Until quite recently, French historiography on nature and environment protection seemed unable to compete, in quality and quantity, with that developed in other big industrial countries such as United Kingdom, United States and Germany. The symposium "Une protection de la nature et de l’environnement à la française?" held in Paris in September 2010 showed, in a very useful way, how French research in this field is experiencing a period of remarkable growth and refinement. The meeting was organized by the recently created Association pour l’histoire de la protection de la nature et de l’environnement on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the French law on national parks and was characterized by the partecipation of researchers coming from many countries and belonging to different disciplinary fields. The author describes the outlines of the symposium in the context of the development of French environmental history.
Keywords: Nature protection; history; France; symposium; parks