Beyond memory wars: The indigènes de la république’s grass-roots anti-racism between the memory of colonialism and antisemitism

Abstract

In the mid-2010s, the expression ‘memory wars’, which had been coined in debates about the role of various commemorations of France’s colonial history, became increasingly identified with an atmosphere of conflict between France’s Jewish population and other minority communities. Simultaneously, conflicts over remembrance of the Holocaust and France’s colonial past characterized a new dynamic of memorial anti-racism. This article examines the trajectory of the Indigènes de la République, an organization that was particularly identified with this kind of memorial anti-racism. Through oral history interviews as well as the organization’s publications and media appearances, this article outlines the role of memory in the growing atmosphere of conflict between Jews and other postcolonial minorities in France and ultimately questions the role of so-called memory wars in the growing conversation about race in the Fifth Republic.