‘Devoir de mémoire’: The post-colonial path of a post-national memory in France

Abstract

The expression ‘devoir de mémoire’ (‘duty to remember’) started to be commonly used in the French political discourse in the French political discourse in the 1990s, thanks to a reconfiguration of the ‘national narrative’. It implied two new obligations for the French state: to commemorate the memory of the victims for which France was acknowledging its responsibility (Jewish deportees during the Vichy Regime), and the recognition of a community (the Jewish one) victim of genocide. This new political contract also offers one paradigm for post-colonial memories as people sought, at the end of the 1990s, an official recognition of crimes against humanity such as slavery or colonization. These demands were elaborated and negotiated by new actors, carriers of these memories, by means of socialization with the expression ‘devoir de mémoire’. Through an exploration of this ritual of apology in France, specifically on how the ‘Taubira law’ on slavery was created and passed (1998–2001), this text intends to show how the use of the ‘devoir de mémoire’ led to interactions between different collectivities, mentioned as a ‘speech act’ meant to modify social relations through the official understanding of the national past.

Keywords:

• collective memory
• France
• public policy
• post-colonial studies
• memory of slavery

Notes

1. Text translated from the French by Clara Leon.

2. Several examples, among the many publications which treat the topic of participation in this kind of memorial conflict, are: P. Blanchard, N. Bancel, and S. Lemaire (ed.), La Fracture coloniale. La société française au prisme de l'héritage colonial, re-published Paris, La Découverte, 2006; C. Coquio (ed.,) Retours du colonial? Disculpation et réhabilitons de l'histoire coloniale, Nantes, L'Atalante, 2008; R. Bertrand, Mémoires d'empire. La controverse autour du ‘fait colonial’, Paris, Éditions du Croquant, 2006; S. Dufoix et P. Weil (ed.), L'esclavage, la colonisation, et après …, Paris, PUF, 2006, Cl. Liauzu et G. Manceron (ed.) La Colonisation, la loi et l'histoire, Paris, Syllepse, 2006; D. Lefeuvre, Pour en finir avec la repentance coloniale, re-published Paris, coll. ‘Champs’, Flammarion, 2008.

3. We here understand ‘expression’ (‘formule’) to mean a ‘series of verbal formulations which, because of their repeated use in a given time or public place set in stone the rhetoric of the political and social issues that these expressions also helped to build’, A. Krieg-Planque, La notion de ‘formule’ en analyse du discours. Cadre théorique et méthodologique, Besançon, Presses Universitaires de Franche-Comté, 2009, p. 7.

4. Among the many works on this subject: J.L. Austin, How to do Things with Words, Oxford University Press, 1962; J.R. Searl, Speech Acts: an Essay in the Philosophy of Language, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1969; P. Bourdieu, Ce que parlait veut dire, Paris, Fayard, 1982; M. Edelman, Constructing the Political Spectacle, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1988; M. Foucault, L'Ordre du discours, re-published, Paris, Gallimard, 2010 [1971].

5. To go beyond the national scope and to examine the concept of national glory over all of Europe, see R. Koselleck, ‘Les monuments aux morts, lieu de fondation de l'identité des survivants’, in L'Expérience de l'histoire, re-published, Paris, Seuil, coll. ‘Points Histoire’, 2011.

6. François Mitterrand celebrated his inauguration by memorializing Jean Moulin, Jean Jaurès and Victor Schœlcher at the Pantheon on 21 May 1981.

7. See on slavery M. Cottias, ‘Le silence de la nation. Les ‘veilles colonies’ comme lieu de définition des dogmes républicains 1848–1905),’ Outre-Mers. Revue d'Histoire, 338–339, 2003, p. 21–45; another example, relating particularly to issues of omission and silence the Western historical narrative's depiction of the Haitian revolution, see Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past. Power and the Production of History, Boston, Beacon Press, 1997.

8. Also see the post 1980 work and reflection of the philosopher Jünger Habermas on the post-national German and European identity in the context of new national narratives, multiculturalism, and European construction: J. Habermas, ‘Historical consciousness and post-traditional identity: the Federal Republic's Orientation to the West’, in N.S. Weber (ed.), The New Conservatism. Cultural Criticism and The Historians Debate, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1989; ‘Citoyenneté et identité nationale. Réflexions sur l'avenir de l'Europe,’ in J. Lenoble and N. Dewandre, L'Europe au soir du siècle. Identité et démocratie, Paris, Esprit, 1992, and The Postnational Constellation. Political Essays, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2001.

9. On this topic, see P. Laborie, Le Chagrin et le venin: la France sous l'Occupation, mémoire et idées reçues, Paris, Bayard, 2011.

10. The Vel’ d'hiv’ (Vélodrome d'Hiver) Round up was the most important arrestation of Jews in France during WWII. On 16 and 17 July 1942, Vichy arrest 12,884 Jews (4051 children) in the Paris region. Single adults and childless couples were taken to the Drancy Camp, while families (8160 men, women and children) were assembled in the Vélodrome d'Hiver during five days. They were transferred to camps in the Loiret, and deported in August to the Auschwitz gas chambers. See Laurent Joly, Vichy la «solution finale». Histoire du Commissariat général aux questions juives. 1941–1944, Paris, Grasset, 2006 et Maurice Rajfus, La Rafle du Vel’ d'hiv’, Paris, PUF, 2002.

11. The President Jacques Chirac did not use the expression ‘devoir de mémoire’ in his well-known speech which recognized for the first time at this political level the complicity of French State in the persecution of Jews on 16 July1995.

12. The ‘code langagier’ (‘speech code’) is a concept considered as both a communication system and as a set of rules. See D. Maingueneau, L'Analyse du discours, Paris, Hachette, 1997.

13. For a similar ‘rhetoric of regret’ concerning slavery in the United States at the same time, see Bradford Vivian ‘The Paradox of Regret: Remembering and Forgetting the History of Slavery in George W. Bush's Gorée Island Address’, History and Memory (24), n°1 (spring/summer 2012), p. 5–38.

14. On French slavery memorial issues, see M. Cottias, La Question noire. Histoire d'une construction coloniale, Paris, Bayard, 2007 and ‘L'Esclavage en débat’ in F. Dosse, P. Garcia, Ch. Delacroix, N. Offenstadt (ed.,) Dictionnaire historiographie et épistémologie, Paris, Gallimard, 2009; M. Giraud, ‘Les enjeux présents de la mémoire de l'esclavage’ in P. Weil and S. Dufoix (ed.,) L'Esclavage, la colonisation, et après …, op.cit., p. 553–558; J-L. Bonniol, ‘Les usages publics de la mémoire de l'esclavage colonial’ Matériaux pour l'histoire de notre temps (85,) Jan.-Mar. 2007, p. 15–21; Ch. Chivallon, ‘L’émergence récente de la mémoire de l'esclavage dans l'espace public: enjeux et significations,’ Les Cahiers d'histoire (2), 2002, p. 41–60.

15. Jacques Chirac's speech of 23 April 1998. See http://discours.vie-publique.fr/notices/987000146.html

16. Lionel Jospin's speech at Champagney on 26 April 1998: http://discours.viepublique.fr/notices/983001230.html

17. To learn more about the Hegelian concept of ‘reconnaissance’ (‘recognition’) as a new theoretical paradigm of social struggle, see Ch. Taylor, Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1992; A. Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition. The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts, Cambridge, MIT Press, 1996; N. Fraser and A. Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition? A Political Philosophical Exchange, London, Verso, 2003.

18. See the law #83–550 and décret # 83–1003. The holidays are celebrated on different dates, taking into account the particular events in each territory in 1848 which were to be celebrated.

19. (‘mémoire raturée’) É. Glissant, Le Discours antillais, op. cit., p. 130–131.

20. For transatlantic interaction around the topic of a ‘black consciousness’, see P. Gilroy, The Black Atlantic. Modernity and Double Consciousness, London, Verso, 1993.

21. See P. Ndiaye, La Condition noire. Essai sur une minorité française, Paris, Calmann-Lévy, 2007; Achille Mbembe, ‘La République et l'impensé de la race’, in P. Blanchard (ed.,) La Fracture coloniale, op.cit., p. 151; N. Guénif-Souilamas (ed.), La République mise à nu par son immigration, Paris, La Fabrique, 2006; D. Fassin and E. Fassin (ed.,) De la question sociale à la question raciale? Représenter la société française, rééd., Paris, La Découverte, 2009; Ch. Chivallon, ‘Mémoire de l'esclavage et actualisation des rapports sociaux’, op.cit.

22. ‘Memory entrepreneurs,’ analogous to ‘moral entrepreneurs’ as described by Howard S. Becker, ‘consist of two categories: those who create shared references and those who monitor respect for them’ M. Pollak, Une identité blessée, Paris, Métailié, 1993, p. 30.

23. (‘Reconnaissance par les autorités françaises du génocide subi par le peuple noir pendant sa déportation et son maintien en servitude dans les DOM français ; institution d'une journée de commémoration; inscription dans les programmes d'histoire de l’Éducation nationale’.) See the JO associations, 18 January 1995, p. 267. Several associations were founded throughout the 1990s to demand that slavery be recognized as a crime against humanity.

24. For the history of the concept of ‘crimes against humanity’ see S. Garibian, Le Crime contre l'humanité au regard des principes fondateurs de l'Etat moderne. Naissance et consécration d'un concept, Geneva, Schulthess, 2009.

25. (‘rétroactivement comme fondateur,’) P. Ricoeur, «Événement et Sens», Raisons pratiques, (2), 1991, p. 52.

26. Most of these overseas commemorative associations combine struggle against discrimination and the defense of the memory of slavery.

27. (‘droit à la différence dans l’égalité,’) É. Balibar, Masses, Classes, Ideas (trad. James Swenson), New-York and London, Routledge, 1994, p. 56.

28. See J. Michel, Gouverner les mémoires, op.cit.

29. 38. Le Monde, 27 avril 1998.

30. For a more general perspective, see S. Lefranc, L. Mathieu, and J. Siméant, ‘Les victimes écrivent leur histoire’, Raisons politiques (30), 2008/2, p. 5–19.

31. Le Monde, 26 mai 1998.

32. See in particular H.K. Bhabha (ed.,) Nation and Narration, London, Routledge, 1990; P. Chaterjee, The Nation and its Fragments. Colonial and Postcolonial Histories, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1993; R. Young, White Mythologies: Writing History and the West, London, Routledge, 1990. Also see the works of Martin and et Yaquinto which configure this affirmation of the memory of slavery in a post-communist context, following a movement which started being framed by issues of class struggle and ended up having more to do with human rights and making sure that every person in the world is respected: M.T. Martin, M. Yaquinto, ‘Reparations for “America's Holocaust”: Activism for Global Justice,’ Race and Class, 45, April 2004, p. 1–25.

33. For an explanation of the concept of agency, see H. Bhabha, ‘The Postcolonial and The Postmodern. The question of agency’, op. cit., p. 171–197, a concept also applied to Aboriginal issues in Australia in S. Bignall, Postcolonial Agency. Critique and Constructivism, Edinburgh University Press, 2010.

34. A book was published from the work undertaken in these conferences: S. Chalons, Ch. Jean-Étienne, S. Landau and A. Yébakima (ed.,) De l'esclavage aux réparations, Paris, Karthala, 2000.

35. See D. Fassin et R. Rechtman, L'Empire du traumatisme, op.cit.

36. In 1998, many requests for international apologies were voiced. On reparation policies in an international context, see M-R Trouillot, ‘Abortive Rituals: Historical Apologies in the Global Era’, Interventions 2.2, 2000, p. 171–186; Ch. Henry, Long overdue. The politics of Racial Reparations, New-York, New York University Press, 2006, p. 43–94; M. J. Cunningham, ‘Saying sorry: the politics of apology’, Political Quarterly vol.70, n°3, 1999, p. 285–293; M. R. Marrus, ‘Official apologies and the quest for historical justice’, Journal of Human Rights, vol. 6, n°1, 2007, p. 75–105.

37. The same year a law was enacted recognizing the Armenian Genocide (on 29 May 1998) and three bills were proposed recommending the recognition of the Algerian War between December 1998 and April 1999.

38. Interview with the historian Myriam Cottias, 3 February 2011.

39. Interview 2007: http://www.curiosphere.tv/esclavage/comprendre/interview-christine-taubira-deputee-de-la-guyane.html

40. Interview with the author, June 2010.

41. The collective memory of slavery was commemorated in 1998 by different and rival organizations, especially those relating to overseas diasporas and African ones. On May 23rd, 1998 in Paris these differences were clear because they organized two competing protests, one at the Place de la République in the afternoon, a silent march in tribute to all victims of slavery and the slave trade, and another, more festive, at the Place de la Bastille in the evening.

42. H.K Bhabha, ‘The Postcolonial and The Postmodern. The question of agency’, op.cit., p. 181.

43. http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/11/propositions/pion1297.asp#TopOfPage

44. Interview, op.cit.

45. ‘Je rencontre la notion de “devoir de mémoire” au cours des discussions en interne avec le groupe socialiste. Pas avant quand je propose la loi ’ (‘I discovered the notion of “devoir de mémoire” from internal discussions with the socialist group. Not before I proposed the law’,) interview, op.cit.

46. Interview, op.cit. A bill by the delegate Didier Migaud was adopted after its first reading by the National Assembly on May 29th, 1998. It was composed of a single article: ‘La France reconnaît publiquement le génocide arménien de 1915’, (‘France publically recognizes the Armenian Genocide of 1915’.) http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/11/ta/ta0140.asp

47. Interview, op.cit.

48. H.K. Bhabha, ‘Dissemination. Time, narrative and the margins of the modern nation’, The Location of Culture, op.cit., p. 155.

49. ‘Elle [Christiane Taubira] a insisté sur le devoir de mémoire de la France, en faisant état des limites de la politique d'assimilation’, (‘Christiane Taubita stressed the element of France's duty to remember by citing the limits of assimilation policies,’) http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/11/cr-cloi/98-99/c9899031.asp

50. ‘Le “devoir de mémoire” français’ http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/11/rapports/r1378.asp

51. http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/11/cri/html/19990168.asp

52. Including Bernard Birsinger (PC,) Ernest Moutoussamy (seems to be communist,) Louis Mermaz (PS,) Kofi Yamgnane (PS,) Henry Jean-Baptiste (UDF,) and Anicet Turnay (RPR.) See the full summary of the session, http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/11/cri/html/19990168.asp.

53. Session of 23 March 2000: http://www.senat.fr/seances/s200003/s20000323/sc20000323043.html

54. The following people spoke: Jean-Pierre Schosteck (RPR), Gérard Larcher (RPR), Georges Othily (RDSE), Claude Lise (apparenté socialiste), Danielle Bidard-Reydet (PC), Paul Vergès (PC), Jacques Pelletier (RDSE), Session of 23 March 2000, http://www.senat.fr/seances/s200003/s20000323/sc20000323043.html.

55. JO des débats parlementaires, Assemblée nationale, Session of April 6th, 2000, p. 3185, assemblee-nationale.fr

56. Louis Mermaz (PS), Pierre Morange (RPR), Jacques Bruhnes (PC), Henry Jean-Baptiste (UDF), p. 3186–3190, JO des débats parlementaires, Assemblée nationale, Session of April 6th, 2000, p. 3185, assemblee-nationale.fr

57. Speech by Christian Paul, the Secretary of State for Overseas France at the session of 10th May 2001, www.senat.fr.

58. See M. R Trouillot, ‘Abortive Rituals: Historical Apologies in the Global Era’, op.cit., p. 171–186.

59. See the interview with Christiane Taubira, op.cit. For questions of economics reparations, see J. Torpey (ed.,) Politics and the past: on repairing historical injustices, Lanham, Rowman and Littlefield, 2003; J. Elster (ed.,) Retribution and reparation in the transition to democracy, Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 2006; R. David, S. Yuk-ping Choi ‘Victims on transitional justice: Lessons from the Reparation of Human Rights Abuses in the Czech Republic’, Human Rights Quarterly vol.27, n°2, 2005/05, p. 392–435.

60. Since 2006, this day is observed every year on 10 May, the anniversary of the enactment of the ‘loi Taubira’.

61. The law #2005–158 of 23 February 2005 ‘portant reconnaissance de la Nation et contribution nationale en faveur des Français rapatriés’, (‘Showing the Nation's recognition and national contribution in favor of French repatriated citizens’) To read more about the creation of this law and the public controversies it provoked, see R. Bertrand, Mémoires d'empire. La controverse autour du ‘fait colonial’, op.cit.

62. (‘Les programmes scolaires reconnaissent le rôle positif de la présence française outre-mer, notamment en Afrique du Nord’).

63. ‘Colonisation: non à l'enseignement d'une histoire officielle’, Le Monde, 25 March 2005.

64. In this interview, the historian O. Pétré-Grenouilleau criticized the ‘loi Taubira’ which, according to him, encouraged a sort of competition between the descendants of slaves and those of Holocaust's victims. His words were nonetheless rather ambiguous because he combined the idea of crime against humanity and that of genocide, mention of which is absent in the cited law: ‘C'est aussi le problème de la loi Taubira qui considère la traite des Noirs par les Européens comme un ‘crime contre l'humanité’, incluant de ce fait une comparaison avec la Shoah. Les traites négrières ne sont pas des génocides', (‘There's also the problem that the loi Taubira considers the slave trade of black people by Europeans as a ‘crime against humanity’, thus inviting the comparison with the Holocaust. But the slave trade was not genocide’.) O. Pétré-Grenouilleau, Journal du Dimanche, 12 June 2005.

65. The association's current director is Pierre Nora. Notable members include Jean-Pierre Azéma, Jean-Jacques Becker, Jean Noël Jeanneney, Mona Ozouf, Krzysztof Pomian, Maurice Vaïsse and Michel Winock.

66. See in particular the article by the association's first president, René Rémond, ‘L'Histoire et la loi’, Études (404), June 2006, p. 765–770, as well as P. Nora, ‘Malaise dans l'identité historique’, Le Débat (141), September–October 2006, p. 20–34. For a European view on laws relating to national history, see the special dossier ‘L'injonction du politique à l'histoire’, Politique (47), December 2006.

67. See in particular the speech Nicolas Sarkozy made at Toulon on 7 February 2007.

68. 68. For the issues surrounding the project, see A-M Thiesse, ‘L'histoire de la France en musée. Patrimoine collectif et stratégies politiques,’ Raisons politiques (37), February 2010, p. 103–117.

69. See S. Ledoux ‘L'esclavage, objet scolaire polysémique’, op.cit.

70. Through this ‘travail de mémoire’, the philosopher, very influent in these memorial debates, considers ‘just memory’ a sort of horizon that our society seeks to attain. See P. Ricœur, La Mémoire, l'histoire, l'oubli, Paris, Seuil, coll. ‘Points Essai’, 2003.

71. Interview with Raphael Muller, adviser on memory issues to the cabinet of the minister of Education (2007–2012) on 14 June 2012, and with Laurent Wirth, Dean of the Inspection Générale de l'Education Nationale, (coordinated written school curriculum in history 2007–2012) on 28 June 2012.

72. Thus, notice that the project creating the ‘Maison de l'Histoire de France’ relies on the expression ‘devoir d'histoire’: see the speech by the minister of Culture, Frédéric Mitterrand, 13 January 2011 commemorating the installation of the Scientific Committee of the ‘Maison de l'Histoire de France’, also the article written by that committee's director, J-P Rioux, ‘Les avatars du ‘devoir de mémoire’, Le Débat (170), May-August 2012, p. 186–192.