La démocratie chrétienne

In France, the "eldest daughter of the Church", Christian democracy played a much less structuring role in the political life of the second 20th century than in neighboring European countries. The history of its appropriation is itself confusing, as its legacies appear to be little disputed. To solve the enigma, this socio-historical investigation tracks down the clues to its successes, its dead ends, but also the meanings (often forbidden) with which this label has been endowed here, and deprived there. Rather than a linear history of this politico-religious current, from its rise within the Catholic world at the end of the 19th century to its gradual political decline a century later, the book offers a dynamic history of the complex issues at stake in its political, intellectual and religious appropriations. In so doing, it renews our understanding of the persistent difficulties of naming Christian democracy in France, of its short-lived political success at the time of the Liberation, and of the institutional mechanisms leading to its oblivion.