ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the background to the increasing social polarization of French society. It focuses on the discrepancy between the rhetoric of the theories, which deny the existence of 'social class' within France, and the undeniable reality of a growing polarization within French society. The paradox whereby, during the 1980s and 1990s, an increase in social inequality actually coincided with a decline in class-based discourse, both in sociology and in the broader social sciences, is therefore particularly odd. The chapter presents the alternative discourses which were created in sociology, and which also constitute a rhetoric of avoidance, since the main idea is to circumvent the use of class-based language and to eliminate the concepts of 'social class', 'class struggle' and 'class relations'. The alternative sociological discourse was pervasive between 1980 and 2000 and continues to be used, even though it has long since been largely refuted by the facts.
