France: The Contemporary Era

The Contemporary Era

Georges Pompidou, a Gaullist, was elected president in June, 1969. He preserved de Gaulle's independent foreign policy but made innovations domestically, especially in devaluing the franc. In 1971, he reversed French policy and declared support for Britain's entrance into the European Community. Pompidou died suddenly in 1974 and was succeeded as president by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, his finance minister, who defeated Socialist leader François Mitterrand in a close presidential runoff election. Discontent with inflation and unemployment, dissension within the right wing between Giscard and RPR leader Jacques Chirac, and austerity measures imposed by Giscard combined to aid the Socialist party, and Mitterrand won the 1981 presidential election.

Mitterrand quickly dissolved the national assembly, and it became predominantly Socialist after new elections. To placate the Communist party, with which the Socialists had been allied since 1977, four Communist ministers were added to the cabinet. Many large industries (steel, nuclear energy, armaments), private banks, and insurance companies were nationalized, and minimum wage and social security benefits were increased. However, by 1982 the economic situation had worsened, in part because of decreased exports and pressure on the franc; the government devalued the franc, imposed a wage and price freeze, and granted tax concessions to business. In 1984 Mitterrand re-formed the government, excluding the Communists.

In 1986 a right-wing coalition won a majority in Parliament, and Jacques Chirac was appointed premier. He began a policy of privatizing state-owned companies. In the 1988 presidential election a right-wing candidate, Jean-Marie Le Pen, ran on an extreme anti-immigration platform and won a significant portion of first-round votes. Mitterrand, however, was reelected in the second round, defeating Chirac.

In 1991 France agreed to sign the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Mitterrand turned increasingly to foreign affairs and pursued a more moderate economic program. Nonetheless, in the 1993 elections, with the Socialists devastated by rising unemployment and corruption scandals, conservative parties captured nearly 85% of the seats in the national assembly, and Édouard Balladur, a Gaullist, became premier. The new government slashed interest rates and followed other policies aimed at stemming France's continuing recession. In 1995, Chirac was elected president, defeating Balladur and a Socialist candidate; he appointed Alain Juppé as premier.

France was beset by a host of problems in 1995, including severe floods and terror bombings; the government faced international criticism for its nuclear testing in the South Pacific, which it resumed after a three-year moratorium; and the country was paralyzed late in the year by a long transportation workers strike. The strike action was one of many that followed the announcement by Premier Juppé of a comprehensive plan to overhaul the massive social security system and to raise taxes—actions aimed at helping to reduce the budget deficit and enable France to qualify for European monetary union, which was achieved in 1999 (see European Monetary System). Chirac ended nuclear testing in 1996 and announced plans for scaling back French military deployment and phasing in an all-volunteer force.

Following parliamentary elections in 1997, Socialist Lionel Jospin became premier. In late 2000, Chirac was accused of involvement in a 1980s kickback scheme that provided funds for political parties when he was mayor of Paris, but he denied any knowledge of the scheme. The charges created political difficulties for Chirac but did not greatly affect his popularity. The Socialist parliament in 2001 approved a bill giving Corsica limited autonomy. The move was originally intended to end separatist violence there, but the year actually saw an increase in attacks, and the law was subsequently ruled in large part to be unconstitutional.

In the 2002 presidential and parliamentary elections Chirac won a resounding victory. Jospin, who ran against Chirac for the presidency, failed to make it into the runoff, where Chirac's opponent was the right-wing nationalist Jean-Marie Le Pen. Jospin resigned as premier, and Chirac went on the win the presidency. The Socialists suffered a further setback in the national assembly elections, when the center-right alliance, the Union for the Presidential Majority (UMP; subsequently the Union for a Popular Movement), won three fifths of the seats. Jean-Pierre Raffarin was appointed premier by Chirac.

In 2002–3, as the Bush administration pushed for the abandonment of UN weapons inspections in Iraq and for the UN approval of the use of force to oust Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and disarm Iraq, President Chirac became one of the strongest international opponents of war. France threatened to veto any resolution that explicitly authorized the use of force, which led to acrimonious relations with the United States and Great Britain. France's strong stand, which was also supported by Germany, also led to divisions in the European Union and NATO, whose member governments disagreed on whether to use force against Iraq.

A referendum in July, 2003, calling for approval of a new Corsican assembly with limited autonomy (made possible by amendments to the constitution) failed to pass; the government had supported the measure in hopes of undercutting Corsican separatists. The following month an estimated 11,000 people, largely elderly, died as a result of a persistent heatwave in which temperatures in parts of the country rose to above 104℉ (40℃).

Local and regional elections in Mar., 2004, resulted in a clear victory for the Socialists. The vote was seen as rejection of the government's moves to make changes in the French social welfare system, with its generous welfare, health-care, and pension benefits. The government subsequently also suffered losses in the September elections for the senate. In May, 2005, voters rejected the proposed new constitution for the European Union, resulting in a further embarrassment for the government, and Premier Raffarin resigned. Dominique de Villepin, who had been interior minister, succeeded Raffarin as premier.

In Oct., 2005, following strident comments by Interior Minister Sarkozy on urban violence linked to immigrants, and the accidental deaths of two black youths who were trying to hide from the police, nighttime riots by persons of African and Arab descent occurred in suburbs of Paris, spread to other Parisian suburbs, and in November spread to many other places in France. The government declared a state of emergency, which lasted for the rest of 2005, but provocative comments by some officials continued to feed immigrant resentment. The riots, which highlighted the alienation and poverty of the French of non-European descent, did not end until after mid-November.

A new national crisis arose in early 2006 when Villepin pushed through changes to French labor law that would make it easier to fire workers under age 26 during their first two years with a company. A series of demonstrations and strikes against the law occurred in Mar.–Apr., 2006. Although the law was enacted, in a setback for Villepin, he subsequently announced that it would be replaced by new legislation designed to reduce youth unemployment. Charges that Villepin had targeted (2004) Sarkozy for investigation by the secret service in an attempt to smear his party rival brought calls for Villepin to resign, but Chirac continued to support the premier. (Villepin was acquitted of the charges in 2010.)

Sarkozy secured the UMP nomination for president in Jan., 2007, while the Socialists had earlier nominated Ségolène Royal, the first woman to be a major party candidate for the office. Sarkozy led the crowded field after the first round in Apr., 2007, and soundly defeated Royal in the runoff in May. After taking office, Sarkozy appointed François Fillon, a former education and labor minister, as premier.

The UMP was expected to gain seats in the subsequent June parliamentary elections, but the party actually lost seats. It nonetheless retained a solid majority in the National Assembly. Proposed pension benefit changes and civil service job cuts led to a nine-day transport workers strike and shorter walkouts by other workers in Nov., 2007. Disenchantment with the economy and with Sarkozy's personal style and his very public divorce and remarriage since becoming president contributed to Socialist gains in the Mar., 2008, local elections.

Sarkozy won parliamentary approval in July, 2008, for constitutional amendments that limiting a person to two terms as president and increasing some of parliament's powers. In 2009, France decided to return its forces (except its nuclear forces) to NATO's military command. Though France weathered the 2008–9 global recession better than most European nations, the weak French economy and increasing unemployment contributed to a significant Socialist-led coalition win in regional elections in Mar., 2010. In October the government secured legislation changing the pension system (including raising the retirement age, a measure that was partially reversed in 2012) in order to reduce public deficits and debt; the changes sparked months of protests that culminated in October with a series of crippling strikes and protests.

The recession at times strained relations with Germany when the two leading eurozone nations disagreed over how to respond to its effects (both initially and in the early 2010s when soaring budget deficits affected Greece and some other eurozone nations), but Sarkozy generally supported the reliance on government austerities as a response to the eurozone fiscal crisis. The Socialists and their allies did well again in the Mar., 2011, local elections, largely repeating their 2010 success, and in September they won control of the French Senate for the first time since the Fifth Republic was established. The 2012 presidential elections resulted in a victory for the Socialists as François Hollande defeated Sarkozy after a runoff (May); Hollande named Socialist Jean-Marc Ayrault premier. In the June legislative elections, the Socialists and their allies won a majority of the seats in the National Assembly. In mid-2013 the new government enacted a number of labor reforms; a modest overhaul of the pension system's funding was passed in late 2013. A poor showing by the Socialists in the Mar., 2014, local elections led to Ayrault's resignation, and Hollande named Interior Minister Manuel Valls to succeed him. The Socialists also fared poorly in the Mar., 2015, local elections.

A Jan., 2015, an deadly attack in Paris, on a satirical magazine notorious for its cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad and on a kosher grocery store, was claimed by Al Qaeda. A coordinated series of bombings and attacks in Paris on November 13, by terrorists associated with the Islamic State, killed 130 persons and injured several hundred. A state of emergency was declared (and subsequently continued into 2017) while security forces sought those terrorists who had escaped and also raided sites associated with the perpetrators and planners. In the first round of the subsequent regional elections (Dec., 2015), the National Front made record gains, but the party placed third after the final round of voting, which was won by the Republicans (the renamed UMP). July, 2016, saw another attack in which dozens were killed and hundreds injured, as a Tunisian man drove a truck through a Bastille Day crowd in Nice. That same month the government forced a further labor reform bill through the parliament; the law was opposed by many labor unions and had sparked several weeks of strikes.

Valls resigned as premier in Dec., 2016, to run for president; Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve was appointed to succeed him. In the 2017 presidential election, Emmanuel Macron, a former investment banker and finance minister in Hollande's government who ran as an independent, won April's first round, and the National Front's Marine Le Pen placed second; Macron easily defeated Le Pen in the May runoff, receiving two thirds of the vote. Macron appointed Édouard Philippe, a member of the Republican party, as premier. Macron's Republic Forward! movement and the allied Democratic Movement subsequently won a majority in the June National Assembly elections, but voter turnout was historically low. The September Senate elections left that body in control of the Republicans; that same month Macron enacted significant changes to France's labor laws by decree. Proposed changes to laws privileging workers in the national rail system led to strikes in 2018, but were enacted in June.

Opposition to planned increases in the fuel tax led to recurring public protests nationwide beginning in November. As the demonstrations continued (into 2019), they became more focused on the effects of the cost of living on poorer families, but were also marked by decreasing size and increasing violence. In response, the government halted the fuel tax rise, and later increased the minimum wage and adopted other measures, but it rejected a tax increases on the highest incomes, as many demonstrators sought. In late 2019 a proposed reorganization of the pension system led to strikes and protests that continued into early 2020; the changes were enacted by decree in Mar., 2020.

France was one of the European nations most severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, which caused a significant economic contraction. Dissatisfaction with the generally conservative approach of Macron's government led to his party's loss of its parliamentary majority through defections in May, and Green candidates experienced a surge in voter support in local elections in June. In July, Macron reorganized his cabinet, naming Jean Castex, a center-right technocrat, as premier, and generally giving the government a more conservative cast. The Republicans retained control of the Senate after the Sept., 2020, elections. In the 2022 presidential runoff elections, Macron won a more narrow victory over Le Pen with 58% of the vote.

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