From the looks of Emmanuel Macron’s sweeping victory in the French presidential election, France seems to be recovering its self-confidence. But appearances can deceive: Macron will inherit a deeply divided country that remains mired in dysfunction and despair.
- Jean Tirole, Économie du bien commun (Presses Universitaire de France, 2016; English edition, Princeton University Press, 2017)
- Agnès Verdier-Molinié, On va dans le mur (Albin Michel, 2015)
- Agnès Verdier-Molinié, Ce que doit faire le (prochain) président (Albin Michel, 2017)
- Christophe Guilluy, La France périphérique, Comment on a sacrifié les classes populaires (Flammarion, 2014)
- Brice Teinturier, “Plus rien à faire, plus rien à foutre” (Robert Laffont, 2017)
- Gilles Finchelstein, Piège d’identité (Fayard, 2016)
PARIS – Emmanuel Macron’s overwhelming victory in the French presidential election has opened a window of opportunity for France to recover its self-confidence and banish xenophobic populism back to the depths from which it emerged. To take advantage of it, however, Macron faces an unenviable task: recreate the dynamism that transformed France in the three decades (les trente glorieuses) after World War II, when General Charles de Gaulle established the French Fifth Republic. Because the modern French presidency was built for de Gaulle’s outsized character, it confers on the incumbent the power that he once exercised as a virtual republican monarch. But, unlike de Gaulle, Macron will have to do more than simply pursue a “certain vision of France.”
PARIS – Emmanuel Macron’s overwhelming victory in the French presidential election has opened a window of opportunity for France to recover its self-confidence and banish xenophobic populism back to the depths from which it emerged. To take advantage of it, however, Macron faces an unenviable task: recreate the dynamism that transformed France in the three decades (les trente glorieuses) after World War II, when General Charles de Gaulle established the French Fifth Republic. Because the modern French presidency was built for de Gaulle’s outsized character, it confers on the incumbent the power that he once exercised as a virtual republican monarch. But, unlike de Gaulle, Macron will have to do more than simply pursue a “certain vision of France.”