Contenu du sommaire

The Holy See, the state of Israël and peace in the Middle East, Frédéric Yerly. The agreement reached on December 30, 1993 between the Holy See and the state of Israël and followed by the exchange of ambassadors crowns a normalization process of diplomatic relations begun during Abba Eban's visit to Rome in 1969. Prior to the proclamation of the state of Israël in 1948, the Roman hostility to the settling of the Jews in Palestine stemmed from the conviction that Catholic interests in the holy places and the protection of the Christians in the Middle East should take precedence over the recognition of the Jewish people. The so-called Roman neutrality over the beginning of the state of Israël turned to hostility when confronted with the Palestinian cause. The 1993 turning point was partially due to the failure of the Roman policy in the Middle-East, a failure confirmed by the Gulf War. Rome had to rethink its positions very hastily, considering the development of the regional situation. But the December agreement included some ethical clauses that are also part of the ongoing theological dialogue between Jews and Christians.

Theodore Roosevelt and the emergence of the media-dominated presidency in the United States, Serge Ricard. American presidents did not wait for the invention of the radio or television to try to influence public opinion. As of the late 19th century, Theodore Roosevelt aimed at charming the increasingly powerful written press. Attempting to draw attention to his excentric personality rather than to his not very reformist home accomplishments, Roosevelt succeeded brilliantly in planting false confidences and discreet allusions, calculated leaks, and diversionary tactics. This strategy made public opinion an actor on the political stage, a given that later on has weighed heavily on the functioning of American democracy.

California from Brown to Reagan or the agony of liberalism (1958-1966), Antoine Coppolani. The most populous state of the United States, the most economically powerful in the 1960s, California is also the spring-board for many shifts of contemporary American history. The election of Reagan to the governorship in 1966 is only the symbol of a deeper movement that seriously upset the American political landscape, the passage of a dominant paradigm, liberalism to its conservative antithesis. Wheras the liberal consensus was prevailing, California had become the testing ground of this political philosophy applied to the government. Although incontestable social and economic progress was accomplished, it didn't prevent internal contradictions and especially adverse and unexpected effects of the liberal policy from blowing away any consensus, throwing liberalism in California, and therefore in America, to the wind.

A Socialist Republican party really existed, Yves Billard. The Socialist Republican party was founded in 1911 by dissident reformist socialists (Briand, Millerand, Augagneur). It had up to 9.000 members in 35 departments and considered itself to the right of the SFIO-socialists and to the left of the radicals. But the structural conflict between elected officials and the military, the pragmatic and the doctrinary, gave it a chaotic existence.

Why did France occupy the Ruhr?, Stanislas Jeanneson. The Poincare government wanted to give the 1923 Ruhr occupation a pacifist, temporary and limited vision. But next to the hidden long-term economic objectives, there were also political and strategic objectives. The occupation was supposed to serve not only to take guarantees for reparations, but also to create a protectorat to assure, beyond the withdrawal of the troops scheduled for 1935, French security. Some occupation officials even wanted to assure a cultural and civilizing presence on the Rhine after a century of Prussian domination. The occupation of the Ruhr was therefore essentially political. The real aim was to improve the Treaty of Versailles by force in order to correct its imbalances : the supply of French steel industry in German coke and security on the Rhine. Its failure was due to the way in which decisions were taken, in closed committee, without any consistency between the various decision-making groups.

Jean Monnet and his influence, Gérard Bossuat. For Monnet, decision-making put into play his intimate conviction of working toward bringing peoples together, his art of pedagogical synthesis and setting the stage which enabled him to convince, his team spirit, and his understanding of the right timing of political fights and acceptable compromise. Monnet took advantage of his French, European and American networks made up of top level business men and politicians whom he advised and media people whom he used to spread his ideas. His real influence can be measured by his ability to transform international and European relations. From the rearming of wartime France to the Plan, from the Victory program to the Schuman plan, from the CECA to working with the Kennedy administration, there were many successes although there were also some darker moments : Monnet was more of an organizer than a democrat; his choice of targeted conflicts sometimes led him to underestimate the general political situation; his determination to remain on the sidelines weakened his impact on public opinion until he published his Mémoires.

French industrial implantation in West Germany, from 1945 to the early 1960s: a renewed ambition?, Jean-François Eck. The growth of French investments in West Germany from 1945 to I960 was spectacular. This strong increase was often due to the return of enterprises whose business had been ruined by Nazism. The really new establishments were rare and limited. But the development of investments had an influence on the management of business that, thanks to internationalization, modernized their ways of running their business. Business leaders payed more attention to manufacturing costs and less to national demand to which delocalization was supposed to answer. A capital change.

Tel Quel and its political U-turns, (1968-1978), François Hourmant. From 1968-1978, Tel Quel spanned the ideological spectrum. From the FCP to China, from America to dissidence and the CIEL, the telquelian parable, rich in turn-abouts, shows a propensity to react - but late - to the major and gratifying issues in the French political-intellectual lands-cape. Understanding this itinerary supposes coming across a plurality of factors : esthetic principle and shared values (revolution, writing, avant-garde), provocation and a desire for intellectual recognition, and literary prestige. It is in this tension, between an avowed and claimed position, and fights for power, vague ambitions and tactical choices or even premeditated strategies, that the curious political alchemy of a journal whose constrated history is closely linked to that of its director, Philippe Sollers, can be seen.