Contemporary French Cultural Studies

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Contemporary French Cultural Studies

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Contemporary French Cultural Studies

Edited by

WILLIAM KIDD Reader in French University of Stirling and

SIAN REYNOLDS Professor of French University of Stirling

~

ARNOLD

A member of the Hodder Headline Group

LONDON Co-published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press Inc., New York

First published in Great Britain in 2000 by Arnold, a member of the Hodder Headline Group, 338 Euston Road, London NWI 3BH http://www.arnoIdpublishers.com Co-published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press Inc., 198 Madison Avenue, New York 10016

© 2000 Arnold All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanically, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without either prior permission in writing from the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the United Kingdom such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency: 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P OLP. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

ISBN 0 340 74049 3 (hb) ISBN 0 340 74050 7 (pb) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Production Editor: Anke Ueber berg Production Controller: lain McWilliams Cover Design: Terry Griffiths Typeset in 10/12pt Sabon by Phoenix Photosetting, Chatham, Kent Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall

What do you think about this book? Or any other Arnold title? Please send your comments to [email protected]

Contents

List of Contributors Acknowledgements Abbreviations PART I

Vlll Xl Xli

INTRODUCTION AND SOURCES

1

Introduction: to the reader William Kidd and Sian Reynolds

2

France @ your fingertips: print and on-line resources Elizabeth Ezra and Dougal Campbell PARTll THE BACKGROUND TO FRENCH CULTURAL EXCEPTIONALISM

1

3 10

21

3

How the French present is shaped by the past: the last hundred years in historical perspective Sian Reynolds

23

4

French cultural policy: the special role of the state Susan Collard

38

5

French education: equal or elitist? Lucy Mitchell

51

PART III CULTURAL DIFFERENCES AND IDENTITY POLITICS IN FRANCE TODAY 6

Social difference: age and place Marion Demossier and Susan Milner

67

69

Contents

vi

7 Sexual fault lines: sex and gender in the cultural context Lucille Cairns

81

8 The challenges of multiculturalism: regional and religious differences in France today Alec G. Hargreaves

95

9 French political culture: homogeneous or fragmented? Brian Jenkins

PART IV

FRENCHNESS REVISITED: FORCES FOR CULTURAL UNITY

111

127

10 If it isn't clear, it isn't French: language and identity James Munro

129

11 French public culture: places and spaces Helen Beale

140

12 Frenchness: constructed and reconstructed William Kidd

154

PART V FRENCH CULTURAL PRODUCTION AT THE TURN OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

163

13 Sport and identity in the new France Philip Dine

165

14 Advertising culture in France: no Coca-Cola please, we're French! Alastair Duncan

179

15 A night at the theatre Christophe Campos

193

16 Cinema in a nation of filmgoers Sue Harris

208

17 Festivals and fetes populaires Sue Harris

220

18 From press barons to digital TV: changing media in France Jean-Claude Sergeant

229

19 From Messiaen to MC Solaar: music in France in the second half of the twentieth century Mary Breatnach and Eric Sterenfeld

244

20 Reading books in France: la culture du livre Bernard C. Swift

257

Contents

vii

21 Intellectuals in French culture Martyn Cornick

270

22 The French contribution to contemporary cultural analysis Jeremy F. Lane

287

Conclusion

300

Appendix

302

Index

309

Contributors

Helen E. Beale is Lecturer in French at the University of Stirling. She has published papers on war memorials, public sculpture and public space, and is currently working on the Scottish colourist J. D. Fergusson (1874-1961) and his links with France. Mary Breatnach is a professional musician and independent scholar. She teaches at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and in the French Department at the University of Edinburgh. She is the author of Boulez and Mallarme: A Study in Poetic Influence (1996), and has published articles on French poetry in relation to music. Lucille Cairns is Lecturer in French at the University of Stirling, and the author of Marie Cardinal: Motherhood and Creativity (1992); Privileged Pariahdom: Homosexuality in the Novels of Dominique Fernandez (1996), as well as articles on both French women's writing and French lesbian and gay literature and cinema. Dougal Campbell is a Language Tutor in the French Department at Glasgow University. He also works for the Open University, Harrap's dictionaries and an A Level board. A link at http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uklFrenchlfrench6.html will take you to his monthly cyber-column about language-related topics, from puns and headlines to the delights of translation. Christophe Campos is Director of the British Institute in Paris, where he contributes to undergraduate and postgraduate courses on French theatre. From 1971 to 1997, he organized the annual Paris-Theatre international seminar. Susan Collard teaches in the School of European Studies at the University of Sussex and has published widely on French politics with special reference to French cultural policy, on which she is completing a book.

Contributors

ix

Martyn Cornick is Reader in Contemporary French Studies at the University of Birmingham. He is editor of the journal Modern and Contemporary France, and has published widely on French intellectual history. His book Intellectuals in History: the Nouvelle revue franr;aise under Jean Paulhan appeared in 1995. Marion Demossier is Lecturer in French and European Studies at the University of Bath. She is the author of Hommes et vins, une anthropologie du vignoble bourguignon (Dijon 1999), has published several articles on French culture and society and is working on a project about culture and wine consumption in France. Philip Dine, Senior Lecturer in French at Loughborough University, is the author of Images of the Algerian War: French Fiction and Film, 1954-1992 (1994). He works on representations of decolonization, sport, leisure, and popular culture in France. Currently completing a social history of French rugby. Alastair Duncan is Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Stirling. He has published on the French New Novel, especially Claude Simon, and on advertising in France, including articles on racism, sponsorship and television. Elizabeth Ezra teaches in the French Department at the University of Stirling. She is the author of The Colonial Unconscious: Race and Culture in Interwar France (2000), and Georges Milies: The Birth of the Auteur (2000) She is also co-editor of France in Focus: Film and National Identity (2000). Sue Harris is Lecturer in French at Queen Mary & Westfield College, University of London. She has published articles on popular film comedy and performance, is co-editor of France in Focus: Film and National Identity (2000) and is the author of a forthcoming book on Bertrand Blier. Alec G. Hargreaves is Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Loughborough University. His publications include Immigration, 'Race' and Ethnicity in Contemporary France (1995) and, co-edited with Mark McKinney, Post-Colonial Cultures in France (1997). Brian Jenkins is Professor of French Area Studies at the University of Portsmouth. He is the author of Nationalism in France: Class and Nation since 1789 (1990), co-editor of Nation and Identity in Contemporary Europe (1996), and an editor of the Journal of European Area Studies.

x

Contributors

William Kidd is Reader in French at the University of Stirling. He has written extensively on twentieth-century literature and ideology, culture and iconography, war and memory, including a recently published monograph on the problematics of commemoration in Lorraine from 1871 to the present. Jeremy F. Lane is Lecturer in French at Aberdeen University. He has published widely on many aspects of the work of Pierre Bourdieu and is the author of Pierre Bourdieu: a critical introduction (2000). Susan Milner is Reader in European Studies at the University of Bath. She has published on the history of trade unions and has recently embarked on comparative studies of the impact of socio-economic change on local communities. She is currently investigating the role of cultural policies in urban regeneration in France. Lucy Mitchell is Librarian at the British Institute in Paris where she also teaches in the English Department. Her three children have all been educated through the French state school and university system. James S. Munro teaches in the University of Stirling, both in the department of French and the Centre for English Language Teaching. His interests and publications range from French literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to the methodology of language teaching. Sian Reynolds is Professor of French at the University of Stirling, and works on French history and politics. Her latest book is France between the Wars: gender and politics (1996) and she has also published a number of translations. Jean-Claude Sergeant is professor at the University of Paris III (Sorbonnenouvelle), and a member of the Centre for Research on Media. He is the author of books on Britain and Europe since 1945, and Britain under Margaret Thatcher and has published widely on the British and French press and news media. Eric Sterenfeld is a French musician and composer who works in Paris. He has played in several of the groups mentioned in chapter 19 and is an expert on electronic musical reproduction. Bernard C. Swift (University of Stirling) has also held appointments in Canada, Geneva, and at the University of Bordeaux. He has written widely on Fran~ois Mauriac, has published translations of works by Jean Starobinski and articles on French symbolism, and has worked on book censorship in France.

Acknowledgements

For permIssIon to reproduce photographs of theatre posters from Christophe Campos's collection (Figures 15.1 and 15.2), the editors are grateful to the Comedie Franc;aise, the Theatre du Lucernaire, the artist and Professor Campos. For the ad for Chanel's Allure (Fig. 14.1), acknowledgements are due to Chanel, Paris; Daniel Jouanneau, Mak Gilchrist and Elite Premier, London; Herb Ritts and Vernon Jolly, New York. Other photographs are by Helen Beale (Figs 11.1, 11.2, 12.1); William Kidd (Figs 3.1, 5.1, 12.2, 21.1); and Bernard Swift (Fig. 20.1). Our thanks also go to Graham Brown of Stirling University Media Services. Sue Harris wishes to acknowledge with thanks a grant from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, which enabled her to research chapters 16 and 17. The editors are particularly grateful to Alison Cooper, French Departmental Assistant at Stirling, for her help in preparing the word-processed version of the final text and typing the index. They also wish to thank John Oswald for reading sections of the manuscript with the keen eye of a postgraduate. The original idea and commission came from Lesley Riddle, and the editors would like to thank her and her colleagues at Arnold, especially Elena Seymenliyska and Anke Ueber berg, for all their help and encouragement as the book went through the press. Various sharpeyed copy-editors eliminated errors and inconsistencies, but the editors accept responsibility for any that have escaped undetected. The Editors

Abbreviations

AIDS AFAA

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome Association franc;:aise d'action artistique Bureau de verification de la publicite BVP Certificat d'aptitude professionnelle de l'enseignement CAPES secondaire Centre national de la cinematographie CNC Centre de recherche pour l'etude et I'observation des CREDOC conditions de vie CROUS Centre regional des reuvres universitaires et scolaires Conseil superieur de I'audiovisuel CSA CUARH Comite d'urgence anti-repression homosexuelle Division blindee [(2nd) Armoured division] DB Direction generale des relations culturelles, scientifiques et DGRCST techniques DOM-TOM Departements d'outre-mer - Territoires d'outre-mer Direction regionale des affaires culturelles DRAC Dotation de solidarite urbaine DSU Digital Versatile Disk DVD Ecole des hautes etudes et sciences sociales EHESS Ecole nationale d'administration ENA European Union EU FEMIS Fondation europeenne des metiers de I'image et du son FHAR Front homosexuel d'action revolutionnaire Front national FN FNAC Federation nationale des achats des cadres GATT General agreement on tariffs and trade Gross Domestic Product GDP HLM Habitation a loyer mod ere IMA Institut du monde arabe INA Institut national de I'audiovisuel

Abbreviations IN ED INSEE INSEP IOC IRCAM IUT NATO OECD OJD ORTF PACS PAGSI PCF PUF RATP RER RIAS RMC RTL SACEM SNCF SOFRES SPD SPF STS TDF TFl TGV TNP UDF ZEP

xiii

Institut national d'etudes demographiques Institut national de la statistique et des etudes economiques Institut national du Sport et de l'Education Physique International Olympic Committee Institut de recherches et de coordination acoustique musique Institut universitaire de technologie North Atlantic Treaty Organization Organization for economic cooperation and development Office de justification de la diffusion des supports de publicite Office de radiodiffusion-television fran