ABSTRACT
The French are supposedly in a "funk." They are, according to journalists, authors, and even government planners, worried about the present and pessimistic about the future. French national pride is a given. But the irritability and pessimism of the "New France" requires an explanation. For the historian, the social, economic, and cultural transformations of the last few decades provide one answer to the French malaise. Social, economic, and cultural change prompt some to seek, define, assert, and protect what they consider to be "Frenchness," while others reflect on the transformation to argue France can, and should, adapt. The transformation of the countryside has removed a social stratum that had anchored the French to their past. The 1984 straggle over the Socialist-sponsored reform that edged toward incorporating private schools into the state system rallied three-quarters of the public to the church's side. In economic affairs there are also discontinuities that disconcert.
