ABSTRACT
Preoccupied with political conflicts at home and colonial wars abroad, both French politicians and much of the population were slow to recognize how profoundly their society and culture were changing in the decades after the war. The growth of the population was one of the stimuli fueling France’s postwar economic expansion. It created a larger market for all kinds of products, and assured manufacturers that the number of consumers would continue to grow in the future. The birth of the Fifth Republic coincided with an important transformation in the Catholic Church, one of the institutions most identified with resistance to change. The political stability and economic prosperity of the decade following de Gaulle’s assumption of power set the stage for profound transformations in French society. The new society was characterized by a dramatic increase in living standards, a steady shift to new forms of work, an increase in leisure time, and a change in patterns of personal and family life.
