ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book describes how political modernity has been criticized in two important ways. Some critics have denounced the contradictions between the proclaimed freedom and equality of citizens–or formal equality–and the inequalities of their economic conditions–or real inequalities. Providential democracy responds to these criticisms by giving an ever increasing preference to real equality. Providential democracy particularly challenges French society, because, more than other societies, it has gone farther in its attempt to create a form of political transcendence in accordance with a religious model as well as against it. The policies promulgated by European institutions in Brussels reinforce this evolution towards providential democracy. The victory of democracies in the Second World War was based on national feeling and pride more than on a willingness to spread the principles of democracy.
