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Beyond what is common to both French and Italian socialist militants and beyond the differences due to party factions, there is a clear divergence as to political orientations and conceptions of party action. Italian Socialist Party (PSI) militants favor an economie approach influenced by economie liberalism, whereas those of the French Socialist Party (PS) stick to traditional socialist conceptions and are more open to "new left" themes and contestation. Culturally, the PSI is pro-European and pro-atlanticist, while the PS is anti-imperialist and reluctant towards the European idea. On a pragmaticism-dogmatism axis, French socialists are more attached to principles, the Italiens more realistic. These data put light on the divisions among European socialists facing the challenge of power, at a key moment for the international socialist movement.

Thirty-eight rank-and-file communist in the Grenoble area ? of whom 24 are party members ? answered a questionaire on their reaction to the traumatic electoral defeat of the Spring of 1981. Two observations can be drawn from their answers. (1) An outpour of criticism ? disavowal of the strategy, discredit of the organizational model and of members of the party apparatus ? which reveals the extent of discord within the communist community as well as a deep identity crisis. (2) The continuing adherence of these severe critics, disillusioned and little inclined to indulgence, to the "security values" that rnake up the unquestioned communist identity (the conviction remains strong that the PCF is different from other parties, that it is a workers' party and a party devoted to ideals) and remains the only possible choice. The French Communist Party finds itself in a difficult predicament vis-a-vis its supporters : called upon to change if it is to survive, yet obliged to renounce change lest it reneges.

Pour Sayyid Qotb (m. 1966), le combat-pour-Dieu (jihâd) est une obligation constitutive de la foi musulmane et, de nos jours, il peut être subversif contre les pouvoirs non islamiques en pays musulmans. L'Etat islamique à instaurer au terme de ce combat sera inspiré par les règles d'un «fiqh dynamique », droit musulman réinventé par les combattants du premier rang et non par les oulémas : l'imam autocrate disposera d'une allégeance de type mystique, mais sera contrôlé en permanence par des assemblées consultatives dans chaque unité de vie sociale et par un vaste parti islamique unique. Ainsi sera assurée, enfin, l'exclusive souveraineté de Dieu sur toute la société. Dans l'histoire de la pensée réformiste musulmane (de tendance intégriste avec Rida, mort en 1935) et dans celle de la pensée des Frères musulmans (fondés en 1928), voilà une radicalisation nette qu'accentueront encore les groupes «qotbistes» des années 1970 et 1980 en Egypte et en Syrie. For Sayyid Qotb (d.1966) the struggle-for-God (jihâd) is constitutive obligation of the Muslim faith, and in our time it can be subversive toward non-Islamic powers in Muslim countries. The Islamic state to be set up through this fight is inspired by the rules of a "dynamic fiqh", a Muslim law reinvented by the front-line combatants and not by the ulema: the autocratic imam demands an almost mystic allegiance but is checked by consultative assemblies in each unit of social life and by one vast Islamic party. Thus will the exclusive sovereignty of God be assured over the whole society. In the history of Muslim reformist thought (fundamentalist influenced by Ridâ, d. 1935) and of the Muslim Brethren (founded in 1928), this is a sharp radicalization accentuated by the "qotbists" of Egypt and Syria during the 1970s.

This tentative interpretation on the political function of predication in contemporary Islam follows a double approach : a field survey (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, and thé city of Marseille) and a general theory of monotheist religions : how, through the theses of M. Weber and E. Bloch on the junction of the religious and political fields, can the political function of a revolutionary religious discourse be understood? Using P. Bourdieu's hypotheses on the role of competitive clerics in the production of symbolic goods, the analysis of the "fundamentalist revival " (a debatable term) clarifies the functioning of the various groups' demands for salvation and legitimization through the reclaiming (by some of them) of a classic Muslim traditional technique: the da'wa, or the call for true religion, made in masques transformed by independent preachers into political meeting places.

Do historical and political theories abhor a vacuum, as used to be said of nature ? At a time when many determinisms have been proved untenable or discredited, it is significant that three recent essays have turned to anthropology to find the keys to new determinisms. From the Indian philosopher Sarkar's mental structures to the American anthropologist Marvin Harris' ecosystems and the historian and political French scientist E. Todd's family structures, the force of destiny is once again coming to the fore through theories which both stimulate our curiosity and arouse our perplexities.