ABSTRACT
The Paris international exposition of 1900 emphasized the wonders of electric lighting, and the need to transport the thousands of visitors whom it brought to the city led to the construction of the first lines of the Paris subway, the Mtro, which used electricity to power its trains. In 1913, France was second only to the United States in the manufacture of automobiles, another product made possible by innovations associated with the second industrial revolution. Subsequent French governments down to the present, however, have repeatedly had to deal with militant peasant groups using direct-action tactics like those pioneered by Albert. If he failed to significantly alter the country's social stalemate, Clemenceau did demonstrate that the Third Republic's institutions were still sufficient to deal with labor militancy and social violence. The French experience was part of a worldwide pattern in which members of poverty-stricken populations in Europe's less industrialized regions flowed to areas of economic growth.
