Contents: Foreword; Preface: Music, modernization and popular identity, R. Middleton; The study of popular music between sociology and aesthetics - a survey of current research in France, P. Leguern; In form the margins: chanson, pop and cultural legitimacy, D. Looseley; The French music industry: structures, challenges and responses, H. Dauncey; Popular music on French radio and television, G. Hare; The popular music press, M. Pires; The disintegration of community: popular music in French cinema 1945, P. Powrie; Le Demy-monde: the bewitched, betwixt and between French musical, R. Stilwell; Chanson engagée and political activism in the 1950s and 1960s: Léo Ferré and Georges Brassens, C. Tinker; Divided loyalties: singing in the Occupation, C. Lloyd; Rock and culture in France: ways, processes and conditions of integration, P. Teillet; Globalization, Americanization and hip hop in France, S. Cannon; Flaubert's sparrow or the Bovary of Belleville? Edith Piaf as cultural icon, K. Reader; French electronic music: the invention of a tradition, P. Birgy; Conclusion: French popular music, cultural exception and globalization, H. Dauncey and S. Cannon; Annex; Bibliography.