Alex Hughes. Encyclopedia of Contemporary French Culture

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Preface

In an age when France has consolidated its position as the leading European destination for

Englishspeaking holiday-makers, tourists and second-home-owners, retained its prestige as the

international capital of gastronomy, wine production, chic and sex appeal, and bred film direc-

tors to rival Hollywood and singer-songwriters without equal on the world stage, it has also

become an object of profound suspicion for many non-French commentators on the intellec-

tual life. French ideas are produced in a faddish and fashion-conscious climate, we are often

told, prominent philosophers and social theorists are treated with absurd veneration and their

obscure, portentous, jargon-infested diction threatens to run riot through the human sciences,

undermining otherwise secure British and North American bastions of clarity, good sense and

methodological rectitude. It could of course be that the prevailing enthusiasm for France as a

source of pleasure is closely linked to this distrust of French ideas: while volupté and jouissance

belong quite properly in the restaurant, the bedroom or the cinema, they have no place in the

library or the lecture theatre. Could it be that French intellectuals enjoy themselves too much

and too openly in the eyes of their Anglophone detractors, and that their writings are therefore

easily seen by such critics as an attempt to seduce and corrupt our impressionable young? In

order to begin answering questions of this kind we clearly need a new kind of reference work—

one which talks about wine and psychoanalysis, movie-makers and maîtres-à-penser, Piaf and

Piaget.

The entire field of contemporary French culture is alive with myths and counter-myths

about France and Frenchness. While some of these are produced at home and then exported,

others originate abroad—in British tabloid newspapers, say, or on North American campuses—

and are then imported into France. So much that is fascinating about contemporary France is

transmitted by gossip, hearsay and the insider talk of various professional groups that it has

until now been difficult for the would-be demythologizer to lay down a firm factual foundation

for his or her enquiry. Things are even more problematic for the newcomer. Basic documents

are often surprisingly difficult to find, and divisions between ‘high’ and ‘popular’ culture, or

between the hexagon and the wider world of francophonie, have often meant that students and

general readers have had to visit far-flung sections of their local reference library in order to

begin assembling a comprehensive picture of France today. What Keith Reader, Alex Hughes

and their team of contributors have produced in this splendid new Encyclopedia is a huge

multi-dimensional snapshot of a culture that has reinvented itself with dizzying rapidity in the

last half-century and shows no sign of slowing down. The range of their book is astonishing.

With a single movement, the reader is able to travel from the world of screen goddesses (Aimée,

Bardot, Deneuve) to the world of jet-setting intellectual demiurges (Baudrillard, Bourdieu,

Derrida), from Elle to Eluard, from nuclear power to pornography, from agriculture to athlet-

ics, from the structure of Pierre Reverdy’s verse to the labyrinthine and recursive structures of

the new European legislation. All those who study modern French and Francophone cultures

will be in debt to Hughes and Reader. Dangerous and delectable France has been mapped as

never before between the covers of this cornucopian volume.

Malcolm Bowie

Introduction

Our Encyclopedia of Contemporary French Culture reflects the growing interest in French

cultural studies that is a feature of the current academic and intellectual scene. Its existence

echoes, in other words, the trend towards a broadening of the syllabus for further and higher

education programmes in French, away from the once sacrosanct duo of language and canoni-

cal literature, to incorporate such areas as cinema, political and social institutions, gender-

based studies and critical theory. More generally, it will be relevant to students of areas such as

above who do not necessarily have a particular interest in French culture per se. French cinema

remains the dominant Western national industry outside the United States; French political

history and institutions, given France’s place since 1789 as the first modern nation-state, exer-

cise a continuing fascination; feminist theory, and critical theory more generally, are frequently

nowadays thought of as characteristically French developments. Our text presupposes no knowl-

edge of the French language, nor indeed of France’s history and institutions beyond what

might be expected of the educated lay reader of a quality daily paper or news weekly, so that its

usefulness will extend well outside the domain of French studies.

The Encyclopedia of Contemporary French Culture is intended, above all, to break new

ground. Our project, in producing it, has been to create a reference volume which, unlike the

standard works of reference that exist within the context of French studies, brings together

material relating to French (and francophone) culture defined in its very broadest sense. Areas

covered, and connected, by the Encyclopedia’s palette of essay texts include art, cinema, eco-

nomic issues, education, food and wine, intellectual life, linguistic issues, literature, media,

music, performing arts, politics and society, transport, and technology. While the chronological

period taken in by the Encyclopedia ranges from the end of World War II in 1945 to the present

day, we have sought to weight the contents of many of our overview articles towards the latter.

However, some pre–1945 material has been included where developments in contemporary

French society would be difficult or impossible to understand without it.

The Encyclopedia is composed of pieces of varying lengths, ranging from fairly extensive

short essays to thumbnail sketches. Longer entries are ‘facts-fronted’ and have lists of texts for

further reading, some of which are accompanied by a short note explaining their content and/

or relevance. Essays and entries are carefully cross–referenced, either in the text or in the see

also section at the end of the entry. The purpose of this is to permit the Encyclopedia’s readers

to pursue their own ‘paths’ through the texts contained in the volume, teasing out connections

that might not perhaps otherwise have been self-evident.

In an enterprise of this kind, it is impossible to be all-inclusive. The selection of entries

contained in the Encyclopedia reflects this fact, and reflects a number of decisions which we, as

editors, in consultation with our editors at Routledge, found ourselves having to make. We

decided, for example, that it was important that the Encyclopedia should address francophone

culture, as well as the cultural life of mainland France and its overseas départements and

territories (DOM-TOMs such as Martinique, Guadeloupe and La Réunion), and that it should

avoid doing so in a tokenistic manner. Issues of space meant, however, that we could not

engage with the culture(s) of la francophonie—the totality of French-speaking areas—as com-

prehensively as with that of France itself. We concluded, therefore, regretfully, that only those

francophone countries which are geographically close to the Hexagone or which, for a variety

of reasons, enjoy close cultural links with France, should be the object of scrutiny in our

Introductionxii

volume. We also decided that aspects of francophone culture should be the subject of long

essay pieces, whose inclusion and detail would obviate the need for a proliferation of shorter

entries devoted to a single francophone writer/artist/cultural phenomenon. The inclusion/omis-

sion of entries devoted to postwar writing in France also gave us pause for thought. Many

excellent guides to modern and contemporary French and francophone literature already exist,

most notably the recently reissued Oxford Companion to Literature in French (which also, and

significantly, includes for the first time in its existence a number of pieces on cultural studies

topics). In view of this fact, we elected to base the ‘literature’ component of the Encyclopedia

primarily on essay pieces devoted to different textual genres/forms (for example, autobiogra-

phy, committed literature, detective fiction, the nouveau roman, poetry, short-story writing,

etc.), rather than to offer a comprehensive set of short entries focused on individual writers.

This is not to say that we have not included entries of this latter type; their inclusion is,

however, a function of the contents of the longer essay pieces in which ‘high’ and ‘popular’

literary forms are discussed. The shorter individual entries relating to literature have, in other

words, been the object of systematic selection. An illustration of this is our inclusion of a good

many short entries devoted to postwar French drama. Here, our strategy reflects the fact that i)

theatre-related matters are the subject of several of the longer entries in our volume, and ii)

drama is less comprehensively ‘covered’ in reference works dealing with French literary pro-

duction than other literary genres. It is our hope that the emphasis which our Encyclopedia

places on performing arts in France will encourage research work in this area, of which there

would seem currently to be a dearth.

Because, as we explained above, our target readership stretches well outside the realm of

French studies, we have translated the titles of all books mentioned in the Encyclopedia, except

in cases where the title is either self-evident or untranslatable. If an ‘official’ translation exists

and is still (as far as we have been able to ascertain) in print, then we have preceded the French

title by its English equivalent. We have left the titles of the films in the original French, however,

except where a standard translation, recognized in Britain and the US, exists. We have elected

not to translate most film titles because different translations of the same title often exist in

Britain and America, and our sense is that including our own translation would serve simply to

confuse readers.

The entries inevitably contain numerous references to institutions of various kinds which it

was impossible, for reasons of space, to describe or define. The bemused reader with a reading

knowledge of French may find a single-volume reference work, such as the Petit Larousse

encyclopédique or the invaluable Quid?, helpful in clarifying these.

Please note that places and dates of birth have been included wherever the information was

readily available.

Alex Hughes

Keith Reader

xiii

Acknowledgements

We should like to thank all our contributors for their commitment to this project. We are

particularly grateful to those among them who produced entries dealing with the more ‘out-of-

the-way’ areas on which expertise was not always widely available. Colville Wemyss, Fiona

Cairns and Denise Rea at Routledge have been helpful and long-suffering editors, and pro-

vided first-rate counsel and practical assistance. Finally, each of us thanks the other for moral

support, constructive criticism and endless patience.

xiv

Architecture

architecture

architecture under Mitterrand

Bercy

conservation zones

Le Corbusier

Malraux act

Marais plan

Montparnasse Tower

Pompidou Centre and the Forum des Halles

renovation projects

Cultural institutions/phenomena

Académie Française

arts funding (including regional)

cultural policy

cultural topography (Paris)

iconography

Lang, Jack

libraries

literary prizes

maisons de la culture

Malraux, André

publishing/l’édition

youth culture

Economy

agriculture

Attali, Jacques

banks

dirigisme

economy

employment

European economic integration

Fourastié, Jean

informal economy

management style

manufacturing industry

minimum wage

multinational companies

nationalization and privatization

planning system

public works

regional economic development

service industry

Tapie, Bernard

trade

transport

unions

Education and research

education ministry

education, primary

education, secondary: collèges, lycées, etc.

education, the state and the church

educational elitism: the grandes écoles

student revolt of 1986

universities

Fashion and design

Cardin, Pierre

Chanel, Coco

Dior, Christian

fashion

Gaultier, Jean-Paul

Lacroix, Christian

Rykiel, Sonia

Saint Laurent, Yves

Film

Adjani, Isabelle

Aimée, Anouk

Ardant, Fanny

Autant-Lara, Claude

Auteuil, Daniel

avance sur recettes

Balasko, Josiane

Bardot, Brigitte

Baye, Nathalie

Bazin, André

Béart, Emmanuelle

All of the entries in the Encyclopedia are categorized under the most appropriate subject

heading(s) Some entries appear under more than one heading where relevant.

Classified contents list

xvClassified contents list

Backer, Jacques

Beineix, Jean-Jacques

Bellon, Yannick

Belmondo, Jean-Paul

Berri, Claude

Besson, Luc

beur cinema

Binoche, Juliette

Birkin, Jane

Blanc, Michel

Blier, Bertrand

Bohringer, Richard

Bonnaire, Sandrine

Bresson, Robert

Brialy, Jean-Claude

Cahiers du cinéma

Carax, Léos

Chabrol, Claude

cinema

cinéma de banlieue

cinéma de qualité

Clément, René

Clouzot, Henri-Georges

Collard, Cyril

Daney, Serge

Delon, Alain

Demy, Jacques

Deneuve, Catherine

Denis, Claire

Depardieu, Gérard

Devers, Claire

Dewaere, Patrick

documentaries

Doillon, Jacques

Eustache, Jean

francophone cinema: Belgium

francophone cinema: North Africa

francophone cinema: Switzerland

Funès, Louis de

gay cinema

Godard, Jean-Luc

Huppert, Isabelle

Karina, Anna

Kieslowski, Krzysztof

Kurys, Diane

Langlois, Henri

Léaud, Jean-Pierre

literary adaptation

Malle, Louis

Marceau, Sophie

Melville, Jean-Pierre

Metz, Christian

Miéville, Anne-Marie

Miou-Miou

Mnouchkine, Ariane

Moreau, Jeanne

National Cinematographic Centre

Noiret, Philippe

Nouvelle Vague

Ophuls, Marcel

Philipe, Gérard

Pialat, Maurice

Piccoli, Michel

Poiré, Jean-Marie

Prévert, Jacques

Rappeneau, Jean-Paul

Renoir, Jean

Resnais, Alain

Rivette, Jacques

Rohmer, Éric

Rouch, Jean

Sautet, Claude

Seberg, Jean

Serreau, Coline

Seyrig, Delphine

Signoret, Simone

stars

Tati, Jacques

Tavernier, Bertrand

Téchiné, André

Trintignant, Jean-Louis

Truffaut, François

Vadim, Roger

Varda, Agnès

women directors

Food and drink

Bocuse,

Paul fast food

gastronomy

Guérard, Michel

Oliver, Raymond

restaurant guides

Robuchon, Joël

wine

History

Algerian war

Classified contents listxvi

Annales

decolonization

Dien Biên Phu

liberation and épuration

literary censorship

May 1968

Intellectual life

Althusser, Louis

anthropology and ethnology

Aron, Raymond

Badinter, Élisabeth

Badinter, Robert

Barthes, Roland

Baudrillard, Jean

Beauvoir, Simone de

Benveniste, Émile

Blanchot, Maurice

Bourdieu, Pierre

Certeau, Michel de

Debray, Régis

Deleuze, Gilles

Delphy, Christine

Derrida, Jacques

Dumazedier, Joffre

ethnology and anthropology

existentialism

existentialist theatre

Fanon, Frantz

Farge, Arlette

feminist thought

Finkielkraut, Alain

Foucault, Michel

Furet, François

Genette, Gérard

Girard, René

Glucksmann, André

Gorz, André

Greimas, A.J.

Guattari, Félix

Hallier, Jean-Edern

Irigaray, Luce

Jakobson, Roman

Kristeva, Julia

Lacan, Jacques

Le Doeuff, Michèle

Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel

Lefebvre, Henri

Lévi-Strauss, Claude

Levinas, Emmanuel

Lévy, Bernard-Henri

linguistic/discourse theory

Lyotard, Jean-François

Marxism and Marxian thought

Maspero, François

Mauriac, Claude

May 1968

Montrelay, Michèle

Morin, Edgar

new philosophers

Paulhan, Jean

Piaget, Jean

postmodernism

poststructuralism

Psych et Po

psychoanalysis

Richard, Jean-Pierre

Ricoeur, Paul

Roy, Claude

Sartre, Jean-Paul

Serres, Michel

situationism

structuralism

Touraine, Alain

Virilio, Paul

Language

anglomanie/franglais

Deixonne law

language and the French regions

linguistic regulation

slang/argot/verlan

spelling reform

Toubon law

Literature

Apostrophes

Aron, Jean-Paul

autobiography

Azama, Michel

Bardèche, Maurice

Bataille, Georges

Beauvoir, Simone de

Beckett, Samuel

Begag, Azouz

Belghoul, Farida

Ben Jelloun, Tahar

beur comics

xviiClassified contents list

beur writing

Bonnefoy, Yves

Braudel, Fernand

Butor, Michel

Camus, Albert

Camus, Renaud

Cardinal, Marie

Césaire, Aimé

Char, René

Charef, Mehdi

Chawaf, Chantal

Cixous, Hélène

Clément, Catherine

Collard, Cyril

comic strips/cartoonists

committed literature

Daeninckx, Didier

Deguy, Michel

detective fiction

Dib, Mohammed

Doubrovsky, Serge

Du Bouchet, André

Dupin, Jacques

Duras, Marguerite

Duvert, Tony

écriture féminine

Éluard, Paul

Ernaux, Annie

erotic writing

Etcherelli, Claire

Fernandez, Dominique

Forrester, Viviane

francophone writing (fiction, poetry): Belgium

francophone writing (fiction, poetry):

DOM-TOMs

francophone writing (fiction, poetry): Indian

Ocean

francophone writing (fiction, poetry): North

Africa

francophone writing (fiction, poetry):

Switzerland

Garaudy, Roger

gay writing

Genet, Jean

Giroud, Françoise

Gracq, Julien

Groult, Benoîte

Guérin, Daniel

Guibert, Hervé

Hocquenghem, Guy

Hussards

Hyvrard, Jeanne

Jabès, Edmond

Jouhandeau, Marcel

Jouve, Pierre-Jean

Kofman, Sarah

Leclerc, Annie

Leduc, Violette

Leiris, Michel

Lindon, Jérôme

literary censorship

literary journals

literary prizes

Michaux, Henri

Modiano, Patrick

Morand, Paul

Navarre, Yves

North African literature

nouveau roman

OuLiPo

Perec, Georges

Perrein, Michèle

Perse, Saint-John

poetry

Ponge, Francis

Prévert, Jacques

Queneau, Raymond

Redonnet, Marie

regional writing: Breton

regional writing: Occitan

Reverdy, Pierre

Reyes, Alina

Ricardou, Jean

Robbe-Grillet, Alain

Rochefort, Christiane

romantic novels

Sagan, Françoise

Sallenave, Danièle

Sarraute, Nathalie

Sarrazin, Albertine

Sebbar, Leïla

science fiction

short-story writing

Simenon, Georges

Simon, Claude

Sollers, Philippe

Supervielle, Jules

Tel Quel group

Classified contents listxviii

Temps modernes, Les

Tournier, Michel

Vian, Boris

Wittig, Monique

women’s/lesbian writing

Yacine, Kateb

Yourcenar, Marguerite

Media

advertising

ARTE

Aurore, L’

Bébête-Show

beur radio

cable and satellite television

Canal Plus

Canard enchaine, Le

Charlie Hebdo

Cinq, La

comic strips/cartoonists

Croix, La

Elkabbach, Jean-Pierre

Elle

Equipe, L’

Europe 1

Evenement du jeudi, L’

Express, L’

feminist press

Figaro, Le

Flammarion

France 2

France 3

France Culture

France Musique

France-Dimanche

France-Inter

France-Soir

francophone radio: DOM-TOMs

francophone radio: Europe

francophone television: DOM-TOMs

francophone television: Europe

Gallimard

game shows

gay press

Guignols de l’info, Les

Hersant, Robert

Heure de vérité, L’

Humanité, L’

Ici-Paris

InfoMatin

left-wing press

lesbian press

Libération

Livre de poche

Marie-Claire

Minuit

Minute

Monde, Le

national press in France

Nouvel Observateur, Le

Ockrent, Christine

ORTF (Office de Radio-Télévision Française)

Paris-Match

Parisien, Le

Point, Le

Poivre d’Arvor, Patrick

Politis

publishing/l’édition

radio (private/free)

radio (state-owned)

regional press in France

Rouge

RTL

Seuil

soap

street papers

television

television/spectacle guides

TF1

TV5

video imports

Vogue

women’s magazines

Music

Amont, Marcel

Aufray, Hugues

Aznavour, Charles

Baker, Josephine

Barbara

Barclay, Eddie

Barrière, Alain

Béart, Guy

Bécaud. Gilbert

Berger, Michel

beur music

Boulez, Pierre

xixClassified contents list

Brassens, Georges

Brel, Jacques

Cabrel, Francis

café-concert

Carte de séjour

Chevalier, Maurice

Compagnons de la chanson, Les

concert music

Delanoë, Pierre

Douai, Jacques

Duteil, Yves

Eurovision Song Contest

Ferrat, Jean

Ferré, Léo

folk music

François, Claude

francophone popular music: DOM-TOMs

francophone popular music: Europe

francophone popular music: North Africa

Frères Jacques, Les

Gainsbourg, Serge

Gall, France

Gipsy Kings

Goldmann, Jean-Jacques

Grappelli, Stéphane

Gréco, Juliette

Hallyday, Johnny

Hardy, Françoise

Indochine

Jarre, Jean-Michel

jazz

Jonasz, Michel

Kaas, Patricia

Kacel, Karim

Khaled, Cheb

Lavilliers, Bernard

Le Forestier, Maxime

Mano negra

MC Solaar

Messiaen, Olivier

Mistinguett

Mitchell, Eddy

Montand, Yves

Mouloudji, Marcel

Moustaki, Georges

music festivals

music industry

music venues

Négresses vertes, Les

Nougaro, Claude

Patachou

Piaf, Édith

pop video

rap

regional music

Reinhardt, Django

Renaud

Rita Mitsouko, Les

rock and pop

Salvador, Henri

Sanson, Véronique

Sardou, Michel

Sheila

song/chanson

Souchon, Alain

Trenet, Charles

Vartan, Sylvie

Vian, Boris

Xenakis, Iannis

Performing arts

Acquart, André

Actes Sud

Adamov, Arthur

Anouilh, Jean

Arrabal, Fernando

Artaud, Antonin

Atlan, Liliane

Attoun, Lucien

Audiberti, Jacques

Avignon and summer arts festivals

Barrault, Jean-Louis

Barsacq, André

Bataille, Nicolas

Beckett, Samuel

Bellon, Lolleh

Benmussa, Simone

Besnehard, Daniel

Besset, Jean-Marie

Billetdoux, François

Blin, Roger

Bonal, Denise

Bondy, Luc

Bouquet, Michel

Bourdet, Gildas

Brook, Peter

café theatre

Carrière, Jean-Claude