The Six Fevrier 1934 and the 'Survival' of the French Republic

The Paris riots of the six février 1934 are rememberedchiefly as the event that provided the initial spark and theeventual rationale for the anti-fascist Popular Front. However,most French historians have tended to downplay the importanceof the riots themselves, arguing that the Republic was not underserious threat, and that the Left at the time greatly exaggeratedthe danger. Indeed, the fact that the regime ‘survived’these events has often been cited as proof of its resilience,of France’s deep-rooted ‘democratic political culture’,and its inbuilt ‘immunity’ to fascism. This historiographicalreview argues that the standard interpretation of the six févrieris deeply flawed, especially in its tendency to deduce the intentionsof the actors from the outcome of the events. The six févrierconstituted a serious challenge to the regime, and created adangerously fluid situation in which a variety of ‘outcomes’became possible. It should be analysed not as a discrete andtemporally circumscribed event but as a key moment in an ongoingprocess of political radicalization on the French Right.     

Judicial Politics, War Finance and Absolutism: The Parlement of Besancon and Venality of Office, 1699-1705

During the War of the Spanish Succession, how was Louis XIVable to extract badly needed funds from France’s privilegednoble judges without inciting serious resistance? This articleanswers this question by examining the monarchy’s successfulefforts to expand venal officeholding in the Parlement of Besançon.It argues that Louis XIV’s achievement depended largelyon the skilful management of judicial politics. The Bisontinparlementaires long opposed the expansion of venality. The king’sministers and their local agents were able to overcome theiropposition by fashioning an effective strategy of divide andrule that convinced the majority of the judges to support thecrown’s policies while simultaneously marginalizing thosedetermined to resist. This strategy established a model forthe royal government’s political management of the sovereigncourts. Louis XIV’s successors, however, permitted thismodel to decay at their peril.     

'Our Spanish Brothers' or 'As at Plombieres'? France, The Legacy of Resistance and the Spanish Opposition to Franco, 1945-1948

The case of French relations with the semi-Fascist regime ofGeneral Francisco Franco of Spain after the Second World Waroffers historians the opportunity to explore various influenceson French foreign policy. This article examines France’sofficial policies towards the Spanish anti-Franco oppositionas an example of the impact that the legacy of the Resistancehad on postwar foreign affairs. Yet the French Foreign Ministryonly reluctantly embraced the Resistance vision of universalrepublicanism in Europe. Rather, the importance of keeping Frenchpolicy in line with that of the Western Alliance consistentlyshaped policy towards various Spanish groups. The result wasa significant Franco-American-British effort to unite the anti-Francoopposition in Spain 1945–1948 but one that was easilyabandoned once it proved impracticable. Resistance ideas ofa renewed foreign policy following liberation were thus limitedby the importance the government attributed to alliance politicsin the emerging Cold War atmosphere.     

Law, Patronage and Municipal Authority in Seventeenth-Century France: The Aftermath of the Lanturelu Revolt in Dijon

Popular uprisings have attracted the interest of early modernhistorians but the efforts of local elites to manage their consequencesremain largely unexplored. This article examines how Dijon’smunicipality negotiated the aftermath of the 1630 Lanturelurevolt. Following the uprising, Louis XIII curtailed Dijon’sprivileges, reorganized its municipality, and ordered it toindemnify the revolt’s victims. Over time, however, theavocats of Dijon’s municipal government successfully manipulatedthe Ancien Régime’s power networks—law, localinstitutions and clientage networks—to win a restorationof Dijon’s traditional city government, the reductionof damage claims, acknowledgement of the municipality’sinnocence and reaffirmation of its contested authority. Lanturelu’saftermath, often interpreted as an example of the early Bourbons’growing control over French cities, thus reveals that the lattercould remain dynamic political centres in the early seventeenthcentury and that the state’s expanding apparatus couldbe used to contest royal authority, as well as extend it.     

French public attitudes towards the prospect of war in 1938 1939: 'pacifism' or 'war anxiety'?

This article challenges the received wisdom that French publicopinion was infused with pacifist sentiment during the 1930sand that this sentiment in turn contributed to the French defeatof 1940. It will suggest that French public attitudes towardsthe prospect of war can be better defined as ‘war anxiety’rather than the value-laden term ‘pacifism’. Takingas a test case the period between the Munich Agreement of September1938 and the outbreak of the Second World War less than a yearlater, the article will tease out the necessary distinctionbetween ‘pacifism’ and war anxiety. By employinga notion of ‘representations’ of public opinion,it will be shown how French opinion was demonstrably less pacifistthan many existing analyses assume. Instead, it will be contendedthat the public's anxieties with regard to a future war manifestedthemselves in a variety of ways, of which pacifism was merelyone example. Indeed, war anxiety increasingly demanded thatFrance prepare for an inevitable conflict, in stark contrastto simply retreating into a defeatist mindset. War anxiety wasfar from being a contributing factor in the defeat of 1940.     

The Shareholders' Revolt at the Compagnie des Indes: Commerce and Political Culture in Old Regime France

During the 1760s a fierce political struggle developed betweenthe shareholders and the royal ministry over the administrationand continued operations of the Compagnie des Indes. Portrayingthemselves as members of a self-governing commercial republic,the shareholders insisted that ultimate authority rested withtheir assembly and accused the ministry of despotic interferencein company affairs. The ministry, concerned with the financialstability of the company, employed the abbé Morelletto shift the debate from the rights of the shareholders to theadvantages of commercial liberty over the company’s privilegedtrading monopoly. Although the ministry succeeded in endingthe commercial operations of the Compagnie des Indes, the affairhad taken place in the public sphere where the publicist Pidansatde Mairobert and the financier Jacques Necker, among others,extolled the patriotism of the shareholders, condemned the despotismof the ministry, and insisted upon the importance of the companyto France’s international presence. By including an accountof the shareholders’ meetings in his anti-Maupeou publicationsof the 1770s, Mairobert linked the affair to the infamous Maupeoureforms, thereby broadening the patriot attack on ministerialgovernment.     

The Professors' Africa: Economists, the Elections of 1907, and the Legitimation of German Imperialism

German economists led by Gustav Schmoller created the KolonialpolitischesAktionskomité (colonial-political action committee) duringthe so-called ‘colonial crisis’ of 1906–1907to promote the German colonial empire at a time when it wassuffering much scandal and criticism. Widely esteemed and enjoyingthe appearance of non-partisanship, they worked closely withthe government of Bernhard von Bülow during the electionsof 1907, arguing that colonial empire was economically and politicallyindispensable and that its financial burdens were bearable.Straddling a position between the economic imperialism of manyGerman liberals and the settler colonialism prevalent in conservativeand radical nationalist circles, they helped secure a middleground that enabled the Bülow bloc and developed many ideasfor colonial reform that came into currency during the Dernburgera (1906–1910). Through lecturing, the mass disseminationof relatively high-quality literature, and the demarcation ofthe new academic sub-discipline known as Kolonialwissenschaft(colonial science), a potent complex of liberal-nationalistambitions was fused with a new ‘scientific’ colonialismthat helped redefine and legitimate a German civilizing missionin Africa and forge an imperialist ideology that gained a nationalaudience.     

The Bricks and Mortar of Revolutionary Administration

This article investigates office space during the French Revolution.It argues that material conditions played an important rolein configuring the post-Revolutionary state and its relationshipto the ‘public sphere’. In the 1790s, ministry employeesmoved from Versailles to Paris, from serving individual aristocratsto serving the Nation, from a state of operative obscurity toone of contentious publicity. Although an ideal regulation ofspace in new unified ministry buildings would invite the publicin and make government transparent (preventing a return to theOld Regime), Ministers had to balance this imperative with practicaloperational and financial concerns. By the Empire, ministrieswere consciously constructing antechambers to keep petitionerswaiting. Meanwhile, employees also engineered their physicalenvironment to protect their jobs, constructing corridors andmakeshift walls. The disjuncture between the aims and the outcomesof 1790s administrative reform developed out of the physicalimpossibility of making ‘transparent’ bureaucracywork.     

SOS Racisme and the Legacies of Colonialism 2005–2009: An Ambivalent Relationship

The relationship of French anti-racist organisations with the country's colonial past forms a substantial division within the movement. Whilst some organisations—the Mouvement des Indigènes de la République, for example—place colonial commemoration at the heart of their ideology and draw parallels between the colonial past and post-colonial present, others are far more sceptical. One such group is SOS Racisme, which, despite the intense debate around the legacies of colonialism during the article's timeframe (typified by the law of 23 February 2005 on the ‘positive role’ of colonisation, and Nicolas Sarkozy's discourse on ‘repentance’), has been consistently reluctant to acknowledge the impact of such legacies on contemporary French society, to the extent of seeing too much emphasis on the colonial past as actively harmful to both the anti-racist movement and populations of immigrant origin. In this article, the author considers why this is, noting that although SOS sees France's colonial past as a legitimate area of historical study, it rejects the idea that it should affect the way in which post-colonial populations are seen and treated in contemporary France; the idea that it should form the backbone of these populations' identities; and the idea that immigrants and their descendants have the right to see themselves as victims solely because of their colonial heritage. This rejection, the author argues, can be linked with both SOS's emphasis on universalist republicanism and its prioritisation of practical action against racism over analysis of its causes.     

Imperial Identity in Colonial Minds: Harold Moody and the League of Coloured Peoples, 1931-50

This article examines how the League of Coloured Peoples, foundedin London in 1931 by the Jamaican Harold Moody, used its versionof a British identity to seek equal rights for Britons of colour.I argue that by invoking an imperial British identity that drewon widely accepted elements of Britishness, namely respectabilityand imperial pride, the League gained support from black colonialsand white English people in its fight for equality. This wastrue despite the fact that a major element of the League's conceptionof British identity, racial equality, challenged the dominantidea that ‘true’ Britons were, by definition, white.The article focuses on the workings of the organization's ideologyin the context of two news-making issues: the campaign to restoreBritish citizenship to ‘coloured’ seamen in Cardiffin 1936, and the parliamentary and judicial reaction to discriminationby London's Imperial Hotel against League member Learie Constantinein 1943. The story it tells indicates that British identitieswere claimed and manipulated not only by natives of the BritishIsles, but also by colonial peoples. It further suggests thatunder the conditions of empire colonial peoples could simultaneouslyidentify with the imperial power and their (potentially national)home colony.     

Iran's ISIS policy

This article assesses Iran's strategy in dealing with the threat of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). It examines the implications of the rise of ISIS in Iran's immediate neighbourhood for Tehran's policies in Syria and Iraq and investigates how each of these countries affects Iranian national interests. It provides an overview of the major events marking Iran and Iraq's relations in the past few decades and discusses the strategic importance of Iraq for Iran, by looking at the two countries' energy, economic and religious ties. It also considers Iran's involvement in Syria since the beginning of the Syrian conflict. The article sheds light on the unilateral action taken by Tehran to counter ISIS, the adjustments it may have to make to its involvement in Syria, and the potential areas for tactical cooperation between Iran and the United States, as well as other key regional states such as Saudi Arabia. The article investigates three likely scenarios affecting the developments in Iraq and Iran's possible response to them as the events in the Middle East unfold.     

Creole Architecture: A Comparative Analysis of Upper and Lower Louisiana and Saint Domingue

What factors accounted for variations in architectural traditions in the French colonial settlements of the New World? This paper tests several of the propositions of culture theory against what is known of the process of tradition-formation in the French vernacular architecture of the Illinois Country, Lower Louisiana, and the Caribbean colony of Saint Domingue. It explores the extent to which generalized cultural processes such as preadaptation, founder’s effect, and cultural syncretism account for changes in the forms of typical settler’s houses.     

Indigènes after Indigènes: post-war France and its North African troops

This article focuses on North African soldiers who served in the French army of occupation in western Germany after its liberation in 1945. Taking as its starting point Rachid Bouchareb's 2006 film, Indigènes, the article contrasts claims the film made about the memorial exclusion of the colonial soldier with his surprising centrality to French accounts of their own military exploits. Using publications issued by the army for its internal readership and archival records of the military occupation's day-to-day activities, the author argues for a modified understanding of the French Republican notion of assimilation that is able to take account of the prolific representation of the North African soldier, and his accommodation, in Cold War Germany.     

Translation And The Colonial Imaginary: Ibn Khaldûn Orientalist

Despite the increasing interest in translation in the last two decades, there has been no investigation of the translation of historiography and its transformation from one language to another. This article takes as a case study the translation into French of Ibn Khaldûn, the fourteenth–century North African historian. It considers specifically the translation done by William de Slane in the context of the colonization of Algeria. The Histoire des Berbères , the French narrative of Ibn Khaldûn that relates to the history of Arabs and Berbers in the Maghreb, has become since then the source of French knowledge of North Africa. It is upon that French narrative that colonial and post–colonial historians have constructed their knowledge of North Africa, of Arabs, and of Berbers. The article shows how a portion of the writing of Ibn Khaldûn was translated and transformed in the process in such a way as to become a French narrative with colonial categories specific to the nineteenth century. Using a semiotic approach and analyzing both the French text and its original, the article shows how colonialism introduced what Castoriadis calls an "imaginary" by transforming local knowledge and converting it into colonial knowledge. In showing this the essay reveals that not only is translation not the transmission of a message from one language to another, it is indeed the production of a new text. For translation is itself the product of an imaginary, a creation–in Ricoeur's words, a "restructuring of semantic fields."     

Contemporary French philosophy

Scholarship on the French Atlantic empire traditionally and uniquely focuses upon Africa as a source of slave labour for the American colonies. However, this article explores how, in the second half of the eighteenth century, Africa emerged as a viable alternative for colonial expansion. Uncertainties about a colonial future in the New World directed French expansionist attention away from the Americas and towards the African continent, expanding its role beyond a source of labour. The intellectual underpinnings for a transfer of empire first surfaced within the Physiocratic School of political economy. The article examines the emergence of such ideas and their reception within the colonial administration of the Ancien Régime. It also shows how expansion into Africa became central to the imperial agenda of the first French Republic. Exploring Africa as a substitute to colonial America helps expand the lens through which Africa is examined as part of the Atlantic World. It also reveals continuities between Ancien Régime colonialism and later French republican imperialism.     

Commerce before crusade? France, the Ottoman Empire and the Barbary pirates (1661-1669)

French and Islamic forces clashed with an unprecedented frequencyduring the first decade of Louis XIV's personal rule. This articleexamines France's troubled relations with the Ottoman Empireand the Barbary States in the 1660s, with the aim of sheddinglight on the real motives of Louis XIV in sending his forcesagainst those of the ‘Infidel’. It finds that farfrom having a single policy towards their Muslim neighboursin the Mediterranean, the French government's behaviour wasin fact characterized by chronic inconsistency. In essence,French strategy was driven by the Bourbon government's long-termobjective of developing commerce in the eastern and southernMediterranean, but this programme of commercial expansion wasfrustrated—and repeatedly jeopardized—by issuesof power politics, in particular the king's avid pursuit ofprestige and personal gloire.     

Expulsion from Chagos: Regaining Paradise

Dame Margery Perham, acclaimed as the foremost academic expert on British colonial administration, also gained much experience and showed much interest in its French counterpart. Her thoughts on this, however, were never published in her lifetime. This article, based her diaries (published posthumously under the editorship of the article's author) and other previously little-known material, reconstructs her views on French colonial rule and how she felt the two colonial services compared with one another. It also summarises the author's own perspectives on the latter issue.     

Where is the Caribbean? French Colonial Archaeology in the English Lake

Archaeological investigation of the Caribbean region has generally incorporated unquestioned assumptions about the nature and scale of the context. Most work has been done in the Anglophone Caribbean, and has implicitly taken the English colonial world as the normative context for comparative analysis. This view leaves out a significant portion of the Caribbean colonial world—that of the French imperial program. The French colonial venture in the Caribbean has, until recently, been overlooked by historical archaeology. Recent survey and excavation of sugar, indigo and coffee plantation sites, as well as urban archaeological work, has begun to shed light upon the nature of French colonial life as distinct from that in the Anglophone Caribbean, and also on the ways that the experiences on specific French islands were different from each other. The individual histories of Martinique and Guadeloupe are contrasted in this paper, with reference to the nature of the archaeological record that has been explored, and that remains to be investigated.     

The Insider and the Ethnography of Secrecy: Challenges of Collecting Data on Fearful Komo of the Tagwa-Senufo

As with many other ethnic groups in Africa, Senufo identity was the creation of the French colonial administration during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In spite of some similarities, those subgroups collectively named Senufo by the French do not share the same artistic and traditional forms and values. For example, while the Poro association and the art related to it are the core of the socio-religious organization of the central and southern Senufo, northern Senufo groups do not have Poro or its associated arts. Northern Senufo groups are invested in the Komo men’s society and its associated objects like their Mande-speaking neighbours. This is particularly true for the subgroup known as the Tagwa, which has a Komo male secret association. The Komo is a sacred mask society with great power and authority, inaccessible to the general public, women and non-circumcised males. This is the most important religious cult of the Tagwa, who have shaped the Komo for their own tradition and customs. This paper describes my experience as a researcher working on sensitive topics such as secrecy and sacred objects among my own people: the Tagwa of Burkina Faso.     

The Corporeal Empire: Physical Education and Politicising Children's Bodies in Late Colonial Bengal

This article deploys children's bodies as an analytical lens to examine the political significance of knowledge production and childhood in British colonial projects in late colonial India. Scholars have theorised the ‘body as method’ of history to argue that bodies are imbued with meanings, become stakes in power struggles and are sites of knowledge and power. I examine this theme by investigating a key locus of knowledge production for children – the colonial school and its curriculum, specifically physical education. To underline the multi‐stranded processes and loci of colonial knowledge production, I examine nationalist pedagogies of two Bengali children's magazines (Amaar Desh and Mouchak) as a form of informal schooling. I argue that the colonial state's engagement with physical education in schools stemmed from anxieties to both discipline native children's bodies, and to discourage students’ ‘seditious’ political activism. Second, I demonstrate that for Bengali educated elites, children embodied a political space for contestation and undertaking their projects of re‐masculinising the youth. These nation‐building projects placed a premium on masculinity, influenced boy cultures to imitate adult male cultures, and inscribed gender roles on the bodies of Bengali boys and girls. By doing so, these colonial encounters restructured and redefined childhood in crucial ways.