Sunset over the Elysée

[Vladimir]

“Another war with England would sort out France” How? England lost the most important (100 Years War, Bouvines, USA) and pretends to win some others (Napoleonic’s one for example, as the Russians say “the English shoot the last bullet and pretend they’ve won”…)

Is this what you were referring to about France being stuck in the past?

France has tremendous potential but lacks the will to be great again. Maybe that will change in time.

[Brenus]

Is this what you were referring to about France being stuck in the past? No, that was a joke with my English friends... Old story...

[Vladimir]

Is this what you were referring to about France being stuck in the past? No, that was a joke with my English friends... Old story...

Ok, I sounded kind of rough but no insult was intended. A very insightful thread Louis. I have a lot of respect for France just not the political class (and Parisians). I think the French need a word for entrepreneur (j/k, to steal a quote).

[AntiochusIII]

Anyone who's a Francophile raise your hands!

It seems to me the French are stuck with an identity crisis. Might anyone with a good knowledge of the lore of modern France provide a short context on how this came up in the first place? Right now I'm assuming it began after the Second World War (a continuation of "France's search for a place in the world" during the Interbellum?) and it gets progressively worse with de Gaulle and Mitterand and such...

To sum it up, these are my questions:

1. What do you think was the main effect of de Gaulle? What ties does Gaullism has with the current predicament?

2. What exactly happened in 1968? All I knew was a huge student riot, not the cause, the details, the results.

3. How bad is the atmosphere right now? A nation exhausted, or a fuming nation?

[Brenus]

As French, I have no crisis of identity. I strongly believe in the values of the Republic and I am more a Soldier de l’An II than a Gauche Caviar. So I believe in the Ideal of Liberty, I wish we could have equality at least in the chance to start (but I am also aware of the Social Determinism) and I want to believe in Fraternity as a symbol, but also I took action to fulfil this last ideal.
My roots are the land where I born, in the mist and the swamp of the Dombes. My (family) history is a fight against oppression and struggle against poverty.
As I use to say we were Soldiers, Peasants and Workers. I am an incarnated Soviet.
I don’t believe in the France of the valets, the people who always co-opt with in inevitable and make money with it.

Now, you questions:
De Gaulle, not so much influence as such. De Gaulle was a man of the 19th Century, Captain during the 1st World War, and his values dated from this period. I don’t deny he was one of the men who restore the Honour of France, but he wasn’t alone.
I recognise his genius in politic, especially in 1940-1945 when he succeeded bluffing the Great Powers even without having cards in his hands.
He knew to surf on the waves, and was flexible enough to recognise when to change direction…
However, the Party allegedly heir of his ideas is just betraying all what, for what I know, De Gaulle fought and built…

1968 was a World Protest (it happened in every –almost- countries: Mexico, USA, Budapest etc) and was a bottle neck of Conservatism (in French meaning) and the access of the first benefits of modern society. To summarise I will mention Hippy Movement and Vietnam War.
In France it was the Post Colonialism and end of the War in Algeria, mixed with the Pro-Vietcong movement, an idealist vision of USSR, the apparition (the recognition) of sexuality and the possibility to have sexe without the pregnancy, the new economical model imported from U.S.A, the result of the Marshall Plan opposed to the leaders of a country who were still 19th Century moralists and a political Instability.
This and the demand of better salaries from the workers crated a explosive situation which created the Events.

I don’t know for the atmosphere itself, I don’t live in France.