Contenu du sommaire : La France et la méditerranée

French Presence in the Eastern Mediterranean : the Foundation of the Saint Joseph University in Beirut (1875-1914) The aim of this article is to present a new aspect of France's presence in the Mediterranean. It centres on a key idea : the colonial character of the sea. Focusing on the reasons underlying the foundation of the Saint Joseph University in Beirut (USJ), it attempts to shed light on France's ambitions in the Eastern Mediterranean where she is still a cultural and economic power today. The origins of the USJ date back to the Ghazir Seminary founded by the Jesuits in 1843. The Ghazir College, whose aim was to form the local Maronite clergy, was transferred to Beirut in 1875. There its name was changed to Saint Joseph University. Pope Leo XIII, during his February 25, 1881 audience, confers upon it the title of “Pontifical University”. It is the first Jesuit French-speaking institution of importance in the whole region that at the time bore the name “Syria”. The USJ, situated in a province of the Ottoman Empire, was coveted by the future mandatory power, France. Ideological, religious, educational and political reasons, led all the stakeholders –the Jesuits, the Vatican, the Maronites and France– to put their differences aside and collaborate on this joint project. For a strictly limited period from 1875 to 1914, this ad hoc compromise led them to believe that there was a possibility of guaranteeing the sustainability of their community, religious, political and regional interests. The present article is part of the framework of studies devoted to France's politico-cultural interests in the Middle East. The Jesuits' presence in the region helps shed new light on France's approach.

The Cultural Component in the Policy of Influence of France in Egypt, 1914-1936 During the interwar period the rivalries that opposed France to the United Kingdom in Egypt took on the form of a combat for influence. Because of its importance, the French cultural presence in Egypt was considered by the British to be a challenge to their own presence. The priority accorded by Great Britain to cultural policy from the beginning of the 1930s was the direct result of the realisation of the existence of an unstoppable evolution of the Near East toward independence. The French cultural policy for its part was less motivated by such considerations. The reason was that the country's foreign policy had not integrated this evolution towards independence and did not exercise a policy of cooperation. This policy was adopted after the Second World War.

Expertise on Colonial Ground : the Orientalists and the French Mandate in Syria and Lebanon In 1928, the French Orientalist Louis Massignon was sent to the Levant to carry out a survey of the French presence in the region, which had just been under heavy threat by a nationalist revolt : the French authorities must find new ways of enforcing the mandate entrusted to them by the League of Nations. The idea of calling in an Orientalist expert came following a twofold logic : to try and break with a tradition of protecting Christian minorities and to attempt to unify the “French Islam”, from the Magreb to the Near East. Massignon's report underlines the contradiction between the intentions of the mandatory power and the realities of its rule, which was based on clientelism. It also underscored the difficulties of reconciling a military administration with the necessity of progressively leading Syria to independence. Finally, Massignon pronounced his opinion based on his personal knowledge and familiarity with Syria's nationalist circles and this leads him to contrast a French-speaking colonial policy to a policy of cooperation based on Arab as a language of communication and culture.

Fernand Braudel and the Algerian Geography. Into the colonial sources of the immobile history of the Mediterranean ? Fernand Braudel's work is a necessary reference for all those who carry out works referring to the Mediterranean area. François Dosse has already shown that the notion of geographical time and immobile history developed by Braudel regarding the Mediterranean – the basis of his geohistory –originates from his appropriation of the geographical idea of the permanence of lifestyles, a theory developed by Vidal de La Blache. Following this thesis, this article aims at elucidating the essential part played in the transmission of this concept by the colonial work of the geographer Émile-Félix Gautier (1864- 1940). Braudel who had lived in Algeria for almost ten years (1923-1932) acknowledged the intellectual influence that this professor at the Algiers faculty of letters had had on him, without, however, really clarifying the latter's scientific contribution to the constitution of the object of his research. Nonetheless, in order to highlight this circulation of paradigms, it is necessary to examine the context in which it took place. In the first half of the 20th century, academic discussions regarding the permanence of lifestyles in North Africa, in particular Algeria, were strongly influenced by the political divisions concerning the implementation of the “civilising mission”. The academic field of colonial geography still remained far from producing unified paradigm. The affinities of Braudel's work with Gautier's opinions on the Orient thus leave open the question of its political aspects in relation to the empire.

From Napoleonic Studies to the Support of the Greek Great Idea. Édouard Driault (1864-1947) and the vision of an Imperial Mediterranean This article aims at placing the career and academic work of French historian Édouard Driault (1864-1947) in the intellectual and diplomatic perspective of the Great War and the Paris Peace Conference. At this time Driault acquired notoriety beyond the academic world which was the reason for his introduction into the political and diplomatic circles of the Peace Conference. His positions for the solution of the Eastern Question were used especially by Greece during the negotiations concerning the country's frontiers in 1919 : the advocation of a strong Greece “restored to the entirety of her domain”, heiress of the Byzantine Empire, faithful oriental ally of the imperial nation of France, seen for her part as heiress of Napoleonic France, and a vehicle of the universal democratic values. The author tries to evaluate the existence if not of an actual influence of Driault, at least of a convergence of his thesis with those which prevailed in the decisions of the Peace Conference. The hypothesis is put forward here that although the solution given to the Eastern Question in 1919 was certainly a triumph for the principle of nations, there was however a tendency to recognise to some states, as was the case with Greece, a superiority of civilization in the name of the Occidental values. As a result of this, Greece was granted the right to integrate non Greek populations within its new frontiers, thus receiving part of the imperial heritage resulting from the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire.

Fictions or Mediterranean Realities ? The Theatre of Operations of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Projects for a new Eastern Front (1938-1940) Created in August 1939, based in Beirut and placed under the orders of the general Weygand, the Theatre of Operations of the Eastern Mediterranean was the principle instrument of the strategy of the Oriental fronts during the Phoney War. A careful examination of the memoirs of those involved as well as the diplomatic archives of various countries allows us to reconstitute large parts of this affaire that was largely eclipsed in the historiography by the battle of France in June 1940 : it consisted of a series of attempted military interventions in a vast zone extending from the Adriatic to the Black Sea and from the Danube to Crete. Its unfulfilled aim was to re-establish lost influence and to catch Germany and its allies unprepared. The idea was not new. It was, on the contrary, inspired –haunted even– by the memory of military expeditions carried out in the region in the 19th and 20th centuries and especially of the Eastern Front established near Salonica during the Great War. The French military, especially general Weygand, were consequently prisoners of a perception of a quasi-mythical Orient whose control was supposed to be essential in order to win the war in Europe.

Algeria between France and Spain, 1936-1939 : the Impact of the Spanish Civil War Taking into account the country's geographical proximity and the composition of its population, the Spanish Civil War had important repercussions in Algeria, as can be established by the study of the material at the Quai d'Orsay and the Centre d'archives d'outre-mer (French Centre for Overseas Archives).. Especially in the Oranie region, it led to a real social and political polarization which will be discussed after an introduction to some of the main aspects of the subject.

From Algeria to France. Repatriates, Pieds Noirs, Harkis : Conditions of Departure and of Arrival, 1962 In 1962, some 650 000 people left Algeria, most of them withdrawing to France. It is an unprecedented event, given its magnitude. In the space of four months, the total refugee population equalled five years of former migration waves related to French decolonization. This sudden surge occurred during the period between the Evian agreements and the first months following Algeria's independence. After a historical presentation of the different populations concerned by this exodus –Europeans from Algeria who become pieds-noirs, Israelites natives to Algeria who become Algerian Jews, French of North-African extraction who become French Muslim repatriates–, the factors underlying this forced political migration during the decolonisation process in the French Empire are examined. The exodus of the pieds-noirs and the Jews of Algeria was the consequence of the actions of the Secret Army Organisation's (OAS-Organisation de l'armée secrète), the pervasive atmosphere of insecurity and a general uncertainty regarding their future status in independent Algeria. The harkis also fled in large numbers due to the violence they suffered. This unexpected exodus of the French of Algeria and the transfer of a limited number of colonial auxiliaries took place in an atmosphere of near anarchy. Fleeing Algeria to resettle in France, this mixed population constituted what became known as the “repatriates from Algeria”. The French public authorities in charge of their arrival and settlement came up against the problem of their denomination, which constituted a veritable semantic imbroglio, alternating between the notions of “repatriates”, “the withdrawn” or “refugees”. They were also confronted with numerous challenges concerning their settlement on French territory : organizing a specific administrative reception structure, finding solutions to housing and employment shortages. The hierarchical approach used to deal with these different groups of populations from Algeria denotes the persistence of certain colonial concepts inherited from colonial Algeria : priority was given to the pieds-noirs, specificity was accorded of the Jews of Algeria, whereas the harkis were marginalized. This article is primarily an overview from a comparative perspective, of the conditions of departure from Algeria and arrival in France of these population groups.

Eretz Israel and France as a Mediterranean Power. From Obstacle to a Combat Alliance in the Mediterranean, 1946-1956 Analysing in a new research perspective the French and Israeli perceptions of the Mediterranean and of its place in both their geostrategies, it becomes apparent that the interests of France as a Mediterranean power excluded any kind of alliance with Eretz Israel, a complete stranger to mediterraneism. Born out of a rapprochement in spite of this, the alliance of 1956 was a combat alliance that suited the circumstances.

From the Lebanese Crisis to De Gaulle's Memorandum of September 1958 : the French Foreign Policy between two Republics and a War After 1956, the Suez crisis and the Algerian war imposed to France an attitude of complete discretion in the Middle East. The Lebanese crisis of 1958 was the first occasion that allowed France to take part in the diplomatic activity regarding this event thanks to the country's important cultural interests in Lebanon and its ties with the Maronite community. The attitude of France was defined by the newly-formed government of Charles de Gaulle, who returned to power in the aftermath of the May 1958 Crisis – and whose main concern was to avoid civil war and prepare constitutional change that would lead to the institution of the Fifth French Republic. The French considerations regarding the Lebanese crisis reveal the main issues that were at stake in France's policy regarding the Arab world and the country's relations with Americans and the British at a moment that France was undergoing a major internal crisis. During this short period of transition, the French diplomacy maintained the main orientations of the Fourth Republic ; at the same time, those of the Fifth Republic were also clearly announced. Under de Gaulle, the French diplomacy regained the conduct of the country's foreign affairs of which it had been deprived by the ultras of French Algeria. In the summer of 1958, it seemed entirely mobilized in the search of a solution that would preserve the French general interests in North Africa as well as the country itself from civil war.

France and the Italian “claims” over Tunisia in the aftermath of decolonization While France's influence in the Mediterranean was being questioned by the process of decolonization, Italy used its colonial disinterest in order to establish a special relationship with the newly independent states of North Africa. Tunisia had, in the past, been a central target of Italian colonial claims because of its important Italian community and its geographical proximity. As a result of a more aggressive and more autonomous Mediterranean policy, as part of the power play within the alliances, the Italian authorities multiplied their initiatives in favour of a rapprochement with Bourguiba that would enable the increase of commercial relations between the two countries. After the settlement of various disputes regarding fishing areas in the straits of Sicily and the liquidation of Italian assets in Tunisia, a commercial agreement was signed in December 1961, followed a year later by an agreement of cooperation. Furthermore, Tunisia and the rest of North Africa were seen by Italy as a field of oil-bearing exploration capable of providing the energy resources needed for the Italian “economic miracle”. The president of the Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi (ENI), Enrico Mattei, used tested methods to obtain permissions to drilling oil wells and to exploit them. He also took advantage of the French-Tunisian tension in order to extend the company's area of research and to multiply the number of oil wells. Thus, Mattei, who was also disliked for his relations with the Algerian nationalists, became the person the French authorities loved to hate. In general, France was particularly wary of these Italian initiatives which they suspected of aiming at her substitution. The cautious attitude of Rome during the Bizerte crisis in 1961, however, gave some proof of the Italian solidarity in the spirit of the Atlantic Alliance and the project of European integration. Moreover, the blatant inadequacy between the discourse of Italy's Mediterranean policy and the means at its disposal, as well as the fickleness of its Tunisian partner, resulted in reassuring the French concerning the capacity of the Italians harm French interests.

The role of France in the European Community regarding North Africa (1963-1969) This article presents the role that France played in the relations between the EEC and the countries of the Maghreb from 1963 to 1969 : from the first negotiations to the ratification of the agreement of association of Morocco and Tunisia. The first part of the article presents the beginning of negotiations between the EEC and Morocco and Tunisia, as well as the uneasy relations between France and her two former protectorates, as well as the subsequent consequences of this context on the two countries' relations with the EEC in the 1960s. The second part deals with the particular character of the euro-algerian relations during the crucial period that followed the agreements of Evian until 1969.

From the Rise of the Question of Cyprus to the 1974 Crisis : the Cypriot Problem in French-Greek Relations This article deals with the place occupied by the problem of Cyprus in French-Greek relations since its appearance as a colonial affair in the 1950s until after the de facto division of the island in 1974. It focuses mainly in the period of the Fifth French Republic. The author establishes that despite the rapprochement between France and Greece in 1959 (independence of Cyprus), Cyprus became the object of discord, after the reorientation of de Gaulle's policy towards Turkey in the mid 1960s. After the division of the island in 1974 and the triumphal comeback of Karamanlis from Paris to Athens, the problem of Cyprus helped to re-launch the French-Greek relations, allowing to pass over France's benevolent attitude towards the dictatorship of the Colonels. Finally, it became a diplomatic opportunity for Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's ambition to build a European foreign policy based on a French-German orientation ; but also to consolidate the Greek democracy and the authority of Karamanlis. Consequently, throughout the Cold War the question of Cyprus remained an unavoidable component of French-Greek relations.