Alex Hughes. Encyclopedia of Contemporary French Culture

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148

Odile Jacob (a series of interviews with a

journalist).

Delphy, Christine

b. 1941, France

Feminist academic

Christine Delphy has been one of the leading

activists in the French women’s liberation

movement and close to Simone de Beauvoir.

Her work has focused on the feminist ‘discov-

ery’ of housework as being the material basis

of women’s oppression and therefore central

to understanding the nature of patriarchy.

Delphy is firmly social constructionist in her

approach and she has sought to combat the

‘essentialist’ feminist ideas of Psych et Po,

more often associated with French feminism,

particularly through her editorship of the jour-

nal Questions féministes.

JAN WINDEBANK

Further reading

Jackson, S. (1996) Christine Delphy, London:

Sage (a discussion of the development of

Delphy’s theoretical perspective).

Demarcy, Richard

b. 1942, Bosc-Roger en Roumois

Playwright, adaptor and director

Founder of the Naïf Théâtre Atelier for con-

temporary creation in 1972, Demarcy’s plays

deal with myth, and social and historical ob-

servations, such as the Portuguese Civil War

in Quatre Soldats et un accordéon (Four Sol-

diers and an Accordion) and social decay in

La Nuit du père (Night of the father). His ad-

aptations include Lewis Carroll’s Hunting of

the Snark (Disparitions) and Pessoa’s Ode

Maritime.

ANNIE SPARKS

See also: theatre

Major works

Demarcy, R. (1973) Éléments d’une sociologie

du spectacle, Paris: Union Générale

d’Éditions (Demarcy’s published thesis).

demographic developments

After Germany, France is (with Italy and the

United Kingdom) one of the largest European

Union (EU) member-states in terms of popula-

tion size. In 1995, total population had reached

over 58 million, representing an increase of

some 18 million in half a century. France re-

mains, however, much less densely populated

than its north European neighbours: with an

average of nearly 106 inhabitants per square

kilometre, it is one of the least densely popu-

lated EU member-states. Its density is less than

half that of the United Kingdom, and well un-

der a quarter that of the Netherlands. Al-

though, by the 1990s, over 80 per cent of

French people lived in towns, and Paris con-

tinued to dwarf other major cities, France is

also less urbanized than its neighbours.

Over the postwar period, procedures for

recording, monitoring and evaluating popula-

tion size and structure have been refined. In

France, the Institut National d’Études

Démographiques (INED) and the Institut Na-

tional de la Statistique et des Études

Économiques (INSEE) were established in the

mid-1940s to co-ordinate national data col-

lection and report to the government on demo-

graphic matters. These organizations are re-

sponsible for conducting regular population

censuses and surveys and for carrying out de-

mographic studies. France has a long tradition

Delphy, Christine

149

of concern about population decline, and

policy makers are interested in tracking and

understanding growth and change in the com-

position of population by age, sex, marital and

socio-occupational status and ethnic origin.

Many of the features characteristic of the

French population in the twentieth century

were already present at the turn of the cen-

tury. Compared with its neighbours, France

was well advanced in the demographic transi-

tion from high to low mortality and birth rates,

primarily as a result of voluntary birth control

and medical and social advances in the care of

infants and young children. In less than a cen-

tury, life expectancy at birth has increased by

thirty years: at birth, men in France may ex-

pect to live almost to the age of 74, and women

to 82 (the largest age difference between men

and women among EU member-states). Over

the same time span, infant mortality rates have

fallen dramatically from above 160 to below

6.5 deaths per 1,000 live births.

The second half of the twentieth century

has been marked by fluctuations in family

building patterns. In the immediate postwar

years, France shared with its neighbours a sig-

nificant increase in birth rates, described as

the ‘baby boom’. A peak was reached in 1946

for total fertility rates, with 2.98 children per

woman. From the mid-1960s, the birth rate

fell, and family size decreased. In the 1990s,

France was still above the European average,

with a fertility rate of 1.66, but below the re-

placement level needed to ensure continued

population growth. The fall in birth rates has

been attributed to a number of factors, in par-

ticular the widespread use of effective forms

of contraception combined with changing as-

pirations. By the 1990s, fewer couples were

choosing to have two children than one child,

but France remained above the European av-

erage for the proportion of couples with three

and four children. While most French women

are producing a smaller number of children,

fewer women are remaining childless: about

10 per cent of the women born in the early

1940s will have no children, compared with

20 per cent half a century earlier.

The continued growth in population size

can be explained by the combined effect of

the reduction in mortality rates, the increase

in the number of women of child-bearing age

(the baby boomers) and immigration. Between

1955 and 1971, during the years of economic

expansion (les trente glorieuses), immigration

was encouraged to bolster the workforce. It

was fuelled by decolonization, particularly in

1962 with the repatriation from Algeria fol-

lowing independence. From 1974, as France

entered recession in the wake of the oil crises,

restrictions were introduced to curb immigra-

tion, resulting in the stabilization of the for-

eign population, which accounted for 6.3 per

cent of total population in the mid-1990s.

The effect of declining birth rates at a time

of increasing life expectancy was to stimulate

population ageing. The second half of the

twentieth century has seen continuing change

in the age structure of the population as the

baby boomers move through the generations.

The proportion of young people (under 20)

has fallen slightly from 29.5 per cent in 1946

to 26.8 per cent in 1993, while the population

over 60 (statutory retirement age) has risen

from 16.0 to 19.7 per cent, and that over the

age of 75 from 3.4 to 6.3 per cent. The pro-

portion of the population of working age (20

to 59 years), after falling between 1965 and

1975, has regained its 1950 level with 53.6

per cent. Because of the intensity of the baby

boom, the full effect of population ageing will

not, however, be felt in France until the year

2020, when the baby boomers have reached

retirement age. Already by the mid-1990s, care

for older people was recognized as a growing

social problem. Because female life expectancy

is greater than that of men, women are

overrepresented among older people. They are

also less likely to have contributed to occupa-

tional pension schemes and are, therefore, ex-

pected to place an increasingly heavy finan-

cial and physical burden on a diminishing

population of working age.

LINDA HANTRAIS

See also: abortion/contraception; family; so-

cial policy; social security; women and em-

ployment; women and social policy

demographic developments

150

Further reading

Eurostat, Demographic Statistics, Luxem-

bourg: Office for Official Publications of

the European Communities (an annual

publication providing data on demographic

trends across the European Union).

INED, Population et sociétés, Paris: INED (a

regular monthly publication providing suc-

cinct updates on population issues).

INSEE (1996) Données sociales 1996: la

société française, Paris: INSEE (an analyti-

cal and statistical account of demographic

trends in France, with a focus, in this issue,

on the twentieth century).

Demy, Jacques

b. 1931, Pontchâteau;

d. 1990, Paris

Director

Demy was the only major postwar French di-

rector of musical films. Most famous of these

is Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964), with

Catherine Deneuve, in which every line of ‘dia-

logue’, grand-opera fashion, is sung. Michel

Legrand’s music was a key element in this and

other Demy musicals (Les Demoiselles de

Rochefort of 1967). For many, however, his

finest work is to be found in the non-musical

dramas Lola (1961) and La Baie des anges

(1963), starring Anouk Aimée and Jeanne

Moreau respectively. His love of the seaport

towns of western France, such as Nantes (the

setting for Lola) and Cherbourg, makes him a

regionalist poet of the cinema. His wife Agnès

Varda devoted a documentary farewell to

him—Jacquot (also known as Jacquot de

Nantes)—in 1991.

KEITH READER

Further reading

Gray, M. (1991) Depardieu: A Biography,

London: Warner Books.

Vincendeau, G. (1993) ‘Gérard Depardieu:

The Axiom of Contemporary French Cin-

ema’, Screen 34, 4:343–61 (a brilliant star

analysis).

Derrida, Jacques

b. 1930, Algiers

Philosopher

The most celebrated and influential of con-

temporary French philosophers. Derrida stud-

ied at the prestigious École Normale

Supérieure in Paris and was a teacher there

for some twenty years (1964–84) before mov-

ing to the École Pratique des Hautes Études in

1984. He was the founding president of the

Collège Internationale de Philosophie in 1983

and has also held a number of visiting profes-

sorships in the USA.

Like most philosophers of his generation,

Derrida was thoroughly acquainted with the

German phenomenological tradition (Hegel,

Husserl, Heidegger) which had been the prin-

cipal source of inspiration for existentialism.

His first published work in 1962 was an im-

portant introduction to the translation of

Edmund Husserl’s Origin of Geometry. Voice

and Phenomenon (La Voix et le phénomène),

also on Husserl, followed in 1967. Derrida’s

reading of Husserl had little in common with

orthodox existentialist interpretations, how-

ever, and was in certain respects closer to the

preoccupations of structuralism. Two ground-

breaking works were also published in 1967:

Of Grammatology (De la grammatologie) and

Writing and Difference (L’Écriture et la differ-

ence). Derrida’s thinking in these texts crys-

tallized around the concept of writing. His ar-

gument, best exemplified in the systematic and

scholarly demonstration of De la

grammatologie, was that throughout the his-

tory of Western thought writing had consist-

ently been cast in a role subordinate to that of

speech. Whereas speech was associated with

reason and rationality (Greek: logos), the voice

being closer to the inner ‘truth’ of individual

consciousness, writing was viewed as an arti-

ficial extension or supplement to the voice, an

auxiliary technology employed by human rea-

son but not essential to it. Derrida’s critique

of this repression of writing or ‘logocentrism’

takes the form of close readings of thinkers

representing different ‘moments’ of the

logocentric tradition: Plato, Leibniz, Rousseau,

Saussure, Lévi-Strauss. In each case he shows

how arguments predicated on the exclusion of

writing are in fact essentially dependent upon

it. In addition to this, he proposes a more fun-

damental form of ‘writing’ that is the precon-

dition of both speech and writing and indeed

all cultural and communication systems.

Derrida’s choice of Saussure, and especially

of Lévi-Strauss, as examples of logocentric

philosophy clearly had a polemical side, given

the intellectual predominance of structuralism

in France at the time. While Derrida recog-

nized the important theoretical contribution

of structuralism, he was critical of its

reductionism. More generally, he questioned

the claims of structuralism and the human sci-

ences to have transcended the problems of tra-

ditional philosophy, arguing that the very dis-

course of the human sciences was dependent

on unexamined presuppositions inherited

from that tradition. Derrida’s critique of the

human sciences provided philosophy with a

powerful alternative to the humanist-existen-

tialist critique, whose success in checking the

Derrida, Jacques

153

advance of structuralism had been limited;

historically, it could be said to mark the be-

ginning of poststructuralism.

It was not only the content of Derrida’s

theory of writing and his critique of

logocentrism that was so influential in the in-

tellectual debates of the late 1960s, but equally

his style of analysis, the critical approach he

called ‘deconstruction’. Deconstruction in-

volved a rigorous working through of the ar-

gumentative and rhetorical structures of the

texts selected as examples or ‘symptoms’ of

the logocentric tradition. Here, it was not so

much a question of demolishing a philosophi-

cal opponent as revealing the problematic ten-

sions and contradictions within a given text.

At the same time, deconstruction involved a

reflexive and critical awareness of its own dis-

course, and a systematic resistance to the

reification and instrumentalization of its con-

cepts. The result is that much of Derrida’s

writing has a rhetorical quality that distin-

guishes it from more conventional philosophi-

cal discourse. This rhetorical dimension is

most apparent in the more experimental texts

of the 1970s, such as Dissemination (La

Dissémination), Glas and The Post Card (La

Carte postale). The text of Glas, for example,

consists of two parallel columns; one a read-

ing of Hegel, the other of the writer Jean

Genet. While separate, the two commentaries

converge and interfere in their exploration of

the themes of biology, sexuality, the family and

the state, the reading of Genet in particular

depending on a complex system of puns and

linguistic assimilations. Similarly unconven-

tional is the quasi-autobiographical account

that opens La Carte postale, offering an ex-

tremely sophisticated meditation on Freud,

reproduction and communications technolo-

gies through its narrative of the author’s re-

peated attempts to contact his distant partner.

As these brief examples indicate, a preoccu-

pation with language and literature is central

to Derrida’s philosophy. While his

deconstructive readings of philosophical texts

practise the kind of close linguistic commen-

tary normally associated with literary analysis,

he frequently turns to literary texts (Genet,

Baudelaire, Mallarmé) as a source of philosophi-

cal reflection. For Derrida, what is interesting

about complex symbolic systems such as lan-

guage and fiction is their autonomy and muta-

bility, their non-finalization and flexibility,

which allows for the perpetual creation of new

possibilities. Derrida’s recourse to literature is

thus an integral part of his deconstruction of

Western metaphysics, which has consistently

sought to regulate or repress the subversive ef-

fects of fiction and rhetoric. The importance of

the literary in Derrida’s work also explains his

prodigious success in the domain of literary criti-

cism, especially in English-speaking countries.

While this has produced some interesting re-

sults, it has also led to misunderstanding and

misinterpretation, contributing to the sometimes

hostile reception of Derrida’s work among phi-

losophers suspicious of the ‘continental’ tradi-

tion he is seen to represent.

Some critics have pointed to the lack of ethi-

cal and political concerns in Derrida’s thought,

a criticism quickly dispelled by even a casual

perusal of his texts: his early engagement with

the ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas

in L’Écriture et la différence; his deconstructive

reading of the psychology of nuclear politics

in Psyché: inventions de l’autre (Psyche: Inven-

tions of the Other); his analysis of Heidegger’s

politics in Of Spirit (De l’esprit), and the prob-

lem of the institutionalization of knowledge

in the university in Du droit à la philosophie

(On the Right to Philosophy); his reflections

on the significance of Marx in a ‘post-Marx-

ist’ world (in Spectres de Marx)—all of these

readings testify to the enduring significance of

the political and the ethical in Derrida’s work.

That work has been, and will doubtless con-

tinue to be, a subject of controversy among

more orthodox philosophers. Few, however,

would contest the importance of Derrida’s con-

tribution to late twentieth-century philosophy.

CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON

Major works

Derrida, J. (1967a) De la grammatologie,

Derrida, Jacques

154

Paris: Éditions de Minuit. Translated

G.C.Spivak (1976) Of Grammatology, Bal-

timore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

——(1967b) L’Écriture et la différence, Paris:

Éditions du Seuil. Translated A.Bass (1978)

Writing and Difference, London: Routledge.

——(1972) La Dissémination, Paris: Éditions

du Seuil. Translated Barbara Johnson

(1981) Dissemination, Chicago: University

of Chicago Press.

——(1974) Glas, Paris: Éditions Galilée.

Translated J.P.Leavey Jr and R.Rand (1984)

Glas, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

——(1979) La Carte postale: de Socrate à

Freud et au-delà, Paris: Flammarion. Trans-

lated A. Bass (1987) The Post Card: From

Socrates to Freud and Beyond, Chicago:

University of Chicago Press.

——(1987a) De l’esprit: Heidegger et la ques-

tion, Paris: Éditions Galilée. Translated G.

Bennington and R.Bowlby (1989) Of

Spirit: Heidegger and the Question, Chi-

cago: University of Chicago Press.

——(1987b) Psyché: Inventions de l’autre,

Paris: Éditions Galilée.

——(1990) Du droit à la philosophie, Paris:

Éditions Galilée.

——(1993) Spectres de Marx, Paris: Éditions

Galilée. Translated P.Kamuf (1994)

Specters of Marx, Routledge: London.

Further reading

Norris, C. (1987) Derrida, London: Fontana

(a clear, informed and intelligent overview

of Derrida’s thought).

Desarthe, Gérard

b. 1945, Paris

Actor and director

Desarthe is famous for his interpretations of

major roles for famous directors, notably in

Chéreau’s 1981 Peer Gynt, Jourdheuil’s 1978

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Planchon’s 1980

Dom Juan. His directorial career began with

an acclaimed production of Le Cid in 1988.

ANNIE SPARKS

See also: theatre

Further reading

Temkine, R. (1989) ‘Gérard Desarthe toujours

plus outre’, Europe (le théâtre ailleurs

autrement) 726 (article on Desarthe’s

work).

Deschamps, Jérôme

b. 1947, Neuilly-sur-Seine

Playwright, actor and director

Deschamps is the creator of popular shows

noted for their visual comedy and scenic ex-

perimentation. They include Baboulifiche and

Papavoine (created for Vitez) in 1974, La

Famille Deschiens in 1979 and C’est

magnifique with Macha Makeiff in 1994.

ANNIE SPARKS

See also: theatre

Further reading

Makeiff, M. (1996) C’est magnifique, Paris:

Actes Sud (illustrated album of the show).

Désir, Harlem, and SOS

Racisme

b. 1959, Paris

Anti-racism activist

Harlem Désir became a national figure in the

Desarthe, Gérard

155

mid-1980s as the president of SOS Racisme,

an anti-racist organization founded in 1984.

Through inarches, demonstrations, concerts

and, especially, a badge containing the words

Touche pas à mon pote (Hands off my pal), it

raised awareness of racism and inequality.

Criticized in the late 1980s for being a media

creation and too closely attached to the So-

cialist Party, it subsequently concentrated less

on high-profile events and more on local ac-

tion. At the same time, it shifted its focus from

le droit à la difference (the right to difference)

to claims for equality through integration. On

standing down as president of SOS Racisme,

Désir eventually became a secrétaire national

of the Socialist Party.

MAX SlLVERMAN

Further reading

Deleuse, R. (1991) Les Maîtres du roman

policier, Paris: Bordas, Les Compacts

detective fiction

156

(contains a comprehensive bibliography of

the topic).

Dubois, J. (1992) Le Roman policier ou la

modernité, Paris: Nathan (historical devel-

opment of the genre with special reference

to France).

Lacassin, F. (1974) Mythologie du roman

policier, Paris: UGE, 10/18 (a basic starting

point for a comprehensive look at the genre).

Deutsch, Michel

b. 1948, Strasbourg

Playwright, poet and essayist

Classed as a member of the Théâtre du

Quotidien in the 1970s, Deutsch is a member

of Vincent’s dramaturgy collective at the

Théâtre National de Strasbourg, and a writer

of poetry and criticism for the review Aléa.

His philosophical, social documentary-style

plays include Convoi (Convoy), the three-part

Féroé, la nuit, (Féroé, at Night) and La

Négresse bonheur (Negress Happiness).

ANNIE SPARKS

See also: theatre

Major works

Deutsch, M. (1990) Inventaire après liquida-

tion, Paris: L’Arche (texts and interviews).

Devers, Claire

b. 1955, Paris

Director

With only three films to her name, none the

less she is indisputably an important film-

maker. Devers broke into film-making in 1986

through her highly controversial, award-win-

ning film Black and White (Noir et blanc),

about a male sadomasochistic relationship.

Made in black and white, it was her graduat-

ing film from the Institut des Hautes Études

Cinématographiques (IDHEC). Her films in-

terweave the sociopolitical with the sexual, and

the dangerous narratives of her films expose

spectator expectation and address female fan-

tasy. Essays on voyeurism and the technology

of surveillance, her films offer an uncompro-

mising female eye on male sexuality and the

tensions inherent in a homosocial hegemony—

giving a new dimension to the generic concept

of film noir, which is so traditionally a male

director’s province (see 1992’s Max et Jérémie).

SUSAN HAYWARD

Further reading

Déjeux, J. (1977) Mohammed Dib, écrivain

Algérien, Quebec: Naaman (full-length

study of Dib and his work in French).

Diên Biên Phu

The battle of Diên Biên Phu in early 1954 ef-

fectively marked the end of French colonial

interests in Indochina. After regaining nomi-

nal jurisdiction over its prewar possessions in

southeast Asia following the Allied defeat of

Japan in 1945, France was immediately faced

with the prospect of being unable to imple-

ment it. The Vietnamese nationalists under

Ho Chi Minh had gained control of northern

Indochina and, after attempts at a negotiated

settlement had failed, over seven years of war

ensued which were draining both financially

and psychologically for the French forces and

government, in spite of military assistance

from the United States. On 13 March 1954,

Viet Minh forces began a siege of French mili-

tary positions in the valley of Diên Biên Phu

in northwestern Vietnam, bombarding the

French from the mountains around the valley.

The French finally surrendered on 7 May

1954, just as talks on the future of Indochina

were about to begin in Geneva, leaving the

French government in a desperately weak po-

sition at the negotiations which resulted in

the north-south partitioning of Vietnam.

COLVILLE WEMYSS

See also: decolonization; Mendès France,

Pierre

Further reading

Leifer, M. (1996) Dictionary of the Modern

Politics of South-East Asia, 2nd edition,

London and New York: Routledge.

Dior, Christian

b. 1905, Granville;

d. 1957, Montecatini, Italy

Fashion designer

Born into a wealthy Norman family, Dior

wanted to study architecture, opened an art

gallery, and mingled with avant-garde artists

such as Picasso and Matisse. After the 1929

economic crash ruined his family, he learned

to sketch, and in 1938 he designed Robert

Pinguet’s collection. With the help of investor

Marcel Boussac, Dior opened his own fashion

house in 1947. His ‘Corolle’ silhouette revo-

lutionized the fashion industry. In 1954, he

created his ‘II’ line with loose tunics. After his

death, the Dior company added a ready-to-

wear Miss Dior boutique (1967) and a men’s

line (1970).

JOËLLE VITIELLO