Can someone please offer me some suggestions about what I can write for this essay please?
I'm thinking about briefly comparing the ancien regime to present day france (focus on women), then a bit about may 68 and how that changed France. I'm finding it hard since I don't know what to write about 'national identity' and 'change'....can someone offer a few suggestions?
I always thought that France value and represent L E F, so how has that changed?
I'm also trying to look at Art and Social attitude (in form of racism and sexism) and the change of that as national identitiy from 1945.
I'm trying to make it different and 'interesting'Discuss how the French national identity has evolved since 1945.?
Its a very interesting subject. I'm just going to write out some of my thoughts and hope that they are not so incoherent as to make your task more difficult.
It seems to be that the French have been struggling to find a self image and wrestiling with a wide variety of concerns since 1945.
To begin with there is the French problem with accepting the events of the World War. The defeat of France in a mere six weeks, the fact that many units broke and ran, the readiness with which many accepted defeat, the rise of the collaborationist Vichy regime and the fact that many Frenchmen happily cooperated with the German Nazis in hunting down and rounding up Jews for the slaughter weigh heavily on the national consciusness.
After the Liberation DeGaulle made it his policy to propagate the myth of a heroic and widespread resistance. In the French Army Museum in Paris, the surrender to the Nazis is characterized as %26quot;France changes her tactics.%26quot; Of course this myth is just that, a myth. Very few people were in the Resistance and most of them were, in fact, communists (another fact that DeGaulle attempted to conceal).
Then there was the fact of the the loss of Indochina and, nuch worse, the loss of the North African colonies. Not only the loss itself but the realization that the attempt to hold these places had involved the French government in actions that made today's scandalous actions at Abu Ghraib look like mere school boy pranks. The French government authorized the use of the most bestial tortures known to man. France had prided itself on being a liberal and humame society. Suddenly that notion was challenged by the facts.
More recently, the influx of non-white immigrants from Africa has further challenged the French belief that they are a tolerant society free of racial bias. Studies by INSEE have shown that non-whites face employment discrimination and a study done by the Security services themszelves revealed that polic often act in a racist manner.
Finally, France has fostered the beleif that there was a French way of dealing with work, business and modern life that was superior to that practices of Les Anglais. But chronic unemployment and the predicted collapse of the social welfare system have brought to the fore President Sarkozy who openly admires the American work ethic and lectures the French on the need to change their ways.
Hope that some of this will be useful to you.
Discuss how the French national identity has evolved since 1945.?
1945 and today's France is incomparable,to begin with,most of the french people cannot understand the life in 1945,i'm born myself in 1948 and i'm completely unaware of the life during the occupation for example,or the life of people in the 40's because i was to young to appreciate it,yet today most people are younger than me in France.I thing that life is different because there is more influence from the outside,meaning that Muslim leaving in France keep their traditions ,instead of adopting the french one.I was born in France and 3 of my good friends were from Italian,greek,and Holland background ,yet in many ways they were more french than me,they had all the bad and good habits of the french peoples.I was thinking about it,and i realize that 's because they were coming from a christian's country,and their integration was much more easier than a muslim living in France.So the music scene,even the food,%26quot;coucous a Moroccan 's dish %26quot;is found all over in France.my time was the 60's,i was 20 years old in mai 68,but today,just like in the United States,it is part of the past really.People are different today,they also have less time for lunch,and in paris people are on the go ,rushing all the time.The quality of life have decrease in my view ,eating well at a good price was a smart thing for example ,today there is a lot of fast food at not a better price than eating a full meal ,and peoples have less time to eat in family as well.I think that in the 60's we had hope for tomorow,today peoples have lost hope in the systems that was protecting them,and is protecting them less and less as years go by.Politically %26quot;la droite%26quot; wants to be the party of the future , of reforms ,of more equal social justice ,but not all peoples are buying it, and people don't seem to want to make efforts in that direction.The left have giving them lot of benefits and that's all they want to hear about,France is not an easy country to govern .Accepting the defeat of ww 2 was not a problem in my view for peoples born after the war,we just did not discuss it really,it was our parents problems not ours.Same thing about the loss of our colonies ,it never was a drama among my friends and i,we were interested in the Hippies ,Beatles mania.Talkin about the collaspe of the social welfare is a joke,peoples have 5 weeks paid per year,the cost for socail coverage is ridiculous in comparing to the U.S for example.People retire at 60 yeras old ,even before that.On top of their 5 weeks vacations people have also 5 holydays paid.They work 35 hours a week.Women have one year and a half leave for giving birth,plus garanteed their job when they comme back.For each kid your received money from the state,and part of your monthly renting will be paid too.And the list is longe than that..
