres to the exploding national debt. By 1789 the
government was spending half its budget on debt servicing. Louis’s finance
ministers sought to stop the coming tide of bankruptcy, while other ministers
sought reforms in the administration. From 1774 to 1776, Finance Minister Anne
Robert Jacques Turgot tried to increase revenues by expanding the economy. To do
so, he removed state controls on the grain trade and encouraged new
manufacturing by suppressing the guilds.
His successor, Jacques Necker,
streamlined the tax-collection system and reorganized the treasury. But like
Turgot, Necker was forced to borrow additional money at increasingly ruinous
interest rates. In 1781 Necker published the Compte rendu, a doctored
account of state finances, to reassure the state’s creditors about the regime’s
financial health.
These numbers were soon challenged
by Necker’s rival, Charles Alexandre de Calonne, who succeeded him in 1783.
Calonne sought to expand tax revenues by stimulating the economy through
additional state expenditures. Whatever its economic effects, Calonne’s spending
spree worsened the debt crisis, and he had to consider additional taxes, among
other measures. By this time, however, the French public viewed such initiatives
as signs of impending despotism. To overcome resistance in the Paris parlement,
Calonne sought to win prior approval of his plans by an Assembly of Notables,
composed of nobles and high church officials hand-picked for the occasion.
Meeting in early 1787, the notables approved parts of his general plan, but not
the tax increases.
Calonne left office and was
replaced by Loménie de Brienne, whose own reform plan did no better with the
notables. The notables were dismissed in May 1787, and Brienne tried to deal
directly with the Paris parlement. But negotiations eventually broke down. To
resolve the impasse, the monarchy stripped the parlements of their political
powers in May 1788. The only result was an outpouring of support for the
parlements and rising demand for a meeting of the Estates-General to consider
the disintegrating condition of the state. In August, Brienne was fired, Necker
recalled, and the Estates-General summoned to meet in Versailles. The calling of
the Estates-General raised a second issue alongside that of royal despotism: How
was the nation to be represented?
F2b | The Estates-General |
Elections were held in late 1788
and early 1789, and lists of grievances were drawn up to guide the delegates in
their deliberations. The compiling of these lists contributed to the
politicization of the nation. In September 1788 the Paris parlement decided that
voting in the forthcoming meeting of the Estates-General would proceed by
estate, not by head. (The Estates-General was divided into three estates, or
legally defined social classes: the clergy, who made up the first estate; the
nobility, who made up the second estate; and the rest of the people, who made up
the third and largest estate.) The decision was probably made to prevent the
king from tampering with the procedures of the Estates-General. But members of
the third estate considered the decision a sellout because it gave
disproportionate power to the clergy and nobles. The issue of voting dominated
the Estates-General when it met in May 1789, leaving the financial crisis
unresolved.
After weeks of bickering, the third
estate acted on its own. It established itself as the National Assembly in June
and invited the clergy and nobility to join it and vote by head. The king at
first opposed the new arrangement, then reluctantly accepted it. But already a
major break with past practice had occurred, and the king appeared to want to
reverse a process over which he had lost control.
Further deepening the crisis was
the first major famine in France since 1709. Bread prices skyrocketed, and
vagrancy increased as the poor searched for food. Many saw these vagrants as
paid agents of the nobility intent on attacking the peasantry, resulting in new
waves of panic. When Louis called for military reinforcements in and around the
capital and dismissed Necker, the hungry people of Paris rose in revolt. On July
14, 1789, they stormed the Bastille, an old fortress-prison that many critics of
justice in the Old Regime had made the symbol of despotism. Revolt had turned
into revolution.
G | The Reshaping of France |
The crumbling of the monarchy in 1789
opened the way to more sweeping changes in France’s political structure than
occurred in any other period of French history. In the course of the French
Revolution, the state was massively reorganized, while a tradition of revolution
became part of France’s political culture. As a result, political stability,
which the revolutionaries themselves sought after a time, proved elusive. The
French Revolution caused a breach in French politics that would not be healed
for a century and a half. Again and again, conservative, counterrevolutionary
parties that defined the nation in terms of its prerevolutionary past clashed
with parties that saw 1789 as a critical moment of national rebirth. Since the
revolution, France has lived through five republics, two empires, and a variety
of other regimes.
During the 19th century, France’s
society and economy experienced other less dramatic but equally important
changes. The French Revolution destroyed the structure of traditional privilege,
turning subjects unequal before the law into citizens with roughly equal rights.
The Industrial Revolution, which took place more gradually in France than in
other European nations, offered new means of making a living and greatly raised
living standards. Indeed, one of the major issues in modern French politics has
been how to assure a fair distribution of the benefits provided by the
industrial economy.
G1 | Revolution and Empire |
G1a | The Moderate Revolution |
In 1789 the French nation embarked
on reconstructing itself. In August the National Assembly proclaimed the end of
the feudal regime—meaning primarily the end of the dues peasants owed their
landlords. The assembly also enacted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of
the Citizen, intended as the preface to a constitution to be written later.
Brief and vague, the Declaration both affirmed the sovereign authority of the
nation and limited that authority by recognizing individual rights to life,
property, and security. Work on the constitution began immediately. Finished in
1791, the constitution maintained the monarchy. But in an effort to prevent
further despotism, the constitution sharply limited the king’s powers and
invested greater authority in a single-bodied legislature, to be elected by
wealthy males.
Between 1789 and 1791, the National
Assembly also reorganized the nation into 83 districts, called departments, and
gave them considerable power to run their own affairs. The assembly eliminated
the nobility as a legally defined class, abolished venality of office, and made
the French Catholic Church an agency of the state. The lands of the church were
seized and gradually sold off to repay the monarchy’s debts and to reimburse
venal officeholders. Full citizenship was extended to Jews and other religious
minorities. These radical changes were resisted by some people, especially the
nobility and the clergy, who began to leave France as early as the summer of
1789. Called the émigrés, these exiles lobbied other nations to crush the
French Revolution.
In October 1789 an angry mob forced
the king and his family to leave Versailles for Paris. The king then reluctantly
and belatedly accepted revolutionary reforms. In June 1791 the royal family
attempted to escape from Paris and possibly from France, only to be stopped near
the French border.
The king and his family were
essentially prisoners when the new constitutional monarchy took effect in
October 1791. Differences soon surfaced over measures to be taken against the
émigrés and those members of the clergy who refused to swear the required oath
of allegiance to the new regime. Using the issue as a means to gather support, a
group of deputies called the Brissotins gained power in the legislature
(Brissot, Jacques Pierre). In April 1792 they pushed the legislature into
declaring war on Austria, which was later joined by Prussia, England, Spain, and
the Netherlands. The French army was unprepared for war and was soon put on the
defensive. The whole revolution now seemed in acute danger. In August angry mobs
attacked the Palace of the Tuileries, where the royal family lived. Shortly
thereafter, the assembly voted to disband the new government in favor of a new
constitution to be written by the National Convention, a new body of elected
deputies.
G1b | The Radical Revolution |
The National Convention met in
September 1792 and voted to abolish the monarchy immediately and establish a
republic. It proceeded to try Louis for treason, convicted him, and executed him
on January 21, 1793. During this time, counterrevolutionary revolts broke out in
rural areas such as the Vendée, and the military situation continued to
deteriorate.
The convention was dominated by
conflict between two factions—the more moderate Girondins (the former
Brissotins) and the more radical Jacobins—although many deputies were
unaffiliated. The Jacobins formed an alliance with the Paris mob, which for a
time exercised considerable power, and purged the convention of the Girondin
leadership. In the late summer and fall of 1793, the Jacobins, under the
leadership of Maximilien Robespierre, established the machinery of the Reign of
Terror. The Terror was intended to coerce citizens into contributing to the war
effort and to help save the republic.
The Jacobins won notable successes
on the battlefield and crushed the Vendée revolt. They thereby saved the
revolution, but they also arrested a quarter-million French people. Of these,
they executed about 30,000, often on questionable grounds, for working against
the republic. They terrorized other deputies and eventually alienated the Paris
crowd. By July 1794 they had so narrowed their political base that Robespierre
and his closest associates were arrested and guillotined. The Terror was over,
and the French Revolution drifted toward the right for the first time since
1789.
G1c | The End of the Revolution |
As the instruments of the Reign of
Terror were dismantled, the convention worked on a new constitution. The goals
of this new constitution were to preserve the achievements of the French
Revolution while ending the process of revolution itself. To prevent a renewal
of the Terror by a single branch of government, the constitution that was
enacted in 1795 distributed power between a two-chambered legislature and a
five-man executive, known as the Directory.
Although it lasted longer than the
other revolutionary regimes before it, this government also failed to stabilize
the political system. Its leaders fundamentally distrusted democratic procedures
and went so far as to cancel elections that brought undesired results. The
government refused to abide by its own constitution. It shifted back and forth
between alliances with the left and the right, turning increasingly to a policy
of repression imposed by the military.
Meanwhile, the armies of the
republic extended the French sphere of influence into Belgium, the Netherlands,
Switzerland, and Italy. Military victory contributed to the growing power of a
Corsican-born general with great political ambitions, Napoleon Bonaparte. In
1799 serious military setbacks weakened the Directory’s political grip, and
fears grew that the radical left was about to take over. Politician and theorist
Emmanuel Sieyès then joined forces with Bonaparte to scuttle the government. On
November 9, 1799, Bonaparte’s troops forced members of the legislature to vest
state power in a new provisional government, soon to be called the Consulate. It
was composed of Sieyès, Bonaparte, and French statesman Pierre Roger Ducos. The
Directory was finished and so was the revolutionary process that had brought it
into existence.
The only real star in the new
government, Bonaparte was designated as first consul and given a term of ten
years. He quickly assumed nearly total power, despite the existence of a puppet
legislature. In 1802 he signed a treaty with France’s enemies, which allowed
France to keep control of northern Italy and the regions around the Rhine. It
brought France the first real peace it had known in ten years. On a wave of
popular acclaim, Bonaparte was appointed first consul for life. He successfully
built up a wide constituency, drawing from both supporters and opponents of
previous revolutionary regimes. To further that end, he pardoned most of the
émigrés in 1802.
Even more important were
Bonaparte’s institutional reforms, most dating from this early period of his
rule. In 1801 he settled the outstanding issues related to the French Catholic
Church in a concordat agreed to by the pope. The concordat affirmed Roman
Catholicism as “the religion of the great majority of citizens,” limited papal
interference in the affairs of the French church, provided state salaries for
the clergy, and recognized the Revolution’s confiscation of church lands as
permanent. Bonaparte reorganized the civil administration, instituting a system
of prefects, subprefects, and mayors charged with executing his orders in the
provinces. To strengthen state finance, Bonaparte stabilized the value of the
franc, the common name for the livre after 1789, and established the Bank of
France (Banque de France), which facilitated government borrowing. To reform
education, he instituted a series of secondary schools run according to a code
of military discipline. These schools were later incorporated into the Imperial
University, a state agency to oversee and coordinate education. Bonaparte also
completed another project that would help define the modern French
nation—France’s first systematic law code (see Code Napoléon).
Having reformed France’s
government, Bonaparte reformed his own status. In 1804 he crowned himself
emperor as Napoleon I, thereby initiating the First Empire. The revolutionary
dreams of liberty were now forgotten in favor of a benevolent despotism, whose
citizens were kept under close surveillance by Napoleon’s police chief Joseph
Fouché, duc d’Otrante.
G1d | First Empire |
Many of Napoleon’s individual
domestic reforms—the system of prefects, the Bank of France, the law code—proved
enduring, but the fate of the First Empire as a whole was determined on the
battlefield. Indeed, the First Empire was, more than anything else, a machine of
war. In 1803 France renewed conflict with England, and soon thereafter with
other powers. Over the next few years, Napoleon won a string of brilliant
military victories. His special target was Britain, the keystone of the opposing
alliance. Napoleon sought to cripple the British economy and stimulate French
production with the Continental System, a blockade to prevent British goods from
reaching most European nations. The Continental System failed, but by 1810
Napoleon had established an empire of satellite kingdoms—many ruled by his
relatives. Napoleon’s empire extended from Spain to Poland and included an
alliance with Russia as well as the subordination of Prussia and Austria.
This empire proved unstable and was
short-lived. Spain erupted in guerrilla activity, supported by Britain; Russia
pulled out of both the Continental System and its French alliance; and Napoleon
failed to turn around Russian opposition through his ill-fated invasion of
Russia in 1812. By 1813 the empire was crumbling and reeling from defeat. The
following year allied armies entered France. Napoleon abdicated and was sent to
the Italian island of Elba while the Bourbons returned to power under Louis
XVIII.
In 1815 Napoleon attempted a
comeback. He arrived in France and rallied the people to his side under the
promise of a new, more liberal regime. But this brief interlude, known as the
Hundred Days, ended with Napoleon’s final crushing defeat in the Battle of
Waterloo and the second Bourbon restoration. The career that began in military
glory ended because of military and diplomatic miscalculation. Napoleon was
exiled to the Atlantic island of Saint Helena, where he died in 1821.
Few individuals have had such a
lasting impact on French history as Napoleon. Yet the nature of his legacy
remains disputed. He ended the turbulence of the revolutionary decade while
completing some of the revolution’s unfinished business. His way of healing the
cleavage between revolutionaries and counterrevolutionaries was to personalize
politics through a cult of his own glory, to embark on ultimately fruitless
campaigns of military conquest that cost the lives of about 3 million people,
and to unify the nation through the centralization of power. This was one
possible answer to the instability resulting from the revolution, and those who
were moved by Napoleon’s myth in later years found it as compelling as had so
many of his contemporaries.
Yet, whether such a system could
have endured much longer is questionable, given the losses of manpower and
wealth. Although Napoleon attempted to stimulate French economic production, he
was unable to prevent a net decline in trade and a reduction in the agricultural
and industrial growth rate, due to the disruptions of war. Moreover, it is
arguable that the Napoleonic system of command was not suited for a nation that
still had aspirations for liberty, had practiced a primitive form of democracy
during the revolution, and was about to enter a new industrial age. Napoleon
opened careers to men of talent but modest background, so long as they accepted
the kind of state-imposed tutelage from which the early revolution had sought to
release them. It remained to be seen what the French would do under less
coercive regimes.
G2 | 19th-Century French Economy and Society |
G2a | Industrialization in France |
The term Industrial Revolution, invented over a century ago to
describe the rapid economic transformation of Britain, is not entirely
appropriate to describe the change of manufacturing methods in modern France. To
be sure, the two economies appear remarkably similar now, but France’s
transition to an industrial economy was much more gradual. French industrial
production lagged behind that of Britain and Germany for many decades.
This pace was in large part the
result of the slow expansion of the French population relative to population
growth in virtually all other countries of Europe. During the 19th century, the
British population increased by about 350 percent, the German population
increased by about 250 percent, and the overall European population more than
doubled. But the French population increased by only 40 percent, to about 39
million. French mortality rates did decline—from 25.3 per 1,000 between 1816 and
1820 to 18.3 per 1,000 during the period from 1911 to 1913. However, the
birthrate declined more—from 32.9 per 1,000 from 1816 to 1820 to 18.8 per 1,000
from 1911 to 1913, which was unusually low for Europe in this period.
Part of the explanation for
France’s low birthrate lies in the persistence of the peasantry, which grew in
absolute size, although it declined as a fraction of the total population.
Peasants were typically forced to limit family size because they earned only
very modest incomes from cultivating small plots and working at a variety of
low-paying jobs. Some peasants migrated to the cities in search of work, but
France’s urban growth was modest relative to Britain’s. Only 14 percent of the
French population inhabited cities of over 10,000 by 1851, compared to 39
percent of the British population. Slower rates of population and urban growth
meant smaller domestic demand for industrial goods. The foreign market did
little to increase this demand because France exported only 8 percent of its
manufactured products until the 1840s. High protective tariffs until the 1860s
reduced foreign competition that might have stimulated innovation.
As in Britain, industrialization in
France began in the textile industry. It then spread to heavy industry,
especially iron, which became the dominant industrial sector by the mid-19th
century. Not all sectors of manufacturing were immediately affected by the
Industrial Revolution. Until the 1880s, for example, glassware continued to be
produced by small family firms of skilled workers employing traditional, manual
glassblowing techniques.
Beginning in the 1840s, railroad
construction powerfully transformed all sectors of the French economy,
spearheading an economic boom that lasted until the 1860s. Earlier in the 19th
century, canal and road building had begun to create a truly national market,
but the railroads allowed goods to reach virtually all areas of France by World
War I (1914-1918). Railroad construction also stimulated demand for metal to
produce rails and rolling stock.
Railroads did not, however, prevent
the onset of a serious economic recession beginning in the 1860s. The recession
was caused primarily by the inability of French agricultural and industrial
producers to meet the growing worldwide competition for markets to which a
reduction in tariffs in 1860 had exposed them. The recession slowed but did not
halt French industrial growth until the strong recovery of the 1890s. Between
the 1890s and World War I, French economic growth accelerated to twice the rate
of the previous three decades.
The impact of industrialization on
French society was strong, but not so dramatic as in Britain and Germany, where
faster rates of economic change altered the landscape within a few decades.
Paris suffered critical problems related to health and traffic congestion
because it was so large and grew relatively rapidly. In the 1850s the government
undertook a massive program of urban reconstruction under the leadership of the
George Eugène, baron d’Haussmann, who was prefect of the Seine. Haussmann
demolished many buildings, widened streets, and constructed a massive network of
waterworks and sewers. Haussmann’s projects, which were accompanied by a great
deal of private rebuilding, transformed Paris from a medieval city into a modern
city and provided a model of urban renewal followed in other French cities.
Industrialization also led to the
formation of a French working class. The industrial labor force expanded from
1.9 million in the period between 1803 and 1812 to 6.7 million in 1913. However,
as late as 1906, only about a quarter of these people worked in establishments
of more than 50 workers, while the remainder worked in smaller businesses. Many
people worked under dangerous conditions, lived in overcrowded housing, and had
little employment security. The living standards of most workers did not begin
to rise substantially until the boom of the 1850s. This improvement was followed
by further uneven rises until World War I.
Peasants, too, improved their
standard of living during the 19th century, as comforts once known to only a few
became more common. Some peasants had maintained commercial relations with urban
areas for centuries. However, the coming of railroads and the opening of
state-supported schools, especially during the Third Republic, broke down the
commercial and cultural isolation of others. Standardized French gradually
replaced old dialects.
G2b | Emergence of the Middle Class |
Living primarily in cities and
larger villages, the middle class blended imperceptibly at its upper end with
the aristocracy. This group of so-called notables reaped most of the benefits of
industrialization and dominated politics until the Third Republic in the 1870s.
At its lower end, the middle class fused with the upper reaches of the working
class. Between these extremes emerged a large class of white-collar workers with
modest incomes derived from small businesses, retail shops, and clerical and
professional jobs. This class formed the backbone of the republican constituency
in the late 19th century.
In families of the middle class,
women were not expected to work in salaried positions outside the home. This was
particularly true for women who were married and had children. But primarily
because of economic necessity, 68 percent of all women over age 16 and 56
percent of all married women held salaried jobs in 1906; these numbers were,
however, much lower in nonagricultural areas.
Despite their critical
contributions to the economy, women had far fewer rights than men. Indeed, they
constituted the largest disadvantaged group in a nation that had proclaimed the
equality of rights in 1789. Under the Code Napoléon, husbands had full control
over family property, including dowries brought by wives into their marriages.
Divorce was illegal from 1816 until 1884, and the legal and social consequences
of adultery were much more severe for women than for men. Secondary education
was unavailable to most females until the 1880s. The right to vote was extended
to women only in 1945 after a half-century of agitation. Even today women hold
only a small, although increasing, number of top positions in the French
government.
G3 | Politics from Napoleon to World War I |
The collapse of the First Empire led
to a quick succession of regimes and revolutions until 1875. This instability
was rooted in the deep political divisions left by the French Revolution,
divisions relating to the structure of government, the role of the church, and
the distribution of wealth generated by the Industrial Revolution.
G3a | The Bourbon Restoration |
The First Empire was followed by
the Bourbon Restoration under Louis XVIII. It is often said that the leaders of
the Restoration tried to “turn the clock back to 1789,” but they were well aware
that that was impossible. Too many institutions of the Old Regime had been
destroyed, and too many new ones had survived Napoleon’s passing. Not only was a
new system of law and administration in place, but a double-chambered
legislature henceforth provided at least some balance to executive authority.
Instead, the leaders of the Restoration sought to reinstitute the power and
authority of the nobility and the elite clergy, groups that had suffered
grievous losses during the previous quarter of a century. They also wanted to
make the new institutions work to their advantage.
Louis realized that he had to make
some concessions to those who had supported the French Revolution. Thus in 1814
he proclaimed—not as a matter of natural right but as the concession of a
divine-right king—a charter with weak guarantees of basic civil liberties. But
after the Hundred Days, the brief period in 1815 when Napoleon returned to
office, extreme ultraroyalists convinced Louis to purge the administration of
its revolutionary personnel. At the same time, conservatives unleashed a wave of
terror against political undesirables in the countryside. Ultraroyalists
decisively won the first round of elections, but their hold was broken in the
elections that Louis called in 1816.
These elections were won by a loose
coalition of liberals, who supported the moderate reforms of the revolution but
not popular democracy. They continued to increase their influence until 1820,
when the king’s nephew was assassinated. Then the ultraroyalists, who blamed the
assassination on the liberals, returned to power, where they remained for most
of the Restoration. Their position was enhanced when a supporter of their
agenda, Charles X, became king in 1824 upon Louis’s death.
Charles’s coronation at Reims in
1825 with most of the medieval trimmings was followed by other gestures that
recalled the Old Regime, including legislation (never enforced) to punish
sacrilegious acts. A relatively modest law was passed compensating émigrés for
property confiscated during the revolution. But disputes over leadership and the
role of the papacy in the French Catholic Church split the ultraroyalists,
allowing moderate royalists and liberals to gain seats in the elections of 1827.
Charles made temporary concessions
to the moderates, but in 1829 he installed an ultraroyalist ministry under the
hated chief minister, Jules de Polignac. Polignac offended both the center and
the left, leading to a fight in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower legislative
house, in 1830. When the king called for new elections, the ministry was
decisively repudiated at the polls. Charles responded by signing the July
Ordinances, which dismissed the new Chamber of Deputies even before it met,
restricted the right to vote, and limited freedom of the press. Despite a
military victory in Algeria that led to its annexation by France, Charles’
government was doomed. The July Ordinances touched off a revolution in Paris
that drove Charles from the throne. The Restoration was over.
G3b | The July Monarchy |
The Revolution of 1830 led to a new
regime, known as the July Monarchy because of the month of its birth. It was
headed by Louis Philippe of the house of Orléans, who ruled from 1830 to 1848.
His supporters in the Orléanist Party were largely drawn from the notable class
of wealthy landowners and businessmen. The Orléanists were prepared to endorse
the political heritage of 1789 to the extent that they broke with the idea of
divine-right monarchy and waved the three-color flag created in the early 1790s.
But they did not endorse popular democracy.
The Orléanist regime was challenged
on the left by radical republicans and on the right by former ultraroyalists,
but it was devoted to maintaining political and social stability. It did so with
brute force, as when it put down revolts of the Lyonnais weavers in 1831 and
1834. Although not marked by great new initiatives, the July Monarchy did pass a
law in 1833 laying the foundation for a national system of primary schools. The
sponsor of this measure, François Guizot, a Protestant, became chief minister in
1840, lending a slight anticlerical cast to the regime.
Under the July Monarchy, the social
problems arising out of the Industrial Revolution became matters of increasing
debate. The regime itself, however, tended to a laissez-faire, or hands-off,
policy and did little to solve social problems. Félicité de Lamennais, a
philosopher who later became a priest, led an ultimately unsuccessful campaign
to interest the pope in the cause of social reform. The left developed a number
of sweeping plans of reform to save humanity from the perils of modern
industrial society. Among the more grandiose were the plans of Charles Fourier
and those of the followers of Saint-Simon. Fourier wanted to replace modern
cities with utopian communities, and the Saint-Simonians advocated directing the
economy by manipulating credit. Although few of these programs had much support,
they did expand the political and social imagination of their contemporaries,
including a German-born exile in Paris named Karl Marx.
They also increased dissatisfaction
with the bland policies of the July Monarchy, and in 1848 the regime was
overthrown. An economic recession in 1846 and 1847 had already spread discontent
in the population. Then in February 1848 opponents of the regime provoked it
into ordering a crackdown on dissent. The government failed to master the
situation, and crowds in Paris drove out the king. Louis Philippe abdicated on
February 24. A new republic was declared, a provisional government was
organized, and the call went out for fresh elections. France was once again in
revolution.
G3c | The Second Republic |
The Second Republic lasted only
four years, due chiefly to the inability of the regime to reconcile widely
divergent political agendas. The provisional government responded to the crisis
of unemployment by establishing national workshops to provide jobs in Paris. But
the workshops were quickly dismantled after a relatively conservative government
was elected in April 1848. This election was the first held in France on the
basis of true universal male suffrage, and France was still overwhelmingly a
country of relatively conservative peasants.
Parisian workers rose in revolt,
barricading themselves in the streets. The government responded by sending in
troops, who bloodily repressed the revolt in what is known as the June Days of
1848. This repression marked a major breakdown in the loose alliance of workers
and bourgeois that had underpinned revolutionary movements since 1789. A new
republican constitution was enacted in November, but it left unclear the
respective powers of the unicameral assembly and the executive president. In the
presidential elections of December 1848, the overwhelming winner was a nephew of
the great Napoleon, Louis Napoleon, who had previously tried to overthrow the
July Monarchy and had served time in jail for it.
Louis Napoleon’s appeal lay not
only in his prestigious dynastic background but also in his fuzzy political
platform, which allowed people of different parties to see in him a fellow
spirit. In May 1849 a new legislature was elected. The big winners were
right-wing monarchists and, to a lesser extent, left-wing radicals; moderate
republicans went down to defeat. Exploiting ambiguities in the constitution
regarding the limits of his power, Louis Napoleon at first favored the right. He
agreed reluctantly to a restriction of the suffrage and to a law that increased
church influence in education. But by 1851, the president fell out with the
assembly over his demands for funds to pay his debts and for a constitutional
revision that would allow him to serve a second term.
On December 2, Louis Napoleon had
assembly leaders arrested and then altered the constitution so that he could
have a ten-year term. This change was approved overwhelmingly by the voters, and
a year later he followed in his famous uncle’s footsteps by making himself
emperor as Napoleon III. This move was also approved by a wide margin,
demonstrating what many liberals, such as the historian Alexis de Tocqueville,
feared—namely that democracy in France would lead to the end of liberty. The
republic had given way to the Second Empire.
G3d | The Second Empire |
Napoleon III enjoyed the political
benefits of ruling during a period of rising prosperity, but his success was due
equally to his considerable political talents. He built a well-oiled political
machine that made him master of France, and he had sufficient insight to see
that his success depended on distributing patronage widely. Moreover, he had the
unusual foresight to anticipate and forestall opposition before it became a real
threat.
Recognizing that the authoritarianism of his early reign would
eventually be challenged, he gradually liberalized his regime, relaxing controls
on the press, allowing workers to organize, and widening the power of the
legislature. Although the opposition exploited these concessions and grew
stronger, Napoleon III continued on his liberalizing course. In 1870 he proposed
a new constitution that further increased the power of the legislature. It was
heartily endorsed by the electorate, thereby lending fresh authority to the
regime. Had Napoleon III shown as much wisdom in foreign affairs, France might
well have evolved fairly smoothly into a regime resembling the Third Republic,
with the emperor assuming a supervisory role above party politics.
As it happened, Napoleon III’s
regime, like that of his uncle, died of battle injuries. Since 1815 France had
pursued a cautious foreign policy, surprising the rest of Europe, which had
expected France to continue being a disruptive force in international affairs.
Although allied loosely with Britain, France remained isolated under the July
Monarchy. Napoleon III conceived of a grander French role in Europe and
elsewhere. Between 1854 and 1856 he joined forces with England to fight Russia
in the Crimean War. Imagining himself the godparent to Italian and German
nationalism, he supported the efforts of Piedmont to form a northern Italian
league, and in 1866 he helped arrange an Italian-Prussian alliance. In the 1860s
he also backed an ill-fated effort to put a Habsburg prince, Maximilian, on the
throne of Mexico. This venture ended in 1867 with the withdrawal of French
troops, the execution of Maximilian, and the insanity of Maximilian’s wife.
But his fatal blunder was to engage
militarily the growing power of Prussia under the able leadership of Otto von
Bismarck. Napoleon III allowed a dispute with Prussia over the Spanish
succession to become a matter of national prestige. Bismarck used the issue to
elicit from France a declaration of war (see Franco-Prussian War). Vastly
underestimating Prussian military strength and overestimating his own, Napoleon
III saw his army beaten soundly at the Battle of Sedan in September 1870, and he
became a prisoner of war. Sedan set off political demonstrations in Paris that
ended the Second Empire. On September 4, 1870, a new provisional government was
declared.
As minister of interior in the new
government, the republican leader Léon Gambetta worked vigorously to mount
patriotic opposition to the advancing Prussian troops, which laid siege to
Paris. He escaped from besieged Paris in a balloon in order to organize
provincial defenses. But French resistance crumbled. During the winter of 1870
to 1871, starving Parisians were reduced to eating zoo animals. In January, some
members of the provisional government split with Gambetta and sued for peace.
A hastily called election in
February 1871 produced a legislature that was overwhelmingly monarchist, largely
because the right favored a quick end to the war, as did most French people. The
left, on the other hand, called upon a weary nation to keep on fighting. The new
assembly chose Adolphe Thiers, a seasoned Orléanist politician, to be executive
of the provisional government. Thiers negotiated the peace terms for ending the
Franco-Prussian War. France was required to pay 5 billion francs, allow Prussian
forces to temporarily occupy eastern France, and cede to Prussia all of Alsace
and part of Lorraine. Although the assembly reluctantly approved the terms, the
republicans disavowed them.
In March 1871 Paris rose in the
revolt of the Commune, which turned a foreign war into a civil one (see
Commune of Paris, 1871). Lasting 72 days, the revolt was largely motivated
by opposition to the peace terms and to the monarchist assembly. But to the
radical left, it became a symbol of proletarian insurgency against the ruling
classes. In May Thiers unleashed troops against the Commune and crushed it. The
result was 20,000 people dead and 50,000 sent to trial. Such repression had not
been seen since the Reign of Terror, and bitter memories of the atrocities
committed by both sides endured.
G3e | The Third Republic |
The right appeared strong enough to
rebuild a monarchy on the ruins of the Commune, but instead France unexpectedly
established the Third Republic. The monarchists’ failure can best be explained
by several factors: rival claims to the throne by the Bourbons and the
Orléanists, delays that allowed opponents to gain strength, and the receding of
the war issue on which the right had won at the polls in 1871.
Meanwhile, Thiers consolidated his
power. He rebuilt the army and paid off reparations owed to Germany as a result
of the Franco-Prussian War, after which Prussia was incorporated into the
unified state of Germany. Most importantly, he inspired confidence among people
in the political center. His brutal repression of the Commune convinced them
that a republic would not sell out to the radical left. However, opposition to
Thiers led to his resignation in 1873. He was replaced by Marshal MacMahon, an
ally of the monarchists.
Two years later a new constitution
was enacted that formally established the Third Republic with a two-chambered
legislature, a president, and a cabinet responsible to the legislature. Few were
truly satisfied with this arrangement, and a party of republican radicals
initially rejected it. But the constitution gained enough support to pass
because so-called republican Opportunists such as Gambetta imagined it could be
altered later to create a more unified state. At the same time, moderate
monarchists thought the president would eventually be replaced by a king. As it
turned out, both groups were wrong. The Third Republic lasted longer than any
other French regime since 1789—a remarkable result, given that all other major
European states at the time were monarchies of one sort or another.
Republicans decisively won the
elections of 1876, which eventually put them at loggerheads with MacMahon. The
next year MacMahon called for new elections to the Chamber of Deputies, which
led only to another, if lesser, republican victory. MacMahon was forced to
resign, and his defeat had long-lasting consequences. Henceforth, the president
became a relatively weak figure that would never again dissolve the Deputies,
thereby making the legislature the chief center of power. This outcome was
disappointing to both republicans and monarchists. It also increased the
difficulties of forming ministries with activist agendas, because the large
number of parties made forming coalitions necessary to gain the support of the
legislature. If any party in a governing coalition objected to a proposed
policy, this party could easily bring down the coalition by withdrawing from it.
Conservative, agrarian interests dominated in the senate and were thereby able
to block reform; as a result, women and labor unions benefited little from the
Third Republic.
Yet the common image of the Third
Republic as a stalemate regime with many brakes and a weak motor needs some
correction. In the 1880s the government was strong enough to initiate a vast
program to build and staff secular primary and secondary schools, which
instilled patriotic republican values as a counterweight to those of the church.
In the same decade, it expanded France’s colonial empire, which became the
second largest European overseas empire. In the early 20th century, the Third
Republic disestablished the church and led the nation through the severe trials
of World War I.
Perhaps most significant, it made
republican democracy—still a widely distrusted form of government in
1870—acceptable to the vast majority of the French. This was achieved partly by
developing nationalistic symbols with wide appeal. In 1879 the revolutionary
hymn La Marseillaise was made the national anthem, and in 1880, Bastille
Day, July 14, was declared a national holiday.
Except during the World War II
years from 1940 to 1945, France has remained a republican democracy. To be sure,
the Third Republic was brought down in 1940 by depression and defeat. But no
other post-Napoleonic regime had survived disasters of equal gravity, and most
had collapsed under considerably less stress.
The first serious test of the Third
Republic’s resiliency was the Boulanger affair, which followed a series of
financial scandals that discredited the government. In the late 1880s a rising
career soldier, General Georges Boulanger, launched a political career on the
basis of his popularity as military reformer. In a highly nationalistic age, his
campaign drew wide support, and radicals such as Georges Clemenceau initially
thought he might serve as a charismatic figure on behalf of the left.
Increasingly however, Boulanger
flirted with the right, calling for drastic revisions to the constitution. He
rallied elements of the French population who were dissatisfied with the Third
Republic and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. As his movement gained
strength, the government threatened to arrest him. In 1889 Boulanger fled to
Belgium, where two years later he committed suicide on the grave of his
mistress. Although the Boulanger affair now appears something of a farce, it
seriously threatened the Third Republic, and its resolution proved a political
windfall to the center.
Still more serious was the Dreyfus
affair in the 1890s. Alfred Dreyfus was a Jewish career army captain working in
military intelligence. In 1894 he was arrested, court-martialed, convicted, and
sent to Devil’s Island for espionage on behalf of Germany. Convinced of his
innocence, his family tried unsuccessfully to reopen the apparently closed case.
However, military secrets continued to pass to the Germans, and a military
investigator, Colonel Georges Picquart, found evidence showing that Major Marie
Charles Esterhazy was guilty instead. The army called Picquart off the case, but
information about it began to seep out to the public.
Center-left newspapers gradually
adopted Dreyfus’s cause as their own, and Esterhazy was brought to trial. He was
acquitted in 1898, but by then it was becoming clear that the army had framed
Dreyfus. In perhaps the most famous newspaper editorial ever published,
“J’accuse” (“I Accuse”), the great novelist and Dreyfus supporter Émile Zola
denounced the army for its deceptions.
Controversy gripped the nation and
the world as Dreyfus became a symbol of the secular Third Republic itself.
Ordinary citizens chose sides according to their politics. In defending
Dreyfus’s innocence, the center-left saw itself refighting the battles of the
French Revolution in favor of liberty and against the aristocracy and the
church. Led by many anti-Semitic monarchists in the church and the army, the
right argued that Dreyfus had to be regarded as guilty, or the army, and by
extension the nation, would fall into disgrace or worse. In 1899 a new military
court met and convicted Dreyfus, now an emaciated walking skeleton, for a second
time.
To resolve the controversy, the
president of the republic offered Dreyfus a pardon. Dreyfus accepted it only
with reluctance, because it implied a guilt that he had always denied. In 1906
an appeals court cleared Dreyfus officially of all charges. The army refused to
admit it had framed Dreyfus, but he was nonetheless reinstated. The right
continued to believe in Dreyfus’s guilt long after the great affair was
over.
The Dreyfus case inflated the
political sails of the Radicals, who pressed on with their campaign against the
church and in 1905 disestablished it altogether. The church vigorously resisted
disestablishment, and as a result, its income declined seriously, as did entries
into the priesthood and attendance at church schools. Disestablishment also
freed the church from many compromising political entanglements. Ultimately it
may have improved the quality of the clergy because only the more dedicated were
willing to accept lower salaries. In any case, the church henceforth became a
much less important source of political controversy.
Another effect of the Dreyfus
affair was to galvanize and reorient the right, which had begun to change even
earlier. This “new right” mixed its pleas on behalf of monarchy and the church
with a new, shrill nationalism, opposition to parliamentary government, and
anti-Semitism. It used these tenets effectively in its campaign against Dreyfus.
The new right learned how to mobilize public opinion through journalism and how
to organize political campaigns, two abilities that prepared the way for the
fascist leagues of the post-World War I era.
The appearance of the new right was
accompanied by the emergence of a larger, more effectively organized left, in
the form of labor unions and the Socialist Party, formally called the Section
Française de l’International Ouvrière (SFIO). The largest labor association was
the General Labor Confederation (CGT), founded in 1895, which claimed nearly a
million members by World War I. Its leaders were suspicious of political parties
and leaned toward a strategy of revolutionary anarchism that called for strikes,
sabotage, and boycotts to improve the lot of workers.
This program competed fiercely with
the strategy proposed by the Socialist Party, which called for putting political
pressure on the state to raise wages and improve working conditions. The
Socialist Party was formed when a workers’ association led by Jules Guesde
joined a political faction led by socialist scholar, journalist, and politician
Jean Jaurès. The Socialist Party, which adopted Marxist revolutionary language,
was winning more than a million votes at the polls and had elected 100 deputies
to the legislature (close to 20%) by 1914. Although workers saw their real wages
double between 1894 and 1914, they gained little from state initiatives. The
industrial working class remained a minority of the population, and democracy
continued to forestall socialism, even in a regime whose heart was on the
left.
During the early years of the Third
Republic, France’s colonial empire grew. Algeria had already become a French
colony in 1830, and by the end of the century Algeria had a European
population—only half of it French—of 665,000 people. Under Louis-Philippe,
Tahiti and the Comoro Islands were added to the French Empire. Under Napoleon
III, the French acquired Cochin China (part of present-day Vietnam) and
protectorates over Cambodia and Senegal.
In the 1880s, a fresh round of
imperialist expansion occurred as France gained colonies in Tunisia, the Congo,
Indochina, and Madagascar. Over the following two decades, France expanded its
empire in China and throughout West Africa, nearly coming to blows with Britain
in 1898 over conflicting claims in the Sudan. The crisis was settled amicably,
and the resulting improved relations paved the way for French military alignment
with Britain in Europe. By contrast, colonial expansion only inflamed relations
with Germany, which sought unsuccessfully to frustrate French expansion into
Morocco, where France established a protectorate in 1912.
Economically, French colonialism
was problematic. Exports to the colonies represented only about 13 percent of
all French exports before World War I. At the same time, the costs of
maintaining the empire increased fivefold from 1875 to 1914, suggesting that
empire-building had stronger political than economic causes.
French colonies were governed
centrally from Paris through agents who did not answer to any local parliament.
In the majority of its territories, France denied full citizenship to most
indigenous peoples. Full citizenship was given only to those who could pass a
battery of stringent legal, linguistic, educational, and religious tests. Thus
in French West Africa, only 0.5 percent of the population qualified as
citizens.
The growth of France’s world empire
occurred during a period when international tensions were rising closer to home.
The key developments occurred in Germany, which had been unified in 1871 and had
industrialized rapidly. Having soundly defeated France in the Franco-Prussian
War, Germany became Europe’s strongest continental power, while France was
diplomatically isolated until the early 1890s.
Then Germany blundered by allowing
its secret defense agreement with Russia to lapse. In 1894 Russia joined France
in a defensive military pact, which was gradually strengthened. In 1902 France
negotiated an agreement with Italy that ensured Italian neutrality in case of a
French war with Germany. Most important, though far less formalized, was the
growing solidarity between France and Britain. Having already begun to reduce
colonial tensions in 1898, France and Britain slowly drifted together in
reaction to Germany’s increasingly erratic and aggressive foreign policies after
1900. In 1904 the two nations reached the Entente Cordiale, an agreement that
further clarified colonial spheres of influence and initiated coordinated
military planning.
On July 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary
declared war on Serbia, thereby initiating a chain reaction of war declarations
that opened World War I. Russia declared war on Austria-Hungary. Germany
declared war on Russia and then two days later on France; the next day Germany
invaded Belgium, a neutral nation. This invasion caused Britain to enter the
war, transforming the Anglo-French entente into a more formal alliance. France
became more closely allied with other nations than ever before, and the Third
Republic faced its most severe crisis to date.
H | France in Turmoil: World War I Through World War II |
Historians often date the end of the
real, as opposed to the chronological, 19th century at 1914, the year Europe
exploded into World War I. This was the first total war, in which governments
mobilized the full resources of the state and society to achieve victory. World
War I led to the success of Bolshevism in Russia and indirectly to the rise of
fascism. In France, however, these developments had less immediate impact. To be
sure, France suffered from the heavy economic and human costs of the war, which
left deep scars on the participants and introduced a level of violence that
would have repercussions later.
Even so, the continuities in France
between 1914 and 1930 were more striking than the changes. After a period of
adjustment, the economy rebounded, and the government gradually solved its
fiscal problems. Although the war lowered birthrates, these rates had been
falling before the war. Diplomatically, France regained territory it had
controlled before 1871, but otherwise the war settled little. In the 1920s
French diplomats contended with more or less the same nationalist rivalries that
had fueled World War I. Politically, the parliamentary system of the Third
Republic endured without much striking change, while the French world empire
also continued to grow.
The 1930s and 1940s were the real
turning point in France. The onset of the Depression coupled with the aggressive
expansion of Nazi Germany put heavy strains on the Third Republic, and it
collapsed after Germany defeated and then occupied France at the beginning of
World War II (1939-1945). Under German occupation, the French replaced the Third
Republic with a right-wing regime, known as the Vichy government, which
effectively abandoned France’s republican traditions.
German authorities limited the Vichy
government’s margin of maneuver, but Vichy still enjoyed broad support in the
population until the tide of war turned against Germany. Yet already in 1940
there was an alternative to collaboration with the Germans. Local grassroots
resistance movements took shape almost immediately, while General Charles de
Gaulle, who was in exile in London, announced that Vichy would not be France’s
future. Events proved him right.
H1 | World War I |
World War I in France began in 1914,
when Germany marched through Belgium, hoping to capture Paris and encircle the
French army, most of which was poised on the German border to retake
Alsace-Lorraine. The Germans moved faster than the French did and were well on
their way to completing their plan when the French recognized the danger. They
pulled troops back from the German border and redeployed them to block the
German advance on Paris. The Germans were stopped in the first Battle of the
Marne in September 1914. If the German plan had succeeded, it would have ended
the war in weeks. Instead, a standoff resulted, which defined the nature of
fighting for the rest of the war.
In that stalemate, Anglo-French and
German armies opposed one another for four years in rain-soaked, rat-infested,
barbed-wire trenches running for hundreds of kilometers through northeastern
France. Both sides tried vainly to puncture the lines of the other and win a
decisive victory. They used the full range of new weaponry—poison gas, tanks,
machine guns, airplanes—only to be thrown back. Meanwhile, casualties mounted in
appalling numbers. The Battle of Verdun resulted in more than 700,000 casualties
and lasted most of 1916 but resolved essentially nothing.
Such pointless slaughter eroded
morale. In 1917 mutinies broke out in the French army, reflecting the defeatism
common among those on the left, who had shown pacifist tendencies before 1914.
The mutinies were put down by the Radical prime minister, Georges Clemenceau,
through a combination of repression and patriotic appeals. In the spring of
1918, the Anglo-French military—now backed by fresh American troops—finally went
on the offensive and forced Germany to an armistice on November 11, 1918. The
war that had lasted more than four years was effectively won in six months.
H2 | Aftermath of the War |
World War I did not transform France,
but its effects were surely considerable. In a country already stricken by
depopulation, 1.4 million men—10 percent of the nation’s active males—were
killed and twice that number wounded. This loss led to further declines in
France’s very low birthrate. So deep were the scars that monuments to the war
dead were erected in virtually every village and town in France. Material losses
were also enormous, especially since the area of the country occupied by Germany
during the war produced about half the country’s coal and steel. Fiscally, too,
the war was costly. The government, which had not anticipated massive
expenditures, met expenses by printing great amounts of paper money and by
borrowing. These measures tripled prices, quintupled the national debt, and
weakened the franc. The government’s only real innovation in dealing with these
problems was the introduction of a modest income tax.
The war also had social effects other
than the demographic ones. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants entered the
country to fill the jobs vacated by soldiers. Together with native-born workers,
they swelled the ranks of labor unions by an estimated 1 million members. During
the war, 450,000 women worked in factories and earned incomes that had formerly
been restricted to men, but after the war two-thirds of these women were let go
to create jobs for veterans.
H2a | Treaty of Versailles |
The difficulties of winning the war
were followed by the frustrations of winning the peace. The peace terms were
worked out at an international conference held in Versailles during 1919 (see
Versailles, Treaty of). The French succeeded in regaining Alsace-Lorraine
and in foisting exclusive blame for the war on Germany. On that basis,
reparations were imposed on Germany, just as France had been forced to pay
reparations after the Battle of Waterloo and the Franco-Prussian War. The exact
amount was to be computed by a commission later, but initial estimates were
astronomical. France’s chief goal, ensuring its security, proved far more
elusive. In the end, France had to renounce hopes for permanent control of the
Rhine Valley. Germany agreed to demilitarize the Rhineland, and France won the
right to occupy the area until 1935. Britain and the United States guaranteed
their aid to France in case of attack.
However, many of the peace terms
did not turn out as expected. Britain and the United States soon retracted their
assurances. France was left to rely on a set of alliances with central and
eastern European powers—alliances that paradoxically wound up dragging France
back into war in 1939. France withdrew its troops from the Rhineland five years
earlier than planned, and German leader Adolf Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland
in 1936. German reparations, which France needed to pay off debts owed to the
United States, amounted to considerably less than first imagined, even though by
1931 Germany had paid 10 billion francs. Under such circumstances, it was not
surprising that in the 1930s France built the Maginot Line, a heavily fortified
string of defenses running along the frontier from Switzerland to Belgium. The
French trusted the Maginot Line to withstand a German assault.
Like other nations, France made an
effort to forestall war. It joined the League of Nations and signed agreements
such as the Locarno Pact of 1925, which reaffirmed the Franco-German border, and
the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, which renounced war as an instrument of foreign
policy. But a strong sense of vulnerability continued to lie behind French
foreign and military policy in Europe throughout the period between World War I
and World War II. This vulnerability laid the basis for the appeasement policies
and military strategies of the 1930s.
A sense of vulnerability was much
less apparent in French overseas imperialism in this period. The French colonial
empire reached its peak, expanding into the African and Middle Eastern regions
formerly controlled by Germany and the Ottoman Empire. The French empire now
extended to 11.7 million sq km (4.5 million sq mi)—20 times the size of
France—and included a population of roughly 80 million people—about twice that
of France. Yet commercial relations with the colonies continued to be
marginal—amounting to only 15 percent of France’s foreign trade in 1929.
H2b | Politics Between the Wars |
At home, the shape of politics
changed relatively little in the aftermath of World War I, as France was
governed by a variety of center-left and center-right coalitions. The most
important change was the division of the SFIO into separate communist and
socialist parties, which occurred in 1920. The Communist Party continued to
profess Marxist revolutionary doctrines and warmly embraced the Soviet regime
that had come to power in Russia in 1917. The Socialist Party, under Jaurès’s
protégé Léon Blum, adopted a less confrontational position with regard to the
Third Republic and refused to endorse the Soviet government in Moscow.
Although the Socialist Party
initially had fewer members, they were far more successful than the Communist
Party at the polls. In the 1932 election, they won 131 seats in the
legislature—more than any other party—while the Communist Party won only 10
seats. However, neither party had much impact on French government social policy
until the Great Depression, especially because the Socialists refused to
participate officially in any coalition they could not dominate.
The major domestic political
concerns of the 1920s were fiscal. Although the economy expanded in the
mid-1920s, state finances remained shaky. Accumulated war debt and deficit
spending caused the franc to decline; it was only one-tenth of its prewar value
by 1926. In that year, a centrist government under Raymond Poincaré restored the
franc by raising taxes and cutting spending. These measures increased confidence
in the economy, and capital investment grew. By 1929 manufacturing and trade had
climbed to roughly 50 percent above prewar levels. In the agricultural sector,
efficiency improved, but the sector was still much less prosperous than were
manufacturing and trade.
The coming of the Great Depression
changed fiscal concerns into economic ones. France escaped the depression until
late 1931, many months after it had begun elsewhere. But when the depression did
reach France, it lasted longer. Whereas in 1937 British industrial production
was 24 percent greater than in 1929 and German industrial production 16 percent
greater, French industrial production in 1937 was 28 percent lower than it had
been in 1929. The response of the French government, like that of many other
nations, only aggravated the problem. Having fought so hard to support the franc
in the 1920s, the French government resisted devaluation, although the franc
declined anyway. To protect home markets, the French government, like others,
raised tariff barriers, thereby worsening the prospects for a general European
recovery. What made France’s situation bearable was the fact that unemployment
was less serious than elsewhere, partly because many foreign workers were sent
home and many unemployed workers returned to family farms. Nonetheless, the
standard of living declined.
The center-right coalitions failed
to stop the economic slide, and in 1932 they gave way to governments run by the
Radicals and supported by the Socialist Party. But these governments could not
agree on a coherent economic program. Paralysis in the center-left encouraged
the growth of a variety of new political organizations on the right. These
ranged from blatant imitations of Benito Mussolini’s and Hitler’s fascist
movements, such as Jacques Doriot’s French Popular Party (PPF), to more
tradition-minded groups, such as the Cross of Fire. Both groups had memberships
in the hundreds of thousands.
When the operations of a shady
financier, Serge Stavisky, were made public and linked to the Radical Party in
1934, the right staged a massive demonstration in Paris, joined by members of
the Communist Party. The demonstration threatened to overthrow the Third
Republic, although its goal was apparently only to force a change of cabinet.
During the demonstration, 17 people were killed and thousands were wounded. The
cabinet was changed, but the new government offered no effective cure for the
Depression. Equally ineffective was the next government led by Pierre Laval, who
would later be a key member of the Vichy government.
H2c | The Popular Front |
In 1935 the Communist Party, acting
on Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s orders, offered to ally with the Socialists and
the Radicals to stem the tide of fascism sweeping Europe. This coalition would
be called the Popular Front. Stung by previous communist attacks on them as
social fascists, the Socialist Party was reluctant to join, but did so. To
solidify the alliance with the Radicals, both Communists and Socialists dropped
earlier plans to socialize the economy, but even the coalition’s mild calls for
government intervention to improve the lot of workers scandalized the right.
The bitterly fought 1936 elections
witnessed the beginning of the end of the broad centrist consensus that had
supported the Third Republic. The center’s failure to solve the Depression drove
voters to extremes on both right and left at the expense of the center, and the
Communist Party increased its seats from 10 to 72. This gave Léon Blum the
support he needed to form the Popular Front, the first French government led by
a Socialist.
The record of the Popular Front was
mixed. Blum settled a wave of strikes by arranging for wage increases,
collective bargaining, a 40-hour workweek, and paid vacations. He also attempted
to support farm prices. But Blum’s government lacked an adequate theory to
explain the Depression and had no better idea than earlier ones for how to cure
it. When the Popular Front was toppled by the Radicals in 1937, the economy was
no stronger than before.
Except for a very brief period in
1938, Radicals dominated the government from 1937 until 1940. During this time,
they managed to nudge production up, through tax cuts and concessions to
business at the expense of labor. Even so, by the summer of 1939, economic
activity had returned only to the level of 1928.
H3 | World War II |
The failure of the Third Republic to
deal effectively with the Depression was accompanied by the collapse of its
foreign and military policy. Until 1936 the rise of Nazi Germany caused little
controversy in France. The government responded to growing Nazi power by
attempting to strengthen ties with France’s central and eastern European allies,
establish new agreements with Italy and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(USSR), and renew the old entente with Britain. But after the Popular Front
government came to power, the right, which portrayed the Popular Front as the
prelude to a communist takeover, began to see Hitler as less of a menace than
Blum. The left, torn between its old pacifism and its fears of creeping European
fascism, was divided on whether to confront or negotiate with Germany.
Clearly, the majority of the French
people wanted to avoid war at almost all costs, and British pressure to do so
inclined France toward a policy of appeasement. In 1936 France merely protested
Hitler’s remilitarization of the Rhineland, despite the fact that this move
violated the treaties of Versailles and Locarno. While the Popular Front was in
power, Blum declined to aid the Spanish Republic, which was fighting a brutal
civil war against anti-Republican forces led by Franco and supported by Nazi
Germany and Fascist Italy. Since the right favored Franco, Blum feared a civil
war in France if he intervened in the Spanish conflict. In March 1938 France
acceded to Germany’s annexation of Austria. At the Munich Conference (see
Munich Pact) in September 1938, France violated its own defense treaty with
Czechoslovakia by agreeing to German occupation of the Czech Sudetenland. The
next March, France stood by while Germany occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia.
Only on September 3, 1939, after
Germany invaded Poland, did France and Britain reluctantly declare war. Even
then France took little offensive action beyond participating in a naval
blockade of Germany, still hoping that something might be worked out. Such
paralysis, far from thwarting Nazi aggression against France, only invited it.
The German attack on France in May 1940 was no repetition of the attack of
September 1914, which had stalled out very quickly. Hitler directed his massed
tank divisions north of the Maginot Line through the supposedly impenetrable
Ardennes forest. France and the rest of the Allied Powers did not lack men and
material, but they were unprepared strategically. In six weeks Hitler won the
decisive victory that had eluded the Germans in World War I. Seventy years after
the Battle of Sedan, France was once again an occupied nation.
H3a | The Vichy Government |
While millions took to the roads to
escape the German advance, the French government left Paris for Bordeaux. On
June 17 the government asked Germany for an armistice, after which aging Marshal
Henri Pétain, the hero of World War I, was appointed prime minister. On June 22
France signed an armistice agreement in the same railroad car in which the
Germans had signed the armistice of 1918. French armed forces were to be
demobilized, the southern third of France would continue to be governed by the
French, and the northern two-thirds was to be occupied and administered by the
Germans with funds provided by French taxpayers. Reassuring the French people
with a soothing, paternal radio voice, Pétain called upon France to lay down its
arms and accept the armistice. Most French people, in shock over the quick
defeat, followed his advice.
In the south, the government moved
from Bordeaux to Vichy, where on July 10 it voted overwhelmingly to authorize
Pétain to draft a new constitution. Under this constitution, Pétain became head
of state and the final arbiter in all decisions, while a variety of ministers
responsible to him carried out government functions. Pétain’s deputy, Pierre
Laval, pushed the plan through the Chamber of Deputies.
The professed goal of the new
regime was a national revolution, which would regenerate a decadent France by
rerooting the nation in its traditions of religion, family, and the land. The
squabbling and corruption of parliamentary democracy was now supposed to give
way to the authoritarian efficiency of one-man rule. Legally and spiritually,
the Third Republic, which was blamed for involving France in a war it could not
win, was now dead.
In fact, Vichy was a hodgepodge of
competing factions and interests. The principal division lay between the
traditionalists and the modernizers. A majority of Vichyites were
traditionalists who sought to contain capitalist competition, organize society
into partially self-governing associations, and restore the influence of the
Catholic Church. The modernists, who were closely associated with big business,
wanted to push France forward through more active government intervention in the
economy. Although they were in the minority, the modernists gradually gained
influence, in large part because their program called for measures that were
more practical. If Vichy had a positive legacy, it lay in its efforts at
government economic planning, which were continued after the war and helped
remove obstacles to growth. One of the ironies of the Vichy regime was that in
some ways it promoted modernization more effectively than the Third Republic
had.
Yet Vichy also meant an active
collaboration with Nazi Germany. Although Vichy leaders protested after the war
that they had resisted German demands as much as they had dared, they were in
fact convinced in 1940 that the future belonged to fascism. They actively
cooperated in building the Nazi-dominated European empire, doing even more than
Germany expected or demanded.
Germany did not, in the end, reward
France for this cooperation. France was required to supply Germany with hundreds
of thousands of forced laborers and more material aid than any other German
satellite. Despite their vast agricultural resources, the French ate more poorly
and suffered more inflation during the war than any other western European
people except the Italians. Alsace-Lorraine was again annexed by Germany, and in
November 1942, the Germans occupied the southern third of the nation, thereby
removing most of Vichy’s independence.
However, the most shameful acts
committed by the Vichy government resulted more from its own hatreds than from
German demands. Not only did Vichy hunt down and execute resistors to German
rule, but it also initiated its own campaign of anti-Semitic persecution. Jews
were fired from positions in the civil service, judiciary, army, public schools,
and cultural institutions (publishing houses, newspapers, radio, and
entertainment), and only a limited number were permitted to practice medicine
and law. Vichy seized Jewish property, while Jews who had recently immigrated to
escape persecution elsewhere were interned in concentration camps.
Still worse was Vichy’s
collaboration in the Holocaust. Vichy was not inclined to commit genocide itself
and was anxious to keep French-born Jews under its control, all the better to
strip them of their property. However, Vichy employed its own police and militia
to round up Jewish men, women, and children, most of them foreign-born. They
were then shipped in appalling conditions to German-occupied Poland and gassed
in Nazi death camps. The death toll of Jews transported from France was about
75,000.
H3b | The Resistance |
Most French people initially
supported Pétain’s regime, but resistance to German rule and opposition to Vichy
began almost immediately after France was defeated. Charles de Gaulle, a career
general and undersecretary of war who had bitterly criticized French strategy in
the 1930s, escaped to London in June 1940 and established a government in exile.
Lacking any formal authority, de Gaulle attracted few followers at first, but he
received vital recognition and material assistance from British prime minister
Winston Churchill.
In France, small groups of
resisters formed and committed isolated acts of protest and sabotage. These
groups were better organized in the southern unoccupied zone and attracted
support from various parties, especially the Communist Party. Contacts between
de Gaulle’s government in London and the Resistance in France increased, and
gradually de Gaulle was able to impose control from abroad on the expanding
Resistance in France.
In 1943 de Gaulle moved his
headquarters to Algiers, after clashing with Churchill and U.S. president
Franklin Roosevelt over strategy. De Gaulle’s relations with the Resistance in
France were also sometimes difficult. Resistance leaders feared de Gaulle’s
ambitions, but sufficient harmony was maintained to prevent a breakdown in
relations. As the tide of war turned against the Germans and the Germans
demanded more forced labor from the French, the ranks of the Resistance swelled.
By 1944 most people could demonstrate they had done something to resist the
Germans, so they could later claim to have been members of the Resistance.
Following the successful landing of
Allied troops in Normandy on June 6, 1944, France was gradually liberated. The
communists made some attempt at seizing power, most notably through an uprising
against the Germans in Paris in August 1944. But in the end de Gaulle was able
to establish his authority throughout France without much difficulty. A new
provisional government under de Gaulle’s leadership assumed power. The harshness
of the occupation led to rough justice against former collaborators, often
without formal trials. About 10,000 people were executed and 40,000 sent to
prison. Laval was tried and executed. Pétain was also tried and sentenced to
death, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
I | The Fourth Republic |
France emerged from World War II
profoundly weakened economically, but it had once again learned to appreciate
its republican traditions. Indeed, one effect of Vichy’s collapse was to
discredit the traditional right, which had never really accepted the values of
1789 as its own. The nearly universal acceptance of republican values after 1945
facilitated the building of a more stable political system.
The year 1945 was also a turning point
demographically and economically, after which France acquired an energy not seen
for half a century. Striking new population growth and a rising standard of
living increased demand for consumer goods and for more education and other
services from the state. Women, enfranchised in 1944 by a wartime decree,
exercised their newly acquired right to vote and gradually improved their
economic status.
Having dealt with some of the
collaborators, the new government sought to build on the patriotic spirit of the
Resistance, hoping to synthesize unity out of the myth that nearly everyone had
been a resistor. The government enacted fresh reforms, extending the vote to
women. But political differences soon resurfaced, and parties quickly formed.
The political right, which had been discredited by its association with Vichy,
was in disarray. A new centrist party, the Christian Democratic Mouvement
Republicain Populaire, or MRP, emerged and won about 25 percent of the votes in
the fall 1945 legislative election, as did the older socialist and communist
parties.
The National Assembly drew up a new
constitution amid protracted controversy. It soon became clear that the
constitution would mandate another parliamentary regime, not the presidential
system that de Gaulle favored. De Gaulle resigned in January 1946 and spent the
next 12 years in virtual political exile. The assembly approved a proposed
constitution calling for a state dominated by a single-chambered legislature,
but the voters rejected it, fearing it would facilitate a communist takeover of
the whole government. In October 1946 the voters approved a second draft, which
proposed a two-chambered legislature, but included mechanisms to make it easier
to pass legislation than under the Third Republic. The Fourth Republic was
born.
During the 12 years of its existence,
the Fourth Republic witnessed a string of relatively short-lived governments
that over time tracked more and more to the right. None was particularly
distinguished, except for that of the Radical Pierre Mendès-France, who sought
to breathe life into the republic through a series of reforms inspired by
British economist John Maynard Keynes. Two major items dominated the political
agenda: the economy and decolonization.
I1 | Economic Issues |
At the end of World War II, the
French economy suffered from low production and an excess of money, which led to
rapid inflation. The Vichy experiments at planning and the postwar
nationalization of key industries—coal, gas, electricity, and some banks and
insurance companies—prepared the way for bold efforts to energize the economy.
Beginning in 1946, Jean Monnet, head of the state planning commission,
administered a program to break through traditional economic bottlenecks by
stimulating investment and thereby production. Part of the investment capital
was provided by the United States under the Marshall Plan.
In addition, France and other
European nations recognized how economic isolationism had undermined all their
economies during the 1930s. They began to form international associations to
promote more broadly based economic growth and to lay the basis for possible
long-term political integration. An additional incentive to form such
associations was the fear that an economically weak and politically divided
western Europe would invite further expansion by the Soviet Union, which after
World War II had established a broad band of satellite countries in eastern and
central Europe.
In 1951 France joined with West
Germany and other European nations in the European Coal and Steel Community
(ECSC), the brainchild of the French statesman Robert Schuman. The ECSC led to
the formation in 1957 of the European Economic Community, known as the Common
Market, a trade association that included Germany, Italy, and the Benelux
countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg). Although generally
successful, reduction of tariff barriers tended to benefit large producers at
the expense of smaller ones. In the 1950s many small producers backed a
short-lived, right-wing protest movement for tax relief, led by the shopkeeper
Pierre Poujade. The movement failed, but it expressed resentment against
modernization that would show itself more forcefully later.
I2 | Decolonization |
Overall the Fourth Republic dealt
successfully with economic issues, but it was less successful in resolving
colonial ones. Decolonization eventually brought down the regime, much as the
Franco-Prussian War had terminated the Second Empire and World War II the Third
Republic. The sprawling French Empire, like those of other European nations,
faced widespread revolts after World War II.
In Indochina, resistance movements
had been organized to oppose the Japanese, who had occupied the area during
World War II. After the war, these movements were redirected against French
imperialism. From 1946 to 1954 the French army attempted to suppress the
resistance movements in Indochina, but it was dealt a humiliating defeat at the
Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 (see First Indochina War). Prime Minister
Mendès-France arranged for as graceful a diplomatic and military withdrawal from
Indochina as was possible under the circumstances, and he preempted trouble in
Morocco and Tunisia by conceding independence.
The prime minister faced a much more
difficult situation in Algeria, where the vast majority of Arab Algerians wanted
independence but the 1 million European settlers there demanded the continued
protection of French rule. A violent independence movement began in 1954, and
increasingly large numbers of French troops were sent to Algeria to put it down.
The movement escalated into a virtual civil war involving the use of terror and
torture. Extremists in the French army and their sympathizers who feared a
French pullout from Algeria plotted to bring down the French government. By 1958
it was clear that the Fourth Republic could not resolve the crisis (see
Algerian War of Independence).
Supporters of Charles de Gaulle, who
had bided his time in retirement, plotted to use the turmoil to put him in power
under a new constitution, and eventually a smooth transition was arranged. De
Gaulle became the last prime minister of the Fourth Republic. In May 1958 the
National Assembly vested him with full power for six months and the authority to
draft a new constitution, to be approved by the voters. Then in June the
Assembly dissolved itself. The Fourth Republic was dead.
J | The Fifth Republic |
A new constitution for France’s Fifth
Republic was drafted by a committee headed by Gaullist Michel Debré. The new
constitution was a hybrid of the presidential and parliamentary systems. It
pruned back the powers of the two-chambered legislature and granted the
president considerably more power than the presidents of previous regimes. But
it also maintained a prime minister, who was chosen by the president yet needed
the support of the legislature.
Perhaps because the first president was
likely to be the charismatic de Gaulle, the constitution did not spell out the
distribution of power between the president and prime minister. This ambiguity
would create uncertainties later, but it also allowed for flexibility in
situations in which the presidency and the legislature were controlled by
different parties.
The constitution was approved by 80
percent of the voters in September 1958. The elections that followed gave a new
Gaullist party a near majority in the legislature, while the left, which had
opposed the new constitution, lost badly. Following procedures stipulated by the
new constitution, which gave the right to choose the president to a college of
local officials, de Gaulle, not surprisingly, was made president. De Gaulle
chose Debré as his first prime minister.
J1 | The De Gaulle Years |
De Gaulle attempted to keep the
French colonial empire together by granting more autonomy to the remaining
colonies within a new French Community. But in the end he had to agree to their
overwhelming demands for independence. The Algerian crisis, which had brought
him back to power, was the toughest problem on his agenda. De Gaulle had led the
differing parties to believe he was sympathetic to their opposite positions. He
had misleadingly assured the French Algerians that “I have understood you.” But
he gradually recognized the hopelessness of continued repression in Algeria, and
in 1962 he reached agreement with the insurgents in meetings at Evian, France.
The Evian Accords, which 90 percent
of French voters also approved, provided for an Algerian referendum on
independence. A majority of Algerians voted for independence. Even before the
accords were reached, however, a group of military officers and colonials
organized the Secret Army Organization (OAS), which conspired to overthrow the
government. De Gaulle put down this rebellion in 1962, ending the Algerian
crisis. French Algerians remained bitter over what they saw as de Gaulle’s
sellout. Most of them also had to endure the insult of living in a France
governed by their nemesis, de Gaulle, after having suffered the injury of
leaving Algeria forever.
De Gaulle envisioned a greater role
for France in world affairs than it had played under the Fourth Republic. With
the Algerian crisis settled and Soviet expansionism into Europe more or less
contained, de Gaulle set out to create and lead a group of nations distinct from
the American and Soviet superpowers. To give this group teeth and to gain
independence from the United States, he initiated a successful, if expensive,
program to develop nuclear weapons. Then in 1967 he pulled France out of the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a defense alliance led by the United
States that France had joined earlier to provide a common front against the
USSR.
De Gaulle maintained cordial
relations with former French colonies and even intervened in Canadian internal
affairs by declaring solidarity with Canadian Francophones who were demanding
independence for the province of Québec. He also prevented Britain from joining
the Common Market on the grounds that it was too closely tied to the United
States. At the same time, he forged stronger ties with West Germany. In the end,
de Gaulle did make the French feel that they continued to be an important
presence in international affairs, even after their once extensive empire had
crumbled.
At home de Gaulle worked to
strengthen the franc, which in the late 1950s was again in trouble, instituting
devaluations and government austerity measures. Whatever the effect of these
measures, the economy experienced another growth spurt in the 1960s, which added
credibility to the Fifth Republic. To enhance his authority, de Gaulle had the
constitution altered in 1962 to provide for the direct election of the
president, beginning with the next election, in 1965. De Gaulle was elected to a
second term as president in 1965, but he had a harder time winning than
expected. He failed to get a majority of votes in the first round of the
election. Even in the second round, his margin of victory was only 10 percent
over that of his challenger, François Mitterrand.
However, de Gaulle still seemed
unremovable and irreplaceable in 1968, when he faced his worst crisis. That May,
a student protest movement escalated into a massive national strike, paralyzing
the country. These developments drew on multiple resentments that had been
building against the Fifth Republic for years, particularly among the young and
the working class. De Gaulle wisely retired from the scene, waiting for the
country to grow tired of the chaos. He then boldly reentered, presenting himself
as the only alternative to anarchy and promising university reforms for the
students and wage increases for the workers.
In the legislative elections of June
1968, de Gaulle’s party won a crushing victory. But de Gaulle’s prestige had
declined greatly, and he ruled with less mastery than before. Aging, tired, and
apparently looking for an exit, in 1969 he pledged to leave office if the voters
rejected his proposal to restructure the Senate. It was rejected and de Gaulle
resigned. The most prominent French leader of the 20th century made perhaps the
strangest departure from politics in all French history.
With de Gaulle gone, Gaullism became
an affair of more ordinary politicians. The Fifth Republic, which de Gaulle had
previously seemed to embody, became more depersonalized and institutionalized.
De Gaulle was succeeded as president by the much less commanding Georges
Pompidou, who was closely tied to big business. Pompidou was less committed to
French intervention in world politics than de Gaulle had been, and he permitted
Britain to enter the Common Market. In economic matters, he leaned more toward a
laissez-faire position than had de Gaulle, and his administration undertook
relatively few new initiatives.
When Pompidou died in 1974, he was
succeeded by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who was not a Gaullist but the leader of
the center-right Independent Republicans. A technocrat by training, Giscard had
a progressive agenda. He proposed to protect the environment, legalize
contraception and abortion, lower the voting age, and redistribute taxes. He was
successful in most of these initiatives. However, his popularity was undercut by
the first major economic downturn since World War II, which caused unemployment
and inflation to grow. He was defeated in 1981 by François Mitterrand, whose
Socialist Party also won a majority in legislative elections.
J2 | The Socialist Era |
An able political strategist,
Mitterrand had rebuilt the Socialist Party during the 1970s, working first with
the Communist Party and then apart from it. His decisive victory in 1981 marked
the first major swing to the left since the Popular Front in the 1930s. Even
more significantly, it was the first time power had been passed to an opposing
party without a major change to the constitution. It seemed that the Fifth
Republic was a regime that both left and right had learned to live within.
After Mitterrand’s election, struggle
among the major political parties centered not on which one offered the most
popular, distinctive vision of the future, but on which one appeared best able
to achieve commonly desired goals of economic growth and political stability.
Ideological differences between left and right mattered less than before; voters
were now looking for competent leadership.
One indication that voters were
abandoning traditional ideological causes was a major drop in support for the
once powerful French Communist Party in the elections of 1981. The French
Communists were unable or unwilling to follow the example of the more successful
Italian Communist Party, which broke with Soviet Marxist orthodoxy. The French
Communist Party’s refusal to innovate structurally or ideologically led to the
loss of the support of many intellectuals and workers. The Communist Party
henceforth exerted only marginal political power, although its decline was
temporarily masked by the appointment of four Communist Party members to the
cabinet of Mitterrand’s first prime minister, Pierre Mauroy.
Mitterrand decentralized power by
allowing localities more self-government. He enacted a string of new reform
measures that gave workers new rights to bargain collectively, raised the
minimum wage, and increased family subsidies and old-age pensions. The death
penalty was abolished, and new prisons were built to alleviate overcrowding. The
government nationalized the nation’s major banks, as well as a number of large
industries. By 1983 the government controlled 13 of France’s 20 largest
companies. In the end, however, these reforms did not add up to a successful
economic or fiscal strategy. Deficits escalated and the economy failed to expand
under the government’s stimulation, leading to greater unemployment, inflation,
and trade deficits. After two years of left-wing euphoria, the Mitterrand regime
was losing its popular support, while the right regained strength.
When the Socialists tried to impose
controls on state-subsidized, private Catholic schools, they provoked one of the
largest popular demonstrations in French history. A new extreme right-wing
movement, the National Front, emerged, led by a former paratrooper, Jean-Marie
Le Pen. The National Front drew its support chiefly for its anti-immigrant
proposals, which proved especially popular among unemployed older males. It won
over 10 percent of the vote in some elections. Although the National Front
divided the right, the government could not afford politically or economically
to continue on its earlier course and began dropping its socialist agenda.
Budgets for social programs were slashed, and private industry was favored with
tax cuts. The economy improved somewhat, although unemployment continued to
rise.
Mitterrand hoped to divide the
right-wing opposition by introducing proportional representation in elections to
national and regional assemblies. The new system, which awarded seats to parties
according to their share of the vote, was intended to favor small splinter
parties and make it more difficult for stable majority coalitions to form.
Mitterrand’s reform allowed the National Front to claim more than 6 percent of
seats in the National Assembly in the legislative elections of 1986. But the
left lost anyway. For the first time in the Fifth Republic, the president came
from a different part of the political spectrum than did the prime minister and
the majority in the legislature. In fact, cohabitation, as it was called,
worked more smoothly than some observers had predicted. Mitterrand dealt
primarily with foreign affairs, and the new Gaullist prime minister, Jacques
Chirac, focused on domestic matters. This arrangement lasted only until 1988,
when the Socialists won a slim margin in the legislature after Mitterrand
defeated Chirac in the presidential elections. Cohabitation was tried again
without much friction in 1993, when the Socialists again lost control of the
legislature and Edouard Balladur, a Gaullist, became prime minister.
In 1995 Chirac succeeded Mitterrand
as president, but he, too, had to contend with cohabitation after just two years
in power. The center-right lost control of the legislature in 1997, and Chirac
was obliged to appoint a Socialist prime minister, Lionel Jospin. Cohabitation
sharply constrained Chirac’s political influence. He was unable to prevent the
left-wing majority from instituting major reforms, including 1998 legislation to
shorten the work week from 39 to 35 hours (which took effect in 2000) in an
effort to increase employment opportunities.
J3 | Ghosts of the Vichy Past |
After punishing thousands of people
who collaborated with the German-backed Vichy regime in World War II, the French
in the 1950s and 1960s sought to forget about the Vichy past. Although many
people guilty of heinous crimes remained at large, the trials of Vichyite
collaborators were routinely halted under pressure from powerful state officials
with compromising pasts of their own. Prior to the 1990s, no French president
had officially acknowledged the role played by the French state in the
commission of crimes against humanity during the war. Rather, to foster a badly
needed sense of national unity, most French parties, especially the Gaullists,
cultivated the myth that nearly everyone had belonged to the French Resistance.
As time passed and the Fifth Republic
acquired stability, France became more willing to reexamine critically the Vichy
legacy. Path-breaking research beginning in the 1970s exploded the myth of near
universal participation in the Resistance and proved beyond doubt the
willingness of Vichy leaders to collaborate with Nazi Germany. The French soon
began revisiting the Vichy years in a growing flow of books, documentaries, and
films, most of which confirmed the new research. In 1995 President Jacques
Chirac publicly acknowledged the role of the French people and government in
abetting crimes under German occupation. Two years later French Catholic bishops
apologized for the church’s failure to resist the deportation and murder of Jews
more vigorously, and the leaders of the French police union apologized for
police participation in the roundup of Jews. Also in 1997, the government
initiated procedures to return artworks and other property stolen from French
Jews during World War II by the Vichy authorities.
The most controversial aspect of this
wrenching reassessment of the Vichy years was a new round of trials directed
against collaborators who had yet to be tried and punished. Painful memories
were already stirred in 1987 during the trial of Klaus Barbie, a notorious
German Gestapo (secret state police) officer. Barbie was convicted of
crimes against humanity committed in Vichy France and sentenced to life
imprisonment.
Other trials followed. In 1991, René
Bousquet, an important French police official in the Vichy government, was
indicted for crimes against humanity. Bousquet had previously escaped trial with
the help of powerful friends, but he was assassinated before the trial began. In
1994, Paul Touvier, a French member of the Vichy militia who worked under
Barbie, was convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life
imprisonment. Touvier had been sentenced to death for treason shortly after
France’s liberation, but he had escaped his sentence with the help of
influential allies, including conservatives within the Catholic Church. In 1998,
Maurice Papon, an administrator in the Vichy regime and later a Gaullist
minister, was convicted of complicity in crimes against humanity and sentenced
to ten years in prison. After escaping to Switzerland, Papon was extradited to
France in 1999, where he served three years in prison and was released in 2002
on grounds of ill health. Papon’s trial was likely to be the last of its kind,
leaving the French public divided over whether such trials had even begun to
rectify the atrocities committed by the defendants.
J4 | Economy and Society After World War I |
J4a | Stagnation Between the Wars |
Despite dramatic ups and downs
resulting from World War I and the worldwide depression of the 1930s, France
changed relatively little economically and socially between the two world wars.
By 1924 the French had again reached their 1914 levels of industrial production.
Although industrial production grew another 40 percent by 1929, three-quarters
of this increase was lost during the global depression. Agriculture was
relatively stagnant during the same period. Production of some crops, notably
wheat, became more efficient, but overall, French agriculture lagged
increasingly behind that of other nations. It was, for example, only one-third
as efficient (measured in output per farmer) as agriculture in the United
States.
Partly as a result of the large
number of Frenchmen killed in World War I, population growth between the wars
was sluggish. The most striking demographic trend was the continued immigration
of foreigners. By the 1930s 2.5 million immigrants lived in France, making it
Europe’s foremost melting pot. However, some of these newcomers returned home
when the employment situation deteriorated during the depression.
During the interwar period, the
standard of living rose only slightly. Workers and small farmers, in particular,
saw barely any improvements in their quality of life. Demographic and income
stagnation meant little growth in consumer demand, delaying the onset of a
consumer society. Modern lifestyles and an artistic avant-garde could be found
in Paris and a few other areas, but most regions, especially in the center and
south, showed few signs of change. On the eve of World War II, a full half of
the population still lived in agricultural communities.
Feminism in this period was
relatively inactive, and the legal and economic condition of women improved very
little. Partly because the population was growing so slowly, females were
constantly reminded of their “natural” duty to become mothers, while
contraceptives and abortion were banned. The frozen condition of the French
economy and society undoubtedly underlay often-heard charges that France had
become so “decadent” that it could not meet the challenges of modern
international economic and political competition.
J4b | Post-World War II Growth |
The end of World War II marked a
decisive economic and social turning point. The war cost France about 600,000
dead, but this was less than half the death toll of World War I. The French
population surged significantly in the late 1940s, reversing decades of little
growth. By 1962 the population had reached 46.5 million, by 1975, 52.7 million,
and by 1995, 58.1 million. Some of this increase was due to more births among
native-born French women, particularly during the 1950s and 1960s. By the 1990s,
with the spread of birth control and the aging of the French population,
population increases came largely from immigration, mostly from southern Europe
and northern Africa.
By 1975 about 4 million immigrants
lived in France, making it more racially and ethnically diverse than at any time
since the barbarian invasions of the early Middle Ages. Immigrants provided much
needed labor in boom periods, but when unemployment rose in the 1980s and 1990s,
their presence was resented. This resentment prompted support for the
anti-immigrant policies of the National Front. Prejudice against immigrant
workers was also fueled by their comparatively low standard of living.
Increasing population, government
planning, funds from the Marshall Plan, and greater European integration sparked
a boom in industrial production, which rose 80 percent between 1950 and 1958.
Agriculture was transformed by additional mechanization, as the number of
tractors increased sixfold between 1945 and 1980. As productivity rose, the
number of farmers declined steeply, from 35 percent of the population in 1945 to
6 percent in 1990, nearly severing the nation from its peasant roots. The
economy grew at an average annual rate of 4.5 percent between 1949 and 1959, and
5.8 percent between 1959 and 1970. Altogether, the gross national product
increased fivefold between 1946 and 1977. Since then, economic growth has been
more sluggish, due partly to oil price increases in the 1970s and increasing
competition from abroad.
The benefits of this growth
trickled down to ordinary citizens in the form of increases in real wages,
especially after 1960. A large variety of consumer goods became widely available
and affordable, raising the standard of living. Higher standards of living led
to growth in the service sector of the economy, which by the 1990s absorbed more
than half the national work force.
The state became an increasingly
important employer as the range of government services and pensions expanded.
The government established a system of state-sponsored medical care, which paid
the major costs of treatment for most citizens. Slowly the state also expanded
its educational and research institutions. Between 1950 and 1984, the number of
baccalaureate students rose from 32,000 to 249,500, reflecting the increasing
importance of education and the declining importance of land as the basis for a
successful career.
These changes were accompanied by a
slow change in the status of women. Women were granted the vote in 1944, and
they improved their levels of education. Contraception and abortion were
legalized in the 1970s, giving women more control over their reproductive lives.
By 2000 women provided 45 percent of the national work force.
Although women made many gains
since World War II, they did not achieve political representation in proportion
to their numbers. Thus, for example, in 1993 women held barely 6 percent of the
seats in the Chamber of Deputies. During the 1990s, feminists and their
sympathizers lobbied for a “law of parity” that was intended to force the
nomination of more female candidates. Enacted in 2000, this law required that at
least half of all candidates chosen by parties to run for municipal office be
women. It also reduced state subsidies to parties that declined to meet this
requirement. Most French voters supported the law as a means to rectify the
gender imbalance. The law had some success in reducing gender inequality, but it
did not produce gender-balanced political representation. Some parties evaded
the law by accepting lower government subsidies, with the result that in 2002
women still held only about 12 percent of the seats in the Chamber of
Deputies.
J4c | Social and Economic Outlook |
Today, France continues to face
significant social and economic problems, some of them a product of France’s
growth since World War II. Despite the proliferation of government social
welfare programs, wealth in France remains more unevenly distributed by social
class than in any other northern European country, and regional variations are
significant as well. Economic development has produced major environmental
problems that need to be resolved. Among them is the escalating problem of air
pollution, in large part the result of the increasing number of automobiles in
Paris and other cities. Contraception and abortion have led to a declining
birthrate since the 1970s, which in turn has led to the aging of the French
population. Budgets for social services have escalated beyond taxpayers’
willingness to support them, requiring cutbacks in free services and possibly
putting the whole French welfare state in jeopardy.
During the 1990s the unemployment
rate climbed to more than 12 percent, thereby replacing inflation as France’s
most critical economic problem. In 2004 the unemployment rate stood at 9.9
percent, and the French economic outlook remained cloudy. Growing international
competition and a downturn in the U.S. economy in the late 1990s reduced demand
for goods produced in Europe, with the result that in 2002 the French economy
grew at its lowest rate in years.
J5 | France and the European Union |
The establishment of the European
Union (EU) in 1993, a successor of the European Community, had profound
consequences for France and other European nations. Power over a wide range of
policies, once exercised solely by European national governments, gradually
shifted toward the EU. The creation of the EU marked the evolution of the
European Community from a largely economic organization into a political one,
which now includes a European Parliament. The Maastricht Treaty of 1991, which
created the EU pending the treaty’s ratification by member states, provided a
new impetus toward further European integration. Among its provisions was the
call for a single European currency. This currency, the euro, was
introduced for limited purposes on January 1, 1999, much to the surprise of many
observers. They had been skeptical because the EU had not always been able to
agree on a common economic policy. In early 2002 euro notes and coins became
legal tender and entered circulation, replacing national currencies in 12 of the
15 EU member states.
French governments of both the
center-left and center-right have consistently supported European integration
under the auspices of the EU, and this support has perhaps been France’s most
significant contribution to world affairs since it dissolved its overseas
empire. A Frenchman, Jacques Delors, provided strong leadership as president of
the European Commission, an agency of the EU, from 1984 to 1994.
France has favored European
integration for several reasons. First, as Charles de Gaulle had recognized in
the 1960s, France without an empire was too small a nation to play a major role
in international affairs. France’s influence abroad promised to be enhanced if
it joined with other nations of Europe to pursue a common foreign policy.
Second, trans-European institutions, such as those of the EU, could help
restrain Germany, whose great industrial and financial power was bound, in the
absence of such institutions, to dominate Europe economically. Membership in the
EU would allow France and other nations to have greater economic influence in
Europe through common policies on trade and interest rates. Third, at a time
when growing international competition meant that France had to compete more
intensively to sell its goods abroad, participation in the EU ensured that
France would have greater access to the markets of its neighbors.
No doubt the French economic
situation would have been worse had the EU not acted to promote growth.
Agreements between the EU and several eastern European countries during the
1990s made markets in those countries more accessible, and successful
implementation of the euro facilitated commerce across national borders.
However, the extent to which greater European integration will be, on balance, a
boon to the French economy and society is controversial and uncertain. New
opportunities for reaching foreign markets must take into account the difficulty
of maintaining domestic wage rates that are much higher than wage rates abroad.
Greater European integration also threatens to increase the influence of large
multinational corporations on national policies while limiting the ability of
countries such as France to address important domestic concerns, such as
environmental pollution. As they become integrated into wider and deeper
economic and political networks, France and the other EU members may well be
compelled to develop a broader definition of the nation than they have ever
known before.
The EU’s decision to welcome 10 new
member states in 2004 brought integration questions to the forefront. In June
2004 the EU member states agreed to the final text of the first EU constitution,
which was primarily developed to streamline EU institutions for an enlarged EU.
The final text was the result of more than two years of draft negotiations aimed
at facilitating greater integration while maintaining the autonomy of member
states. Built on the founding treaties of the EU, the constitution further
defined the roles and powers of the EU, its members, and EU institutions, such
as the European Parliament. Ratification of the constitution required approval
by all 25 member states (including the 10 new members), either by popular
referendum or by parliamentary vote.
J6 | Recent Political Developments |
Meanwhile, in 2000 the term of the
French president was reduced from seven years to five years by a popularly
approved amendment to the constitution. The main argument in favor of this
change was that it would discourage further rounds of cohabitation (power
sharing), which had become associated with deadlocked government. Under the
amendment, legislative and presidential elections are more likely to occur in
the same year and hence to register similar outcomes. The shortened presidential
term took effect in 2002.
J6a | The Return of the Center-Right |
Jacques Chirac was overwhelmingly
reelected in the presidential election of May 2002. In a surprise showing the
previous month, National Front candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen had finished slightly
ahead of Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin during the first round of
presidential balloting. Appalled by the success of Le Pen, over 1 million people
took to the streets in protest before the second round of balloting. Chirac
swept the election, winning the second round of balloting with more than 80
percent of the popular vote. The outcome was a stunning defeat for the Socialist
Party and for Jospin, who resigned his post and retired from politics.
In the June 2002 legislative
elections a coalition of center-right parties backing Chirac, called the Union
for the Presidential Majority, captured an absolute majority in the National
Assembly, thereby completing the rout of the left. (The coalition was later
renamed the Union for a Popular Movement, or UMP.) The elections ended five
years of cohabitation between Chirac and the Socialist-led National Assembly and
gave Chirac significant new power over the direction of the French government.
Chirac appointed Jean-Pierre Raffarin as prime minister of the new government.
Raffarin, a member of the small, pro-free-market Liberal Democracy party, had
led an interim government since May, following Jospin’s resignation. Raffarin
pledged to support Chirac’s conservative reform agenda, including a major
crackdown on crime, tax cuts, and the easing of labor regulations.
Despite the lopsided conservative
victories, the record of Chirac and the new government, particularly its
economic policies, would be watched closely by voters. Of special concern were
tax cuts introduced by the government in hopes of spurring economic growth and
boosting future government tax revenues. In the short term, the cuts threatened
to expand France’s budget deficit beyond 3 percent of gross domestic product
(GDP), a limit imposed by the EU as a requirement for adopting the EU’s common
currency, the euro. France’s budget deficit exceeded the 3 percent limit two
years running, in 2002 and 2003, leading the European Commission to issue a
formal warning to France to restrain government spending. However, the
commission subsequently announced it would suspend its excessive deficit
procedure, thereby sparing France from fines for violating the EU deficit
ceiling. With little room to maneuver, the French government was forced to
reduce planned tax cuts in the 2003 budget, provoking sharp protests from the
right. Nevertheless, the budget deficit again exceeded 3 percent in 2004.
Meanwhile, the persistence of high annual unemployment rates in France drew
strong criticism from the left.
In 2003 the government announced a
proposal to restructure the public sector pension system, prompting widespread
demonstrations. Later that year, both houses of parliament approved the reforms,
which required employees in the public sector to work more years to be eligible
for full state pensions. But opposition to Raffarin’s economic reforms raised
questions about the governing coalition’s ability to maintain popular support.
In local elections held in March 2004, center-right parties lost control of 13
regions to leftist parties—a result that analysts attributed to growing public
discontent with the government’s economic policies.
J6b | Vote on the EU Constitution |
In July 2004 Chirac announced that
France would hold a referendum on the new EU constitution. In June the EU member
states had agreed to the constitution’s final text, ending extensive
negotiations. Chirac’s move signaled his confidence that French voters would
support the constitution, as France was not bound by its own constitution to
hold a referendum. Under France’s constitution, the result of any referendum
would be legally binding.
Prime Minister Raffarin led the
government’s campaign in favor of the EU constitution, holding firm to the
official position that it would strengthen France’s position in Europe. Leaders
of the UMP and the Socialist Party also supported it. Parties of both the far
right and far left led the opposition campaign, joined by some trade unions,
farmers’ groups, and antiglobalization activists. They raised many doubts about
the EU constitution, charging among other things that it would undermine
national sovereignty and allow unrestrained free market policies. The possible
accession of Turkey to the EU, widely opposed in France, also became a
hot-button issue.
In the referendum held in May 2005,
almost 55 percent of the French electorate voted against the proposed EU
constitution. Analysts attributed the result to dissatisfaction with the
government, particularly its handling of the economy, in addition to fears about
the implications of an enlarged and more integrated EU. With confidence in the
government badly shaken by the result, Raffarin tendered his resignation. In his
place Chirac appointed a trusted protégé, former foreign minister Dominique de
Villepin, who quickly formed a new government. Chirac announced the top priority
of the new government would be to lower the country’s high unemployment.
J6c | Civil Unrest |
The need for more jobs and better
economic opportunity was further emphasized when rioting broke out in France in
late October 2005. Decades of poverty and racism boiled over after two boys were
accidentally killed while fleeing police in a suburb of Paris, sparking nearly
three weeks of rioting in the economically depressed suburbs and quickly
spreading to hundreds of other French cities and towns. Nearly 3,000 people were
arrested during this period, as protesters set thousands of cars on fire and
clashed with police. Much of the violence was instigated by people of African
descent living in France, who suffer from some of the highest rates of
unemployment and poverty in the country.
It was the worst period of civil
unrest in France since student uprisings and a general strike paralyzed the
country in 1968. The French government declared a state of emergency to help
control the situation, while at the same time announcing new job programs and
economic assistance to address the deeper causes of the crisis.
Even greater unrest broke out in
early 2006, after the French government proposed a change in labor law to allow
employers to fire young workers during a two-year trial period. Under the new
law, a worker could be fired without requiring the employer to give a reason.
The government claimed the change would give employers more flexibility, leading
to greater job growth and reducing France’s high unemployment rate.
In February 2006 students began
demonstrating against the proposed labor law reform at various French colleges
and universities, shutting down many schools. The demonstrations grew in March,
escalating into violence that resulted in hundreds of arrests, much like the
protests in late 2005. In early April more than a million people across France
took part in raucous demonstrations, demanding that the proposed law be
repealed. Under mounting pressure, Chirac and de Villepin backed down in
mid-April. A weakened version of the law was quickly passed, removing the
controversial provision and emphasizing more job training and internships.
J6d | The Sarkozy Presidency |
Chirac’s second term expired in
2007, and UMP leader Nicolas Sarkozy won the French presidential election in
May. Sarkozy secured 53 percent of the vote in the runoff against socialist
candidate Ségolène Royal, who took 47 percent. A divisive and controversial
figure in French politics, Sarkozy gained a reputation as a law-and-order
hardliner while serving as minister of the interior. In November 2005 he was
accused of fanning the violence in impoverished urban areas after he called the
rioters “scum” and said that immigrant neighborhoods should be cleaned out with
a power hose. In his campaign for the presidency, Sarkozy promised to
re-energize the French economy and reduce unemployment through restrictions on
the 35-hour work week, tax cuts, and stricter controls on immigration. He named
François Fillon, a former social affairs minister, as prime minister. In his
previous post Fillon pushed through reform of France’s pension system despite
considerable opposition.
Sarkozy’s UMP lost seats in the
National Assembly in elections in June 2007. Although the UMP still maintained a
majority, it had predicted a landslide in its favor. Instead the UMP went from
359 to 314 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly. The Socialist Party gained
36 seats to bring its total to 185 seats.
The History section of this article
was contributed by Thomas E. Kaiser.
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