L’air du temps

Despite what seems to be the assured victory of the Right in the upcoming legislative elections, the situation in France is far from clear. What will this victory mean when the very categories of political thought and classification, Right versus Left, “liberal ” versus “jacobin,” have lost a certain degree of their coherence. The break up of political discourse, the diffusion of similar ideas and “mots d’ordre” in opposing political camps, is indicative of a more general malaise. Attempting to “think” France in 1985, one is forced to move beyond statistics and voting intentions, to try to capture “l’air du temps.” A concept more literary than literal, embracing not only the questions asked by analysts of contemporary France but also the tone that these questions reveal, it is not without explanatory value, as Pierre Viansson-Ponté’s famous “la France s’ennuie” proved with the May ’68 events. A recent series of colloquia at N.Y.U.’s Institute of French Studies, on subjects ranging from de Gaulle’s come back in May 1958 to recent transformations in French intellectual life, both analyse and reflect the current mood in France.

Fall of man · French revolution · Jacobin · Political science · Politics · Value (mathematics) · Victory · French Historical and Cultural Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy, Sociology, Political Theory · Political and Social Issues