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Looking back at extreme-right politics in France in the 1940s and 1950s provides new perspectives on contemporary populism. Stanley Hoffmann's analyses of support for the Vichy regime and for the Poujade movement emphasized how populist politics flourished in times when major segments of the population felt thwarted in efforts to have their interests and views represented in government. Attempts to explain populism by the economic or cultural characteristics of individuals are insufficient. As Hoffmann suggested, it is the political failure of parties and interest groups to channel the grievances and demands of the "losers" of globalization into policy arenas that fuels the rise of populism today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the French decision to send reinforcements to Indochina in April 1951 despite evidence of the futility of the Indochina War and pressing security needs in Europe. I analyze the motivation for this decision with the assistance of the minutes of the National Defense Committee, as well as the private papers of leading French politicians and military figures. I argue that the key to understanding the French decision to continue the war rather than seek peace was the belief that the war in Indochina was critical to the achievement of French goals in Europe and NATO. As a consequence of this analysis, I suggest that any celebration of France's European achievements must be tempered by the recognition that European policy was often closely linked with a regressive imperial policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses French-Chinese economic and political relations during the Cold War. Focus is given to the creation and role of an economic mission to China in 1956 by a delegation of members from French professional federations and labor unions, particularly from the textile industry. It also discusses the role of the delegation's president Henri Rochereau, who was a member of the political party Parti republicain de la liberté and the president of the Council of the Republic's economic affairs commission.

The article discusses the psychoprophylactic method (PPM) of childbirth pioneered by Soviet professor A. P. Nikolaev, its popularization in the West by French obstetrician Fernand Lamaze in the 1950s, and the role of Cold War politics in the reception of the new method in France. The breathing methods employed in PPM as an alternative to anesthetics in obstetric pain relief are discussed, as is the role of the French Communist Party in encouraging Soviet medical innovations, and the response from the anticommunist right.

The article examines the decision by French poet Aimé Césaire to resign his membership in the French Communist Party, which he did on October, 23, 1956 in a letter to party leader Maurice Thorez. Friends of Césaire from the period are cited to support the contention that Césaire's resignation came after at least several years of increased alienation from the party. Examples are presented of occasions when Césaire, when still a party member, refused to follow the party's policies on cultural issues, particularly those relating to poetry. Césaire's belief that Communism did not account for the cultural effects of colonialism on native peoples is examined. Césaire's political career in his native Martinique, where he was a legislator and public officer, in the immediate aftermath of his resignation is discussed.