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;...