Introduction; T.Chafer & E.Godin SECTION I: THE FRENCH STATE The French Exception: Rise and Fall of a Saint-Simonian Discourse; S.Collard Reviving the French Exception? Sarkozy, Authoritarian Populism and the Bonapartist Tradition; N.Hewlett Social Policy and the French 'Exceptional' Social Model; S.Milner 'L'exception Culturelle'; H.Dauncey SECTION II: CONFLICTS AND POLARIZATION The French Extreme Left and the Persistence of a Revolutionary Myth; D.Bell French Euroscepticism and the Construction of National Exceptionalism; R.Harmsen SECTION III: CITIZENSHIP AND THE REPUBLICAN MODEL French Immigration Policy in Comparative Perspective; M.A.Schain France, Islam and LaIcité: Colonial Exceptions, Contemporary Reinventions and European Convergence; N.Vince From Private Lives to Intimate Revelations: Politicians and the Media in Contemporary France; R.Kuhn SECTION IV: FRANCE AS A UNIVERSAL MODEL France in Europe, Europe in France: The Politics of Exceptionalism and their Limits; H.Drake Back to the Future? Franco-African Relations in the Shadow of France's Colonial Past; M.Majumdar & T.Chafer SECTION V: THE FRENCH EXCEPTION SEEN FROM ABROAD A View from the South: France in African Eyes: Universalism and Francophonie Reassessed; A.Gueye SECTION VI: CONCLUSION: FRENCH EXCEPTIONALISM RECONSIDERED French Exceptionalism and the Sarkozy Presidency; T.Chafer & E.Godin

Analyzes the notion of the French exception and the ways in which it has informed both academic analysis and political commentary on France today. Adopting a comparative and interdisciplinary approach it examines the resilience of the notion of French exceptionalism and evaluates its relevance in a changing domestic and global context.

DAVID BELL School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds UK
TONY CHAFER Professor of Contemporary French Area Studies and Director of the Centre for European and International Studies Research at the University of Portsmouth, UK
SUE COLLARD Sussex European Institute, UK
HUGH DAUNCEY Newcastle University. UK
HELEN DRAKE Loughborough University, UK
EMMANUEL GODIN University of Portsmouth, UK
ABOULAYE GUEYE University of Ottawa, Canada
ROBERT HARMSEN University of Luxembourg
NICK HEWLETT University of Warwick, UK
RAYMOND KUHN Queen Mary, University of London, UK
MARGARET MAJUMDAR University of Portsmouth, UK
SUSAN MILNER University of Bath, UK
MARTIN SCHAIN New York University, USA
NATALYA VINCE Queen Mary, University of London, UK