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Jul 17, 2026 Harold James

Like many advanced democracies, France has long cycled between periods in which its politics were divided along traditional left-right redistributionist lines, and those in which culture war issues took center stage. If there is any lesson to be drawn from this history, it is that the cycle may be about to repeat.

PRINCETON—In a new polemic that aims to serve as a manifesto for our times, the economists Julia Cagé of Sciences Po and Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics draw from the past two and a half centuries of French history to consider the impact on politics and society of economic inequality, and what should be done about it. Originally published in French in 2023, A History of Political Conflict: Elections and Social Inequalities in France, 1789–2022 is even more timely today, now that higher interest rates have made public debt increasingly burdensome, less sustainable, and more politically explosive.