ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the Republic in Danger is interpreted first in terms of challenges to France's political institutions; in terms of the goodness of fit of domestic models with the evolution of European integration and globalisation. The founding myth of the Fifth Republic, based on the heroic narrative of presidential leadership rescuing France from the abyss of the Third and Fourth Republics and a strong state, has faded with time and appears ever more out of kilter with the contemporary situation of France. French presidents are no longer heroic figures, and the capacities of national public policy action have been reduced as France has become increasingly integrated in the European Union. The Republic in Danger is interpreted first in terms of the goodness of fit of domestic models with the evolution of European integration and globalisation and then in the rather more literal sense of the repeated terrorist attacks and political violence the nation has had to endure.
