La guerra d'Algeria nel discorso pubblico francese. Quarant'anni dopo (1962-2002)

The Algerian War in the French Public Discourse. Forty Years Later (1962-2002) (by Andrea Brazzoduro) - ABSTRACT: This essay explores the French public discourse on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Algerian independence (1962-2002). It analyzes daily press, pamphlets, public ceremonies as well as historiographical productions. It traces the changing perception of the event in the French collective memory following the divisions suggested by B. Stora of three periods of the «travail de mémoire»: the suppression of the traumatic event immediately after the conflict, the return of the repressed experience accompanied by the hypermnesia starting from the eighties, the work of mourning and the going out of the oblivion around the end of the decade. This essay focuses on the last stage, in which historical research and social demand for history intersected, initiating an eventual transition from memory to history. A clue to the beMondo contemporaneo ginning of this process is the June 10th act, which replaces the deceiving terms of «événements» and «operations de maintien de l’ordre» used in the state public discourse in referring to the French-Algerian conflict with a term never accepted before, namely, «war».

Andrea Brazzoduro, La guerra d'Algeria nel discorso pubblico francese. Quarant'anni dopo (1962-2002) in "MONDO CONTEMPORANEO" 1/2008, pp 67-93, DOI: