The closing years of the century were a time of adjustment to political, economic, and social changes. The slow recognition that France was no longer a major player in global politics was accompanied by a reassessment of the leading part the country still played on the cultural stage—not least in Europe, where cultural politics became increasingly important in France’s bid for power in the new European Union. Conservative commentators sometimes lamented that French culture at times appeared to be marginal and history to be “happening elsewhere” (as a character remarked in Alain Jouffroy’s novel L’Indiscrétion faite à Charlotte [1980; “Charlotte ...(100 of 41004 words)