France's Long Reconstruction: In Search of the Modern Republic by Herrick Chapman (review)

Chapman's exemplary monograph begins with a familiar but necessary survey of a ruined France. There was a widespread agreement that recovery from war and occupation would require "modernizing"but no consensus on what that meant. Charles De Gaulle had one set of ideas, but the Resistance had a different set. Socialists, progressive Catholics, and Communists all had their own visions, which overlapped in some ways but conflicted in others. Moreover, as those who sought to rebuild the country groped their way toward a better future, they did so in the face of substantial dangers—austerity, inflation, and the incipient threat of a popular uprising. Social peace, economic prosperity, and political stability were no sure bet in the late 1940s.

Chapman offers four chapters that focus on four different policy domains—immigration, "shopkeeper turmoil," family policy, and nationalizations. At the first moments of recovery, France needed workers. The place of women in the postwar economy remained ambiguous. Would they serve the future better as productive laborers or by staying at home nurturing the next generation of producers? For immigrant workers, the French preferred white men but could not attract a sufficient number of them. Until economic growth accelerated during the 1950s, however, the need for immigrants remained moderate. By that decade, immigration issues mixed with issues of war and national security.

Naturally, faster economic growth sunk some boats and lifted others. In the mid-1950s Pierre Poujade became the emblematic figure in the revolt of the "losers." Yet the episode also demonstrated that the Fourth Republic, though it favored the most productive elements of the economy on one side, also responded to angry shopkeepers and small business owners with conciliation. More surprisingly, Chapman suggests, so did the more vigorously modernizing Fifth Republic.

The last two thematic chapters follow the evolution of family policy, driven by a belief that healthy families were both the foundation of a thriving society and the engine of population growth. Accordingly, despite a spirited national debate about the details, the French commitment to help families remained the strongest in Europe. The next chapter, a close look at nationalizations, may be the best of the book. Whereas we often think of this topic as lending itself to a coherent story, Chapman breaks the process down into its particulars. Nationalizations in different sectors came at different times and reflected different motives. The process went more smoothly and produced better outcomes for workers and consumers in some sectors than in others—difficult for coal, for example, but easier for electricity. Chapman does not make a point of it, but the process also illustrates enduring French suspicions about the ability of free markets to deliver both wealth and liberty.

Chapman's two concluding chapters examine, first, the careers of two of the Republic's most important architects, Pierre Mendès-France and Michel Debré. Similar in their training, both men were critical of the Fourth Republic's weakness and instability. Whereas Mendès-France sought to change the system by creating more knowledgeable and responsible voters and politicians, Debré set his sights on constitutional change. Mendès-France's moment came and went in the mid-1950s. Debré's arrived when the death of one republic allowed him to write the constitution of the next one. Yet, nothwithstanding its reputation for technocratic dirigisme, the Fifth Republic remained a lively political culture, in which the state usually negotiated with, and often acceded to, other interests.

Chapman concludes that the Algerian War proved to be the crucible of the new regime, as conflict and the economy's pressing need for workers turned a gentle tide of Algerian immigration into a huge and disruptive wave. Equally important, the need to make critical decisions under pressure from every direction drove the centralization of political power in the Élysées Palace. At every moment, Chapman's smooth and professional narrative emphasizes two continuing points of tension—between state authority...