Search results
depression hit the French economy in 1930–31 the empire served as a réservoir colonial , providing raw material resources and a captive market to metropolitan industries confronted with empty order books. The profits generated by colonial export trade became more vital to the French economy. And the ability to sell French products on French terms to French colonial subjects was
In the twenty years between the end of the First World War and the start of the Second, the French empire reached its greatest physical extent. At the end of the First World War, the priority of the French political community was to consolidate and expand the French empire for, inter alia, industrial mobilisation and global competition for strategic resources. The book revisits debates over 'associationism' and 'assimilationism' in French colonial administration in Morocco and Indochina, and discusses the Jonnart Law in Algeria and the role of tribal elites in the West African colonies. On the economy front, the empire was tied to France's monetary system, and most colonies were reliant on the French market. The book highlights three generic socio-economic issues that affected all strata of colonial society: taxation and labour supply, and urban development with regard to North Africa. Women in the inter-war empire were systematically marginalised, and gender was as important as colour and creed in determining the educational opportunities open to children in the empire. With imperialist geographical societies and missionary groups promoting France's colonial connection, cinema films and the popular press brought popular imperialism into the mass media age. The book discusses the four rebellions that shook the French empire during the inter-war years: the Rif War of Morocco, the Syrian revolt, the Yen Bay mutiny in Indochina, and the Kongo Wara. It also traces the origins of decolonisation in the rise of colonial nationalism and anti-colonial movements.
in this very direction in the name of socialisme de l’offre (‘supply-side socialism’). Once again, the PS has decided to adapt the French economy to the perceived necessities of global competition, but without any clear-cut discourse able to justify this option to French public opinion. This choice is reinforced by the PS’s full commitment to the EU. One of the very first decisions Hollande took in June 2012, during his first European Council as French President, was to endorse the ‘Fiscal Compact’ as it has been agreed by Sarkozy, without any renegotiation of any
it helps to contextualise the myths of the nation. The word encapsulates the entire situation of the vine (soil, climate and grape variety), and is regarded with almost religious fervour as a viticultural ‘holy trinity’ which defines the produce of a vineyard and a region. It is the ‘diverse mythology, untroubled by its contradictions’ that surrounds the ‘totem-drink’ that Roland Barthes placed at the centre of ‘the French nation’.6 This holistic and flexible notion supports the agricultural exceptionalism that has cast the French economy as a distinct and
Does European integration contribute to, or even accelerate, the erosion of intra-party democracy? This book is about improving our understanding of political parties as democratic organisations in the context of multi-level governance. It analyses the impact of European Union (EU) membership on power dynamics, focusing on the British Labour Party, the French Socialist Party (PS), and the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). The purpose of this book is to investigate who within the three parties determines EU policies and selects EU specialists, such as the candidates for European parliamentary elections and EU spokespersons.
The book utilises a principal-agent framework to investigate the delegation of power inside the three parties across multiple levels and faces. It draws on over 65 original interviews with EU experts from the three national parties and the Party of European Socialists (PES) and an e-mail questionnaire. This book reveals that European policy has largely remained in the hands of the party leadership. Its findings suggest that the party grassroots are interested in EU affairs, but that interest rarely translates into influence, as information asymmetry between the grassroots and the party leadership makes it very difficult for local activists to scrutinise elected politicians and to come up with their own policy proposals. As regards the selection of EU specialists, such as candidates for the European parliamentary elections, this book highlights that the parties’ processes are highly political, often informal, and in some cases, undemocratic.
large ‘national champions’ in each industry and governmental intervention in markets through instruments such as price controls, quotas, subsidies and import tariffs. Legitimated by a desire to break with the socio-economic and political elites of the 1930s and 40s ( Hall, 1986 ; Cohen, 1992 : 20), the post-war expansion of the French economy and by the electoral success of the politicians who maintained it in place, dirigisme came under sustained attack during the 1980s. We now know, however, that by then it had already been sapped over two decades by a range of
meeting of European finance ministers in the city. Participation was often impressive, though no strike action was taken and Solidarność failed to engage in 14 November 2012 protests. It is also necessary to reflect on the relationship of the French labour movement with these processes. Given that the French economy is in an intermediate position, falling between core and periphery, the case of the country is particularly interesting. The arguments I have made about German labour, regarding the benefits of national
. Analysis widely held that it would take years to return to normal conditions and that the required reforms would inevitably have major social and political costs. At the same time, international ratings agencies were becoming increasingly anxious over the performance of the French economy. A growing number of discussions were taking place regarding the continuation of France’s AAA status. The downgrading of this status would clearly indicate that the crisis had now struck at the heart of the EU and was no longer confined to the peripheral countries. There were growing
Bourguignon, French Economy, pp. 48–9. 29 Nicolas Stoskopf, Le Train: une passion alsacienne (1839–2012) (Strasbourg, 2012), p. 99. 30 AFP, ‘Etat approximatif des commandes faites en France … pour les chemins de fer étrangers au 14 octobre 1865’. 31 Berthon, Émile et Isaac Pereire, p. 10. 32 I. Pereire, Chemins de fer, p. 146. MUP_Davies_Pereire_Printer.indd 241 12/08/2014 14:51
occupation in this period still tend to focus almost exclusively on the military, legal or administrative aspects of occupation.13 The inherent problem with this approach is that it shows only the official view, and the intentions of the occupier often differed greatly from reality.14 Inadequacies of supply for instance (a chronic problem in the later wars of Louis XIV’s reign, given the ramshackle state of the French economy) meant that, whatever the government’s objectives might have been, soldiers had no choice but to take their subsistence into their own hands.15