ABSTRACT
In France as elsewhere, 1968 marked the beginning of the end of the postwar world. A new social-democratic party coalesced in 1971, and then recruited the Communists to form a "Union of the Left", which in 1981 was voted into power for the first time in 23 years. Hyper-radicals vanished quietly into the woodwork: In France, no terrorism developed as it did in Germany and Italy. Meanwhile, feminists and homosexuals started organizing and making them heard, as did environmentalists, immigrants, regionalists. There was a sexual revolution: birth control and abortion became legal, and there was an explosion of porn cinema from 1971 to 1975. Broadcast journalists and media users gradually obtained what they wanted, slowly. Britain, which had commercial TV since 1965, authorized commercial radio in 1972—and Italy tolerated both from 1974. Paradoxically, the French champions of economic liberalism jealously preserved the state monopoly.
