Here, it seems, lies the critical importance of the events of the last few weeks. Both church and state have abandoned their pretensions. The church, by confessing to errors and begging the Jewish people for forgiveness, has adopted a position of striking modesty. Similarly, after President Jacques Chirac's acknowledgment in 1995 that Vichy was the French state, the start of Mr. Papon's trial has exposed the human failings of the Republic. These changes, Mr. Birnbaum suggested, could herald a France with its old battles behind it, a more adaptable France shorn of its divisive myths.
Resistance remains virulent.
The Front is the standard bearer of a new rightist coalition, bolstered by France's 3.6 million unemployed, if largely deserted by the church. But for now this force seems unlikely to outweight the powerful tug of a millennial reconciliation of the old French demons.