Plurality, Narrative and the Historical Canon

Abstract

On 23 February 2005, the French National Assembly adopted a law acknowledging the positive contribution to the nation of the Harkis, the Algerian native soldiers who fought on the French side during the colonial wars in Algeria (1954–62). The initiative came from supporters of the Gaullist party in southern France. Both the Harkis and the pied noirs, former white French settlers in Algeria, live in the south-east and strongly support the Gaullists. The French colonial past is still a highly controversial subject. This soon became apparent in the dispute over the — initially hardly noticed — fourth section of the new law, prescribing that research programmes at universities and high-school history teaching should recognize ‘the positive role of the French presence overseas, notably in North Africa’.1 The reason for this audacious interference with the contents of history teaching was the emergence of a more critical approach to colonial history. Recent schoolbooks discuss the oppressive regime and, in particular, the atrocities committed by the French in the Algerian War. Afraid that this portrayal would transmit a negative image of French history to future generations, conservative politicians aimed at the rehabilitation of the mission civilatrice ideology.2