Bill Kidd  (University of Stirling, UK)
Contemporary memory debates in the Pyrénées-orientales: the pieds-noirs and historical revisionism

The controversy surrounding the December 2004 'projet de loi portant reconnaissance {.} de la contribution nationale' to colonial construction in North Africa, and the 'loi du 23 février 2005' requiring French school books and courses to 'reconnaître le rôle positif de la présence française outre-mer, notamment en Afrique du nord', mark what appears to be a new, more febrile chapter in the evolving story of France's disengagement from its colonial past. Likewise, that in Perpignan (2003), and subsequently Marseilles-Marignane (2005), memorials were erected to Bastien -Thiry, and that Montpellier and Perpignan are currently rivals for the establishment of a 'musée-mémorial de la présence française en Afrique du nord' suggests that in one major respect, the North Africian rapatrié community dominates memory debates in a region which offers a microcosm of the highly fractured, kaleidoscopic memory of the Algerian conflict. Despite the generally successful integration of the pied-noir diaspora into French society, there are signs, alongside what has popularly been described as 'nostalgérie', that an irredentist mentality has not merely survived inside Europe's most important ex-colonial community but re-vitalized itself by finding alternative forms of expression.

To what extent do these developments invite reflection on currently available interpretative and theoretical paradigms? To what extent did the emergence in the 1990s of a nationally and internationally acknowledged 'devoir de mémoire' towards forgotten or marginalized communities contribute to reinforcing rapatrié group identity? How best can the historian address these and other questions without appearing to endorse revisionist views or becoming an unwitting témoin à charge in others' agendas? Based on new archival research and other data from the Pyrénées-orientales, my paper will identify and evaluate some of the implications of these issues.