The Radiance of France, new edition: Nuclear Power and National Identity after World War II

by Gabrielle Hecht, Michel Callon (Contributor)

How it happened that technological prowess and national glory (or “radiance,” which also means “radiation” in French) became synonymous in France as nowhere else. In the aftermath of World War II, as France sought a distinctive role for itself in the modern, postcolonial world, the nation and its leaders enthusiastically embraced large technological projects in general and nuclear power in particular. The Radiance of France asks how it happened that technological prowess and national glory (or “radiance,” which also means “radiation” in French) became synonymous in France as nowhere else. To answer this question, Gabrielle Hecht has forged an innovative combination of technology studies and cultural and political history in a book that, as Michel Callon writes in the new foreword to this edition, “not only sheds new light on the role of technology in the construction of national identities” but is also “a seminal contribution to the history of contemporary France.” Proposing the concept of technopolitical regime as a way to analyze the social, political, cultural, and technological dynamics among engineering elites, unionized workers, and rural communities, Hecht shows how the history of France's first generation of nuclear reactors is also a history of the multiple meanings of nationalism, from the postwar period (and France's desire for post-Vichy redemption) to 1969 and the adoption of a “Frenchified” American design. This paperback edition of Hecht's groundbreaking book includes both Callon's foreword and an afterword by the author in which she brings the story up to date, and reflects on such recent developments as the 2007 French presidential election, the promotion of nuclear power as the solution to climate change, and France's aggressive exporting of nuclear technology.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Science, Politics, France

496 pages, Paperback

First published September 29, 1998

About the author

Gabrielle Hecht is Stanton Foundation Professor of Nuclear Security and Professor of History at Stanford University. She earned her bachelor's degree in Physics from MIT in 1986, and her Ph.D. in History and Sociology of Science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992.

Reviews

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

First, confession time: I didn't actually make it all the way through this book. The detailed discussions of reactor construction, the wars between technocrats in favour of different designs, etc. etc. were a little much for me to process. And to be fair, my disappointment is mostly my fault, since I assumed I would be reading an overview of the early years of France's foray into nuclear power, or possibly even about French nuclear testing (the thing I was really interested in when I came across this book). Instead, 'The Radiance of France' deals almost exclusively with gas-graphite reactors, and good lord, there's only so much I can read about gas-graphite reactors before my head starts to spin.

Still, I did respond well to Hecht's approach to her topic, and that's why it gets three stars instead of two. She examines technology and culture (specifically, national identity) in a way that emphasizes the ways in which they played off each other, rather than taking a position on whether one influenced the other. Aside from that, as she mentions in the introduction, her research was heavily grounded in oral interviews with people who had been involved with France's nuclear projects, allowing her to produce work that is more well-rounded and (I think) generally far superior to what she would have come up with if she had limited herself to archival documents and published sources from the period. Definitely look into this book if you're interested in a case study of how technological, cultural and political histories intersect, AND have the brain power to process a thorough and detailed discussion of nuclear technology.

[JC · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. A very interesting book I read for comps, with a surprising amount of communist history laced throughout. Communists have been involved in organizing within a major labour union in the nuclear power industry and behind the large nationalization effort of the country's power utility. Hecht is someone who’s fairly active on twitter, and so I’ve been able to get the sense that she’s someone whose politics diverges from mine — she’s the sort of progressive most faculty in academia are. I don’t think of her as a radical, though I don’t know how she sees herself. In either case, she loves writing about radicals for some reason, so I’m here for it. An explanation of the book title is worth inserting here before surveying what this book is about:

“"The radiance of France"-a phrase usually interchangeable with "the grandeur of France"-appeared regularly in many realms of postwar dis- course. These two notions referred back to France's glorious past, from the golden reign of Louis XIV to the "civilizing mission" of the empire. France's radiance had taken a severe beating during the war, and decolonization threatened to hasten the decline. How could the nation regain its former glory? What would radiance or grandeur mean in the radically reconfigured geopolitics of the postwar world? Technical and scientific experts offered a solution to these dilemmas: technological prowess. In articles, lectures, and modernization plans, experts repeatedly linked technological achievement with French radiance. Industrial, scientific, and technological development would not only rebuild the nation's economy but also restore France to its place as a world leader. For the nascent nuclear program, "Ie rayonnement de la France" carried special punch: "rayonnement" means radiation as well as radiance. The nuclear program epitomized the link between French radiance and technological prowess.”

Her book starts with a general overview of engineering and French technocrats more generally. Her first chapter surveys how some of these men who she calls “technologists” thought about how politics and technology were related. They were involved in shaping both the future of France and its identity. And, they took pride in the exportability of French nuclear expertise — it’s ability to radiate throughout old French imperial networks. Her next two chapters (2 & 3) follow the development of gas-graphite reactors in the mid-20th century, with a particular focus on its direction by two state institutions, the CEA and EDF. Throughout the design process, Hecht sees technology and politics hybridized in the resultant artifacts, which were integral to implementing both military and industrial policy, as well as French identity. Hecht was also surprised at how many engineers saw their work as explicitly political, which was very removed from her (I think rightful) anticipation that they would be apolitical and feel engineering was a largely apolitical endeavour also. The following two chapters (4 & 5) we move into the domain of the workers who were also driving the technology’s developments. These were my favourite parts, because you get all that history of labour militancy and union organizing stuff that makes this book so interesting, as well as how this worked within a nationalized industry. And for those into public history, Chapter 6 is a great chapter on how France’s nuclear industry was portrayed in popular media and the various public engagement campaigns it undertook including museum-like displays in their lobbies, guided tours of their reactors, and sponsored fair exhibits with scale models of uranium mining facilities and nuclear reactors. Following this, Chapter 7, takes time to sort through various types of reactions to this great spectacle which was French nuclear power, and some fascinating poll data. Finally, Hecht synthesizes her commentary thus far, on the three domains of her book: program development (engineers & state technocrats), reactor work (unions, militants, and workers), and communities around the plants (the public). She also takes this chapter to compare the “French” gas-graphite reactor with the “American” light-water reactor, the disputes over these competing systems within French institutions, and how workers managed the fall out of the gas-graphite reactor’s demise after a reactor accident.

As a post script I just want to include some of the interesting communist history points that Hecht touches upon:

The communist physicist Frederic Joliot-Curie, Nobel Prize winner and son-in-law of Marie Curie, is mentioned throughout this book, which I found pleasantly surprising. I recall encountering the fact that Marie Curie’s kids and in-laws were communists and wanting to read a book about it. Had no idea that this is in part about them.

There were actually a substantial number of people who worked on the CEA’s (French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission) experimental heavy water reactors who were communists, and it became a matter of national security during the Cold War to do something about this, though they didn’t find an easy way to exclude communist technicians or scientists from these projects. However, there were attempts to purge the institution of communists and various technicians were dismissed because of their political affiliations, though these often happened under excuses of reorganization.

There were a variety of groups that supported nationalization of the French nuclear industry, across the political spectrum and for different reasons. A coalition of left-wing groups and labour unions maintained the strongest voice in the structuring of the new nationalized utility when it did happen. The CGT (which at the time was the communist labour union, though it is not affiliated with the Communist Party anymore as far as I know, though there is always a huge CGT presence at the recent street demonstrations I’ve seen coming out of France) — anyway the CGT dominated the new power utility:

“As the labor unions themselves so often repeated, EDF was the joint creation of management and labor. The communist labor leader Marcel Paul was one of the most prominent heroes of the utility's earliest years. With varying degrees of intensity and insistence, both management and labor agreed that Paul played a large role in the success of the company's nationalized structure.”

Hecht details various ways the politics of CGT militants interfaced with technical and policy decisions around France’s nuclear industry and issues of nationalization.

Hecht also mentions this curious posture of the French Communist Party after WW2, which told workers to avoid strikes and stoically pour their efforts into rebuilding the country:

“The Vichy government outlawed two bastions of working-class politics: the Communist Party and the Confederation Generale du Travail labor union. Militants were forced underground, and many joined the Resistance. After the liberation, these militants-like other Resistance fighters-became national heroes. In 1944 the reinstated CGT and the Communist Party launched the so-called battle of production, intended as the working class' patriotic contribution to ending the war and beginning national reconstruction. Its goal was to raise production levels in order to defeat Nazism, then ensure postwar national independence through industrial self-sufficiency. Militants asserted that class and national interests had converged during this difficult period, and that, for the sake of both, workers should avoid strikes and stoically pour all their energies into rebuilding the nation.2 The CGT thus emerged from the war with impeccable nationalist credentials.
The dominance of left-wing parties in the postwar government initially gave worker organizations high hopes for the future of French social relations. Nationalization seemed to bear out these hopes. In most cases, nationalization entailed a tripartite directorial structure, in which management, workers, and consumers were all represented on the board of directors.”

The Communist Party shortly after the war formed a coalition government, though a number of communist ministers were dismissed from the government for various reasons. This would be the same communist party that Fanon was disgusted by when they refused to support the anti-colonial struggle of the FLN.

The Communist Party and CGT were in a position to protest with some gravity the shift of the nuclear industry into developing atomic weapons. Joliot-Curie became a major voice and had publicly refused to help develop the atomic bomb. His daughter, Hélène Langevin-Joliot, continued in her parents’ footsteps by speaking at anti-nuclear weapons rallies sponsored by the Communist Party. The Communist Party was very adamant though that the country needed more engineers and technicians and advocated on this account.

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fanastic account of the development of France's Nuclear program after WW2 that ties together political and technological development into a concept of "technopolitics".

[Jack Masliah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extremely technical

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant.