Philip M. Williams

Originally published in 1968, this book set out to give a brief but complete account of the French Parliament as it had worked in practice since the advent of President de Gaulle. A number of different aspects are discussed, from the social background of the members to the debates on five sample bills, and from the strategy of pressure groups to the organisation and character of the Gaullist party (about which very little had been written). While the legal framework within which the new parliament works is comprehensively described, attention is mainly focused on a political situation transformed by the end of the Algerian war and by the speed of social change in France itself at the time.Earlier books on the Fifth Republic naturally concentrated heavily on the spectacular crises of its early years and on the exceptional personality of its president. Remarkably little, therefore, had been written on the recent development of its institutions and politics in the peacetime conditions which France had enjoyed since 1962 for the first time for over twenty years.There was a Gaullist myth that the new regime had reformed the system and, against the obstructive opposition of an Opposition which had learned nothing and forgotten nothing, had won the support of the French people for a strong democratic government on British lines. There was a corresponding Opposition myth that a ruler and party of authoritarian temper had consolidated their power by reducing parliamentary criticism to an impotent farce. Neither interpretation was wholly unfounded; neither does justice to the complex reality which this work tries to explain as fairly as possible.

Originally published in 1968, this book set out to give a brief but complete account of the French Parliament as it had worked in practice since the advent of President de Gaulle. A number of different aspects are discussed, from the social background of the members to the debates on five sample bills, and from the strategy of pressure groups to the organisation and character of the Gaullist party (about which very little had been written). While the legal framework within which the new parliament works is comprehensively described, attention is mainly focused on a political situation transformed by the end of the Algerian war and by the speed of social change in France itself at the time.Earlier books on the Fifth Republic naturally concentrated heavily on the spectacular crises of its early years and on the exceptional personality of its president. Remarkably little, therefore, had been written on the recent development of its institutions and politics in the peacetime conditions which France had enjoyed since 1962 for the first time for over twenty years.There was a Gaullist myth that the new regime had reformed the system and, against the obstructive opposition of an Opposition which had learned nothing and forgotten nothing, had won the support of the French people for a strong democratic government on British lines. There was a corresponding Opposition myth that a ruler and party of authoritarian temper had consolidated their power by reducing parliamentary criticism to an impotent farce. Neither interpretation was wholly unfounded; neither does justice to the complex reality which this work tries to explain as fairly as possible.

Once upon a time, long ago, an older man, a youth, and a young lady made history. Their time is far enough behind us so that we can reflect upon their significance. A hundred years ago we might have thought that the late Stone Age, known as the Neolithic Era, was a threshold, over which we stepped, to become modern man. Nowadays, in the best new light shed on the expanding boundaries of anthropology, and on the physics of time, we are not sure when modern man began, if it matters. The history of the trio in this narrative is not from the very distant past, before our use of language, or before we made tools. They lived recently, in the late Stone Age, in England, equivalent in time to the early Bronze Age in the Middle East, some five thousand years ago. They did not know their work would be the stuff of myth, although the older fellow, whom we shall call Ralph, believed that much of what he did would outlast him by many years.

This collection, first published in 1970, brings together twelve articles on French political subjects, mostly concerned either with the plots and scandals that arose out of the long struggle for decolonisation, or with the culmination of that struggle in the Algerian war. In his introduction as well as throughout the book, Williams demonstrates the connection between these two themes, and explains why political scandals have been so prominent and recurrent a feature of French public life and how these scandals affected both France as well as Algeria.

Originally published in 1970, this collection of essays, in which Mr Williams displays his exceptionally wide learning and sympathetic insight into French political life, is an indispensable guide to anyone interested in the background to and achievements of de Gaulle's regime. It surveys French elections in the Fourth and Fifth Republics: the issues, the changing methods of campaigning, and the sharp mutations in voting behaviour, illustrated in a series of maps and tables. The electoral chapters are linked by discussions of the principal political developments between the successive appeals to the people. Each of the four chronological chapters sections concentrates on a leading theme.