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France


  • When Will the French Dam Against the Far Right Crack?

    by Brian Sandberg

    Macron is the latest representative of the French center to call for an electoral coalition to act as a "dam" against the far right. In another French presidential election, the dam has held, but will it endure? 



  • Who's Afraid of Antiracism?

    by Chelsea Stieber

    Recent books in different genres shed light on the limits of the French governing ideal of republican universalism for a society where racism is real and historically significant. 



  • France Eases Access, a Little, to Its Secrets

    Historians of France's colonial war in Algeria have long been frustrated by the government's classification policies on documents related to the conflict. It is unclear how much this change will create transparency.   



  • French Academics Fear Becoming Scapegoats in War on Terrorism

    The killing of a social studies teacher has opened French academics to accusations of supporting radical Islamists and undermining France's policy of national secularism; those who turn a critical lens to French colonialism and racism in contemporary France have received sharp criticism from nationalist and center-right politicians.



  • A Teacher, His Killer and the Failure of French Integration

    The murder of a French social studies teacher who showed his multiethnic class images offensive to Islam illustrates the dilemma of the French policy of secularism, which is beset on one side by complaints that immigrants do not assimilate and on the other by rising xenophobia and racism.



  • A Coded Word From the Far Right Roils France’s Political Mainstream

    Historians Pascal Blanchard and Pap Ndiaye say that the hot-button term "ensauvagement" reflects France's unrecognized history of colonialism and the prevalent belief that the French helped elevate the people they colonized; the present-day right wing uses the term to imply that immigrants from France's former colonies require control and repression.



  • The Strange Defeat of the United States

    by Robert Zaretsky

    Eighty years later, Bloch’s investigation casts useful light for those historians who, gripped by the white heat of their own moment, may seek to understand the once unthinkable defeat of the United States in its “war” against the new coronavirus.



  • The Book of Smells

    Historian Robert Muchembled’s new history is full of disgusting, delicious details about early modern France.



  • When France Extorted Haiti – the Greatest Heist in History

    by Marlene Daut

    Because the indemnity Haiti paid to France is the first and only time a formerly enslaved people were forced to compensate those who had once enslaved them, Haiti should be at the center of the global movement for reparations.