Forcing in Finite Structures (revised version of ML-1996-02) Domenico Zambella Abstract: We present a simple and completely model­theoretical proof of a strengthening of a theorem of Ajtai's: the independence of the pigeonhole principle from I-\Delta_0(R). Qua strength, the theorem proved here corresponds to the complexity/proof­theoretical results of [10] and [14] but a different combinatorics is used. Techniques inspired by Razborov [11] replace those derived from Hastad [8]. This leads to a much shorter and very direct construction. Mathematics Subject Classification. 03C62, 03F35 and 03H15. Keywords: Models of atithmetic, bounded arithmetic, finite model theory.