Contenu du sommaire : Les archives

During the 19th century, modern States, whether democratic or not democratic, created institutions which, under the more or less generic appellation “National Archives”, were destined to receive the material traces of their juridical and/or constitutional power. But what significance should be given to the deposit in the archives of founding acts of sovereignty such as oaths, covenants or acts of law? Looking at the complex relationships between the archives and sovereignty, the article reveals to what extent the material imagination of Western sovereignty is closely linked to three successive figures embodying power through the institution of the archives: the treasury, the repository of laws and the national necropolis.

While the burning and looting of archives have been a constant feature of revolutions and conflicts, it is during the 19th and 20th centuries that the spoliation and the seizure of documents, but also the immediate archiving of events, became important stakes in international, colonial or domestic wars. The present reflexion follows two underlying themes: it perceives archives as tools of power for modern States; it also looks at the role played by archives in identity constructions. These two themes are crossed in an attempt to build a typology of the forms of vulnerability of archives. Would it be possible to refer to a paradigm endangered by the ushering of an era of total digital archiving?

The 1990s crisis of the archives led ten years later to ad minima answers, restricted to the single aspect of the delay of communication of public documents redefined in the 2008 law, and to a limited institutional reform. But politicians should not hesitate to provide France with an ambitious archival legislation, taking into account the democratic stakes linked to the rights concerning this sphere of public, scientific, juridical activity. The paper intends to illustrate the current situation regarding the legislation on archives and to present a few elements of reflexion to support a national commitment in favour of the archives.

The foundations of contemporary archival law were established by the 3 January 1979 Act, a general document which regulates the regime of public as well as private archives at every level, from the collection to the accessibility of documents. Incorporated to the Heritage Code in 2004, and revised in 2008, the legal framework could still be modified. In order to understand why, it is necessary to look back at this legislative history.

Although located in the center of Paris since the 12th century, the National Archives have felt and sometimes kept a certain distance from the actors of the community, i. e. the citizens. Ironically, their recent transfer to Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, in a developing area of the Parisian suburbs, offers an opportunity to establish new relationships with the territory, the political, scientific, educational and cultural actors, and to showcase and share the Heritage preserved there.

The very justification of preserving the archives lay in their immediate or delayed usage. It is the justification of the rights of persons and institutions as reliable and authentic historical sources. Given the numerous risks which threaten their preservation, the law is, in France, the first safeguard for their protection. Pragmatic solutions should also be implemented placing the archivists at the center of the decision-making process and giving them a major responsibility in the preservation of the conditions of the State of law.

What kind of relationship do historians maintain with the archives? While each historian develops singular practices, one may nevertheless write a social history of the relationship between researchers and the objects they use, which are not limited to the sources of their research. The article looks at the contemporary history of this confrontation.

For some years, the archives have experienced an important promotion. While the prices of manuscripts have been sky-rocketing and autographs have become secure or speculative investments, the digitalized archives, in particular in the field of genealogy, are being coveted by commercial genealogical enterprises which want to reuse them. Archives have thus come to find themselves at the center of power and memory issues, and have found an unexpected place in the market economy.

The ongoing digital revolution is of the same magnitude as the revolution of the mid-12th century (long before the invention of the printing press) which led to the emergence of a book culture through the mastering of alphabetic technologies. It is having a strong impact on the archivist profession which has been founded, since the Middle Ages, on the recording of certified written texts whose reliability and authenticity could be established, and which is now shifting from a stable and durable mode of production to digital traces that are both volatile and constantly refashioned on the internet. The article analyses the answers given to this formidable challenge by illustrating their limits and stressing the main issues at stake.

French professionals usually ignore the United States archival law, which they tend to consider as a “different model”. The present article stresses the fact that the specificity of US archival law should not be overestimated and illustrates why it would be interesting for French professionals to study it, in particular because it opens a number of reflections regarding the accessibility of public archives.