Vol. 26 No. 17 :: 2 September 2004
Perry Anderson: The Fall of France
La France qui tombe by Nicolas Baverez
La Face cachée du 'Monde': Du contre-pouvoir aux abus de pouvoir by Pierre Péan and Philippe Cohen
"The French National Assembly is the weakest parliament in the Western world, with more than one resemblance to the echo chambers of the First Empire. The current ruler of the country would be in the dock for malversation had a constitutional court not hastened to grant him immunity from prosecution: a trampling of equality before the law that not even his Italian counterpart, in what is usually imagined to be a still more cynical political culture, has been able to secure. Foreign policy is a mottled parody of Gaullism: vocal opposition to the pretext for war in the Middle East, followed by practical provision of airspace and prompt wishes for victory once the attack was under way. At home the prestige of public works, as late as the 1990s still a touchstone of national pride, lies in the mortuary dust and rubble of Roissy" http://www.lrb.co.uk/index.php