Abstract

When she was interviewed by Bernard Pivot, Marguerite Duras professed to be a “Mitterrandist” — not a socialist and she added: “Before '81 we were undergoing the crisis, now we are thinking about it.” True, the socialist government now admits its perplexity and the emptiness of its ideology. There is, as it were, a pause for breath, an attempt to conceptualize not exactly the “crisis” a catch-all word, but the sort of journey toward an unknown shore. The change of political values obliges politicians and journalists to do and proclaim the opposite of their former creed. It would be a mistake to see the new mode of the “entrepreneur” (a word which seems to capture the new state of mind)