Memorial laws in France: historiographical debates, public controversies and social demands

Abstract

The French narrative and identity have been transformed by the globalization of memory taken place during the last decade of the past century. Since then, the Fifth Republic has developed an institutional policy based upon the promulgation of a series of memory laws which led to numerous reservations within the academic community. In this study we examine these memorial laws and the way through which France is facing its traumatic pasts during the twentieth first century, regarding the historiographical debates, public controversies and social demands which memory wars conceal.