Postwar France 19451981

1
Post-war France1945-1981

• Illustrated History, pp. 276-305

2
Key terms

• Marshall Plan
• Jean-Paul Sartre
• Simone de Beauvoir
• Pied-noir
• Decolonization
• Indo-China
• May 1968

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Existentialism

• Sartre the best known philosopher since
  Voltaire.
• Simone de Beauvoir life-long companion,
  fellow-existentialist, and founder of French
  feminist theory.
• Existence precedes essence (Sartre)
• One is not born, but becomes, a woman (Beauvoir)

4
Artsy intellectual scene

• Theatre of the Absurd
• Nouveau roman (new novel)
• Nouvelle vague (new wave cinema)

Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (theater of the
absurd)
5
Thirty glorious years

• Period of unprecedented French economic
  population growth, late 1940s to mid 1970s.
• France received invaluable financial assistance
  from the Marshall Plan (United States aid in
  rebuilding war-torn Europe).
• European Common Market (forerunner of the
  European Union) established in 1957.
• Massive influx of immigrants fills low-wage jobs
  (see photo p. 291).
• Workers granted 3 weeks paid holiday per year in
  1956 extended to 5 weeks by 1982.
• Consumerism finally hits France in the 1960s
  half of all households acquire refrigerator,
  television, bath or shower, telephone, washing
  machines.

6
Pompidou centerNational museum of modern art
(1977)
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Womens rights

• 1945 Women granted right to vote.
• 1949 Beauvoir publishes The Second Sex, feminist
  manifesto which became influential after 1968.
• 1965 Women gain right to open a bank account,
  to own property without husbands consent.
• 1974 Contraception made more freely available.
• 1975 Abortion made more available.
• 1975 Divorce liberalized.

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Decolonization

• 1947 Insurrection in Madagascar.
• 1954 Indo-China Vietnamese defeat French at
  Dien- Bien-Phu.
• 1956 Tunisian independence.
• 1956 Moroccan independence.
• 1962 Algerian independence (following a bloody
  war). 800,000 pieds-noirs (Europeans residing in
  Algeria) return to France.
• 1958-onward Colonies of central and west
  Africa granted independence.

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from Robbe-Grillets JealousyA Nouveau roman
(new novel)

• The balusters are of turned wood, with a median
  hip and two accessory smaller bulges, one at each
  end. The paint, which has almost completely
  disappeared from the top surface of the
  hand-rail, is also beginning to flake off the
  bulging portions of the balusters they present,
  for the most part, a wide zone of naked wood
  halfway up the baluster, on the rounded part of
  the hip, on the veranda side. Between the gray
  paint that remains, faded with age, and the wood
  grayed by the action of humidity, appear little
  reddish-brown surfaces the natural color of the
  wood where it has been exposed by the recent
  fall of new flakes of paint. The whole balustrade
  is to be repainted bright yellow that is what
  A... has decided.
• The windows of her bedroom are still closed.
  However the blinds which replace the panes of
  glass are opened as far as possible, thus making
  the interior of the room bright enough. A... is
  standing in front of the right-hand window,
  Iooking out through one of the chinks in the
  blinds toward the veranda.
• The man is still motionless, bending over the
  muddy water on the earth-covered log bridge. He
  has not moved an inch crouching, head lowered,
  forearms resting on his thighs, hands hanging
  between his knees.

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May 1968

• Began as student protest against inadequate
  university facilities, American conduct in Viet
  Nam.
• Police brutally repress the student
  demonstrators.
• Workers strike in solidarity.
• Revolt goes nationwide. Up to 10 million workers
  strike, some occupying factories.
• The movement was diverse, an included radical
  minority student / worker groups, such as
  Trotskyites, Maoists and anarchists.
• Movement nearly brought down the government.
• Communists supported De Gaulle, who prevailed.

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May 1968 demonstration Sorbonne university
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May 1968 (continued)

• Protestors spread their messages through
  demonstrations, teach-ins, flyers, newsletters,
  and posters. (p. 297)

14
More posters, May 1968
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Key terms (review)

• Marshall Plan
• Jean-Paul Sartre
• Simone de Beauvoir
• Pied-noir
• Decolonization
• Indo-China
• May 1968