John Tagliiabue: The French: Married to the Past, and Thinking of Divorce
THE French, the historian Danielle Domergue-Cloarec says, "have always had problems with their history." She should know. She specializes in French colonial history, which her compatriots can't decide whether to love or hate. They feel the same about Napoleon, and this month both problems have been on vivid display.
Colonial history figured in a raucous legislative debate over how French history itself should be taught.
Last February, in an effort to please veterans and former colonists, the Socialists and conservatives in Parliament together passed a law that included this passage: "The positive role of the French presence abroad, particularly in North Africa, should be especially recognized."
But after the recent riots in North African neighborhoods, many of the French began to wonder what has gone wrong among their immigrants. For some on the left, French colonial history loomed as a culprit, and they set out to change the law.
One of their arguments is that conditions in France's big housing projects mirror the old colonial world: a white French upper class in city centers lording it over blacks and North African Muslims on the periphery.
In Parliament, Jean-Marc Ayrault, the Socialist whip, denounced the law's phrasing as "an unacceptable slur on the population of the colonized lands."
The Gaullists, on the right, stood by the law. Lionel Lucas expressed outrage that a history book for high school seniors didn't mention a massacre of French colonists in Algeria in 1962. Michel Diefenbacher lamented the omission of a list of awful diseases French physicians had treated in the colonies.
The effort to change the law was voted down, with outraged Socialists hooting, "Negationism!" ...
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Colonial history figured in a raucous legislative debate over how French history itself should be taught.
Last February, in an effort to please veterans and former colonists, the Socialists and conservatives in Parliament together passed a law that included this passage: "The positive role of the French presence abroad, particularly in North Africa, should be especially recognized."
But after the recent riots in North African neighborhoods, many of the French began to wonder what has gone wrong among their immigrants. For some on the left, French colonial history loomed as a culprit, and they set out to change the law.
One of their arguments is that conditions in France's big housing projects mirror the old colonial world: a white French upper class in city centers lording it over blacks and North African Muslims on the periphery.
In Parliament, Jean-Marc Ayrault, the Socialist whip, denounced the law's phrasing as "an unacceptable slur on the population of the colonized lands."
The Gaullists, on the right, stood by the law. Lionel Lucas expressed outrage that a history book for high school seniors didn't mention a massacre of French colonists in Algeria in 1962. Michel Diefenbacher lamented the omission of a list of awful diseases French physicians had treated in the colonies.
The effort to change the law was voted down, with outraged Socialists hooting, "Negationism!" ...