Socialist generations ? Alain Bergounioux From the SFIO of the Congress of Tours and the Popular Front to the Socialist Party of the Epinay Congress and the 1980s, can the history of French socialists be analysed in terms of generations ? The hypothesis is often tempting, considering, for example movements such as the neo-socialism of the 1930s or the minorities revolting against the SFIO of Guy Mollet during the Algerian war and in the 1960s. A more elaborate analysis reveals however, if not the inappropriateness, at least the limits of such an approach. The development of party socialism seems to have resulted more from strictly political parameters than from possible generational cleavages.