Routledge Handbook of French Politics and Culture

Marion Demossier is Professor of French and European Studies at the University of Southampton, UK, where she holds a Chair in Social Anthropology.David Lees is Senior Teaching Fellow in French Studies at the University of Warwick, UK.Aurélien Mondon is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Bath, UK.Nina Parish is Professor in French and Francophone Studies at the University of Stirling, UK.

"This book is a very useful contribution to the study of French politics and culture today. It is a collective endeavour which highlights recurring aspects of French ‘exceptionalism’ as well as other trends in line with other European countries. This edited volume offers a timely assessment of France under the Macron presidency and stays abreast of the more recent and dramatic transformations of the political system, but also of major societal and cultural changes. The study is a snapshot into France in 2019, and is divided into sections, each of them deals with a particular aspect of contemporary France: the institutional system and recent political realignments, what it is to be French, spaces of political and cultural contestation, and issues mediating memories and culture. The authors draw on a variety of academic disciplines. This state-of-the-art volume fills a gap in the existing literature on French society as a whole."Philippe Marlière, University College London, UK."An engaged, and engaging, journey through the political, social and cultural landscape of contemporary France. With an approach well-grounded in the history of modern France, this collective volume tackles many different forms of contemporary political and cultural contestation. On the way, the reader travels through physical spaces from the streets of Paris and the banlieue to the French countryside of the twenty-first century, meeting far more complex French identities and experiences than traditional Republican discourse would suggest. Less tangible spaces are also explored, those of traditional and new media and their effects, of voting patterns and the French political system, of gender, of migration and of the memories of the conduct and experiences of war and colonisation and their presence in the immediate every day. Successive chapters bring together aspects of Macron’s France as diverse as the evolving place of popular culture to changes affecting the political sphere, all asking fundamental questions about continuity and change in French politics and culture in the wider context of recent global shifts."Debra Kelly, University of Westminster, UK."Any scholar of modern and contemporary France must confront the question of whether the country is, or has ever been, exceptional in relation to the rest of the global North. This rich and diverse collection of essays on French politics and culture is a very welcome and timely update on that perennial question. It provides illuminating overviews and detailed case studies on themes such as the 2017 elections, official and counter-narratives of the banlieue and Jewish culture and popular music, written by many of the leading experts in French studies. It is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand French society today."Jan Windebank, University of Sheffield, UK.

• Introduction: French Politics and Culture in the Macron Era Part I: Politics in Modern and Contemporary France 1. From Despair, to Hope, to Limbo: The French Elections and the Future of the Republic 2. The French Party Political System 3. Gaullism as a Doctrine and Political Movement 4. France and the World: The African Dimension 5. Gender in Modern and Contemporary French Politics Part II: Identification and Belonging 6. The Politics of Migration 7. The Political Transversality of Islamophobia: An Analysis of Historical and Ideological Foundations 8. The new Politics of Racialisation in France: The Roma, Territorialisation and Mobility 9. Youth and Politics in France: Democratic Deficit or New Model of Citizenship? 10. Anti-racism, Race and the Republic in Contemporary France Part III: Spaces of Political and Cultural Contestation 11. La France dans la Rue 12. The French ‘Banlieue’: Realities, Myths, Representations 13. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: ‘Banlieue Youth’ as Figure of Speech and as Speaking Figures 14. Night-clubs and National Belonging: Malek Boutih’s Solutions for Personal and National Insecurity 15. Local and Social Belonging in the Contemporary French Rural World 16. Gender and Crisis: Women’s Writing in French at the Start of the Twenty-first Century Part IV: Mediating Memories and Cultures 17. Remembering the First World War in France: HGG and Thiepval 18. Waging the War of Words: Propaganda and the Mass Media in Modern France, 1939–2017 19. Cultural Policy: A Weakened Exception? (1959–2016) 20. Popular Music Nostalgia in Contemporary French Media Discourse 21. Media and Contemporary France 22. The Multiple Deaths of the French Intellectuals 23. Jewish Culture in Twenty-first Century France