The Youth Question: Generations, Stability and Social Change in France since 1945

Abstract

Historians seeking to understand the evolution – and the stability – of the Fifth Republic remain divided as to what constitute the major moments of change. Whereas 1945 used to be seen as the watershed in the emergence of the ‘new France’, in the eyes of many analysts now the end of the war appears of little significance. After all, following the brief period of tripartism, the Cold War revived precisely the unstable coalition politics of the Third Republic that had seemingly been rejected in 1945. A more suitable ‘postwar’ date for France might be seen as 1962, when de Gaulle, in effectively ending the colonial era, also confirmed the presidentialization (and stabilization) of politics with a referendum on constitutional reform that instituted direct election of the president. For other authors, however, it was only the revolt of May 1968, with all its attendant political and cultural fallout, that constituted the end of French ‘exceptionalism’.¹ This claim in turn has now begun to be subjected to critical analysis. With the benefit of hindsight, the upheavals in May 1968 may seem to have had fewer lasting consequences than the depoliticization inaugurated in the early 1960s.² The events of 1989 have added a new element to the riddle of continuity and change in modern France: if there was some kind of postwar stabilization in France – has it now begun to unravel?