The root of today’s modern French society is commonly thought to rest in the student demonstrations of May 1968, especially by those same older students who took part in them. Nevertheless, French writer Nabila Ramdani suggests an alternate significant event that took place ten years earlier as being the real catalyst of the state of affairs the country finds in where Marine Le Pen’s radical Right-wing National Rally party almost seized control this month.
Ramdani points to the military insurrection initiation in Algiers, on the 13th of May in 1958, as the source of the numerous present-day challenges burdening France. This coup d’état was directed by a group of pieds-noirs — colonists of French Algeria who resisted the liberation movement of Algeria. This incident brought about the political reemergence of Gen Charles de Gaulle and subsequently, by the end of that year, the Fifth Republic and its individual executive power were established.
Despite France’s withdrawal from Algeria in 1964, and multiple unsuccessful attempts on de Gaulle’s life by the pied-noir Organisation de l’armée secrète (OAS), the echoes of the war continue to cast a dark cloud over the French landscape. This resonates particularly strongly with Ramdani, a descendant of Algerian immigrants. The repatriation of white European colonists from Algeria to France birthed a crucial voting clientele that was then ripe for manipulation by the National Rally’s forerunner, the National Front, which was established by Jean-Marie Le Pen, an ex-service member of the Algerian war and the father of Marine Le Pen. The war has also given rise to a society perceivably more dependent on military power than other Western European countries. Additionally, the Fifth Republic has instituted a political structure heavily dominated by the executive, leading to a divided political environment.
In her quest to ‘mend France’, Ramdani proposes the abolishment of the Fifth Republic and the revival of the parliamentary democracy that previously functioned, already a well-trodden proposition of the French Left. However, one of her other propositions – decreasing payroll charges and societal fees to encourage employment opportunities – is one that the Left would probably find disconcerting.
Ramdani’s composition is a passionate critique that raises numerous logical points regarding the sclerosis often observed in French society and the segregation often faced by individuals of immigrational heritage, like herself. Although, she isn’t always accurate – her critique of French urban planning oversimplifies it by blaming the whole problem on Le Corbusier’s ‘cité radieuse’. Nevertheless, her depiction of societal discontent is compelling, largely due to the persistent and unresolved impacts of the Algerian war which the nation is still coming to terms with.