Contenu du sommaire : La Méditerranée. Affrontements et dialogues

Inventing the Mediterranean, Anne Ruel. The history of the Mediterranean area is also a matter of words. In describing the slow and late emergence of the noun ' Mediterranean ', the author lays bare the mechanisms by which the concept of Mediterranean results as much from a construction of the mind as from ' objective ' data. Geographers like Elisée Reclus and historians like Fernand Braudel established an idea to which imagination, especially under the guise of nostalgia, may have contributed as much as reason.

From Beirut to Alger, the end of an urban order, Robert Ilbert. Like Beirut, the inmost extreme example, the port-cities of the Ottoman Empire have gone little by little from the stage of dynamism and brilliance to that of dismantlement, when not chaos... Understanding such a process implies an analysis of the very specifie urban order which characterized them at the time of their apogee : they were cosmopolitan cities functioning almost like genuine city-states, organized around the power of their elites, the social and cultural weight of their communitarian System and of the relative autonomy of their municipal agencies. But the logic of the nation-states gained increasingly and broke their always precarious balance, pushing them into an apparently unending crisis.

Lebanon and the West, a tale of an itinerary, Henry Laurens. How did the loss of a century-old communication between the Lebanese land and the West occur ? Despite an undeniable democratie experience, a free press and a dynamic cultural life, Lebanon ceased after 1945 to appear as the western outpost in the Orient, the indispensable intermediary it had always wanted to be. It is not possible to blame this disinvestment on ' Arab face ' which was only one of the aspects of its reality. The belated Phoenician affirmation shows that the break cannot be imputed to the Lebanese alone, especially since it would appear that the West could not have two respondents in the Orient. The state of Israël was able to capture the images and imaginations of the West, while reminding it of its responsibility in the catastrophe that led to its birth. This left no place for Lebanon, which could slide into barbarianism.

The way out of the South : the Spanish model, Gérard Chastagnaret. In the 19th century, Spain's economic growth did not bring about real development, and fortunes were made without enough investment. As of the 1950s, however, Spain really ' took off '. It stopped being a periphery of Europe and became a genuine European south. Can this successful Spanish model be exported to other Mediterranean countries ? Yes, if a few conditions are net.

North Africa and Europe : what is one to do with the Mediterranean ? Kasem Basfao, Jean-Robert Henry. There is a psychological tension between the Maghrib and Europe, whose strength is additional to the diplomatie, demographie and economic stakes. Dream of a unifying Mediterranean, lost Andalusia, modernity, wealth of a common heritage : the fantasies meet and cancel out. The scenarios of the future do not justify much optimism : the Mediterranean is a ditch as much as a link.

The restructuring of Marseille, Bernard Morel. The restructuring of Marseille means the development of a metropolis composed of five urban and industrial poles, including the city of Marseille. But the city is going through a multi-faceted crisis : that of the industrial port complex, the demographic imbalances after a phase of growth, the crisis of the fordist system. These economic and social factors affect the political level, with the fear of a loss of identity as one of its essential components.

The successive embodiments of the Russian ' grand design ', Taline Ter Minassian. A Messianic theme developed over several centuries, the Mediterranean question in its classic form of the problem of the access to the Straits has been a constant first of Russian, then of Soviet foreign policy. But in the present state of the URSS's economic and national decomposition, Soviet diplomacy is no longer able to carry out a power policy, one aspect of which has been the search for the Mediterranean locks since at least the 19th century. In a more modest perspective, it is now applied outside of the Mediterranean area, even it still aspires to dispose of some influence in the hypothesis of a general settlement of the Near East problems.

The Institute of the Arab World between two shores, Thierry Fabre. Immediately after its creation in Paris, in 1987, the Institute of the Arab World has gone through a severe financial crisis, because the Arab countries are not contributing to its operation. The Institute also suffered from the international tension and the Gulf war. Its ambitions have not always been clearly stated. It nevertheless dreams of being a site for exchange and reflection common to all the civilizations that dot the shores of the Mediterranean. Will it succeed ?