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The Evolution of the Class Structure of France, 1901-1968

While the concept of class is central to the theoretical analysis of any society, in France it has recently become the subject of intense political controversies. Some assumptions concerning the "class map" of the social structure must underlie any choice of political strategy, and indeed in France the two discussions-of the strategy of alliances and of class structure-have been closely interwoven.' These discussions, however, are neither new nor peculiar to France. An integral part of the political and the theoretical struggles over the concept of class has been a continuing debate over the status of groups which are generated in the process of capitalist development but which do not correspond to traditional notions of either the proletariat or the bourgeoisie. Indeed, the difficulties encountered by Marxist theory in analyzing the class structure of concrete capitalist societies had already appeared at the time of the formation of the socialist movement.2 However classes may be defined and organized, they must have criteria of membership and hence more or less definite sizes. But despite the ubiquity and intensity of theoretical debate, it is striking how little of the rudimentary information is available for studies of the evolution of the class structure of the entire adult population under various criteria of class membership. Hence, our purpose in this article is not to take a direct part in any of these controversies but rather to provide numerical information that elucidates the consequences of alternative definitions of class in France.