Contenu du sommaire : Les guerres franco-francaises

The French Revolution under accusation, Maurice Agulhon. The French Presidency's plans for great celebrations of the bicentennial of the French revolution in 1989 have brought to the fore the fashion of denigration, held up by the right opposition against a left supposedly ready to deliver the country to a « totalitarianism » directly derived from Jacobinism. The archives of the Terror and the Vendee uprising make it possible clarify the link between the contemporary verbal exaggeration and the history of the 19th and 20th centuries. Using the term « genocide » for the massacre of the Vendeens by the « Blues » is irrational and anachronistic as well as highly insulting. In a France where a basic republican consensus has definitively been achieved, it is paradoxical that the spirit of 1789 in which definitively been achieved, it is paradoxical that the spirit of 1789 in which this consensus is rooted, remains subject to contradictory passions. Liberty stands to gain more in respecting the spirit of 1789 than in denigrating it.

The Dreyfus affairs, Michel Winock Two types of conflict divided the French throughout the 19th century : the class struggle inherited from the industrial revolution and the opposition between right and left, stemming from the debate around the Old Regime and the Revolution. The Dreyfus affair, at the dawn of our own century, did not fit into either of these two readings of history. It seemed to introduce a new kind of conflict pitting against each other two of antagonistic value systems. The first feeds a nationalism attached above all to social preservation and to authority, and the second is served by a new clergy, the universalist intellectuels, devoted to justice and truth. Although the Affair was clearly unique, could not be used as a historical paradigm, and provide a different reading of the jolts of 20th century France ? There is a homology between it and the French crisis of the 1930s, during which left wing intellectuals and « nationalists » fought each other, as well as the Vichy regime, which in a way gave power to the « anti-Dreyfusards » and finally the Algerian conflict, which once more opposed the clerics and the army.

The feigned confrontation of the 1930s, Serge Berstein. The crisis of the 1930s called for new solutions. No French political force was able to propose any. As the conflicts between haves and have-nots became acute, they also took on unusual shapes. A religious war which never got farther than the realm of discourse was a substitute for a debate on management. The thinking on adaptation to new economic forms was buried in an ideological combat whose catch words were « democracy », « fascism » and « communism ». The Popular Front, a conflict about political models, was perhaps only a feigned confrontation with the real questions put aside, a war of words which would soon lead to action. The sorcerers' apprentices of the sham-word would then wage genuine civil war.

Vichy, the big split, Henry Rousso The Vichy regime undoubtedly was the result of a specific crisis, the prisoner of a war contingency. However, the Marshal Pétain's regime purposely played on the old wounds which split the French, those of the 1930s as well as older ones, such as the Dreyfus affair or even that of 1789. It is very much the archetype of the Franco-French wars. More proof of that is to be found in the conflicts which it produced after 1945, at the time of the Cold War, under de Gaulle, and again at the present time.

The very singular case of the Algerian war, Bernard Droz In the history of Franco-French wars, the Algerian war is quite singular. Long indifferent to the colonial question, French public opinion showed little interest in Indochina, Tunisia or Morocco while Algeria unleashed passion. Although clearly the left was as a whole favorable to independence and the right opposed the loss of Algeria, the drama disturbed the traditional left-right confrontation. Moreover, the conflict in France was much more violent at the level of discourse than in reality. If there was a civil war, it took place more in Algeria. Paradoxically, the very bitterness of the conflict in France made it easier for Algeria to accede to independence, but in no way was independence achieved through the unanimity of a people.

Two old Frances at watch towers. The wars of religion, Janine Garrisson. From 1559 to about 1600, two Frances stood face to face. The most obvious break was the religious division and the confrontation between Catholics and Protes tants. But this Franco-French war can be interpreted as the continuation of older conflicts, those that opposed the North and the South, the inhabitants of cities and those of the countryside, the faithful supporters of royal power and the big feudal lords : two different political conceptions and two visions of society. This major conflict, which brought about 40 years of murders and plunder, seems to have been effaced from the collective memory of the French, which has retained only one event : the Saint Barthelemy day massacre. As if the horror of this massacre hid the very foundation of the wars of religion : the existence of several Frances, each refusing to listen to the other.

Three years fo quarrels over schools (1981-1984). Storms and the lull, Jean-Marie Majeur. Ever since Jules Ferry, the « school war » has only been one aspect of a wider struggle : that over the secularization of French society, i.e. the religious issue in its broadest sense. But in 1981, though this secularization had been long achieved though the protagonists, public opinion and even the secular militants had changed substantially, the school issue was only the final element of the cleavage in French feelings. As the religious question is no longer politically relevant, « revanchist » secularism looks old-fashioned. This explains the failure of the Savary bill and the (perhaps temporary) return to the 1959 Debré law.

The Sacred Union - the exception which confirms the rule ?, Jean-Jacques Becker. The Sacred Union ! This historic precedent haunts French collective memory, and feeds the speeches advocating national unity. In 1914, the feeling was indeed virtually unanimous : national defense demanded that political cleavages be put aside. It is clear that this strong national feeling carried at first more weight than the centrifugal forces. Soon, however, the reference to the Sacred Union became tainted by second thoughts : the call for consensus had partisan motives. This second version, opposed in its very essence to any democratic peace time functioning, prevailed in later attempts, which explains their failure. Never after, not even in 1939, were there anything but partial Sacred Unions.

The progress of consensus, René Rémond The France of dissension so visible, should not hide the France of agreement conquered step by step. Through crises and clashes, France has learned some minimal rules which shore up democracy. Physical violence and extremism have retreated ; indifference toward religion has put on end to some old quarrels ; the electorate has become more homogeneous. With the passing of time, from one century to another, France has in disagreement learned democracy and made, limping along, progress in national consensus.

Views of France from abroad, Jerzy W. Borejsza, Stanley Hoffmann, Sergio Romano, Jean Stengers, Charles Tilly. Five foreign historians give their points of view on Franco-French wars. Civil war no longer has following in the France of the 20th century, event if fighting speeches ang aggressive attitudes proliferate and are player out. French-style clashes are compared by them with the civil wars or the divisions in their own countries : the Civil war in the USA, the problem of Belgian national identity, Polish resistance and Italian « syncretism ».

A two-hundred year war ?, Jean-Pierre Azéma The hypothesis of rippling waves of games of memory, faults and replays, of the determining role of ideological conflicts, of verbal inflation in Franco-French wars of the 20th century seems stimulating and operational at the end of this voyage through history. But one must not jump to conclusions. A truce is not an armistice. Events since May 1981, the opposition's attacks against the new Jacobins in power and the rise in xenophobia show that the French still keep their powder dry.