A continuing preoccupation with the Occupation
In addition to a number of commemorative and traditional events and a steady stream of new publications, references and allusions to the period of the Occupation appear to have increased over the last few years. One basic reason, sometimes supported by evidence, is that after seventy years there is a danger that those years and their traumatic events will gradually be forgotten or remembered incorrectly. It may also be, however, that they are being recalled to help assuage a collective sense of guilt, or in some cases used more consciously for political and socio-political purposes with the result that they feed deep-rooted and sometimes unrealised prejudices with direct consequences for contemporary society. After rapidly rehearsing the ways in which the Occupation has hitherto been assessed, the article focuses precisely on some of this apparent modern development.1
An Ever-Present Past: Didier Daeninckx and the Manouchian Resistance Group
Abstract In February 1944, Missak Manouchian and twenty-one of his fellow Resistance fighters were executed by the Nazis. Over sixty years later, a prize-winning French author, Didier Daeninckx, is regularly depicting key members of this band of warriors in his novels, short stories, children's books, and other writings, thereby finding himself at the forefront of a veritable wave of imaginative representations and commemorations of these martyrs for the cause of freedom. After exploring this individual obsession of Daeninckx's and its relationship to the broader retrospective trend, this article ultimately contends that not only the author's subject matter, but also many of his narrative strategies, suggest that France has still not really managed to come to terms with the legacy of the Occupation.
France Since 1945
The last fifty years of French history have seen immense challenges for the French: constructing a new European order, building a modern economy, searching for a stable political system. It has also been a time of anxiety and doubt. The French have had to come to terms with the legacy of the German Occupation, the loss of Empire, the political and social implications of the influx of foreign immigrants, the rise of Islam, the destruction of traditional rural life, and the threat of Anglo-American culture to French language. Robert Gildea's account examines the French political system and France's role in the world from 1945 to 1955. He looks at France's attempt to recover national greatness after the Second World War, its attempt to deal with the fear of German resurgence by building the European Community, and its struggle to preserve its Empire. He looks at the Algerian war and its legacy, and the later development of a neo-colonialism to preserve its influence in Africa and the Pacific. He also examines the rise and fall of two Republics, the rise and fall of de Gaulle, and the revolution of 1968, along with topics such as the construction of the myth of the Resistance, the painful truths of French involvement in anti-Semitic persecution, and France's continuing obsession with its national identity. This book is intended for a-level and first-year undergraduate students following history or European studies courses; those interested in current French history, economics, society, and politics; anyone who visits France for pleasure.