Les commissions de vérité sont le plus souvent établies dans des pays qui connaissent depuis longtemps des violations des droits de la personne. Pourtant, le Canada a mis sur pied une commission de vérité et réconciliation en 2008 pour régler une poursuite collective importante de la part des anciens élèves des pensionnats autochtones. Les victimes ont allégué de multiples formes de violence physique et psychologique au cours des cent cinquante années de fonctionnement de ces établissements. Bien que le Centre national pour la vérité et la réconciliation existe depuis 2015, ses archives représentent en grande partie le point de vue de l’État sur les événements survenus pendant l’époque d’assimilation d’enfants autochtones. Les conséquences des violences qu’ils ont subies pendant ces années de pensionnat sont beaucoup moins bien documentées. Cependant, en octobre 2017, la Cour suprême du Canada a tranché en faveur de la destruction d’archives (recueillies dans le cadre du processus d’évaluation indépendant) détaillant les agressions les plus atroces subies par les jeunes pensionnaires. Cette analyse conclut que, dans sa décision, la Cour suprême du Canada a accordé la priorité à la justice individuelle et réparatrice plutôt qu’à d’autres considérations. Ce faisant, elle a privé les victimes d’autres formes de justice qui étaient l’objectif de la Commission de vérité et de réconciliation. La cour n’a pas tenu compte d’autres lois qui ont fait face à des défis éthiques semblables tout en respectant la vie privée, en garantissant le droit du public à l’information et en réduisant considérablement le risque de récidive.

The Birth of Archival Science. During the romantic period (in the earlier 19th century), the concepts, principles and methods, which still provide the foundations for contemporary archival science today, were formulated and imposed for the first time as a general standard in French administration. This formulation was carried out as a sharp break from the concepts and documentary methods for the treatment and preservation of historical archives that had been developed during the previous century of the Enlightenment. During the positivist era, archival science became essentially a science that described collections and inventories, in a perspective of historical documentation. In the twentieth century, material problems assumed a growing importance and it was in particular an archival -economy, that is to say an archival science, theoretical and applied, of acquisition, selection, classification and cataloguing, of préservation and access, that developed. In the final quarter of the twentieth century, as result of information technologies, a resurgence of documentary practices within this archivai -economy was observed. At the Ecole des Chartes, a new chair of contemporary archival science developed a fundamental archival science, based on the study of 1 record groups as entities in their own right and in their historical context, and of an analytical and systematic study of the diplomatie of contemporary documents, closely linked with the institutional and legal context. At the present time these two approaches are converging, with the evolution of the archival -economy at the international level towards a functional archival science and the necessary deepening of fundamental archival science, confronted with the commonplace use of digital documents and the great increase in their applications.

A Round-table between Amateur and Professional Researchers :from Training to Dialogue. Welcoming all types of researchers is one of our basic missions. In order to give appropriate answers to specific expectations, a certain number of experiments have been initiated : training for amateur researchers at the Archives of the Seine-et-Marne département, specific access for documentary journalists in Marseilles, individual appointments for professional researchers at the Center for XXth century history of the Fondation nationale des Sciences politiques and various training sessions for university teachers and students in the Maine-et-Loire département.

Round-table on access, information and consultation spaces. The layout of reading rooms in archivai buildings, which constitute one site with diverse spaces, is evolving nowadays. There is a general trend towards specific spaces for the reading of original documents (with spécial surveillance), for the consultation of research finding aids, databases, microfilms and digitalized documents (free access) and for the orientation of new readers who come for administrative or genealogical purposes.

«Beyond voluntaristic stances, asserting the cultural competence of a state-owned company remains a difficult process, because of the symbolism attached to cultural funding, especially if it implies creating a facility. Each local context is to be taken separately and requires an excellent knowledge of social and political contingencies in a given place by the professionals. »

The Seine et Marne Départemental Archives launched between October 1996 and May 1997 a sériés of 47 visits to municipal archives as part of the «Pays Bassée-Montois » operation. The recruitment of an intercommunal archivist was suggested. The analysis of the various obstacles to this project sheds light on the often touchy relations between national government, départements and cities in the field of local cultural development.

The arrangement of Personal and family archives. Does this arrangement follow special standards, different from those applied to public archives ? Does the principle of provenance, contested for public archives, still work for these fonds ? What particular policy must be defined for private archives, for this arrangement method to be fully effective ? The article présents an overview of the general and particular rules for the various categories of private archives.

The archives of research units : results of a survey at I.N.R.A. The archives of laboratories of scientific research have evolved deeply as a result of the evolutions within the research world itself. A survey undertaken among the research units at the National Institute for Agronomical Research (I.N.R.A.) led to a perception of how important these changes were. Beyond establishing a typology and confirming the growing disappearance of a physical medium for many documents (including the traditional lab ledger), this survey gathered the mixed feelings scientists harbor toward their archives -nostalgia, pride, disgust, indifférence. These reactions can be explained by the proliferation of data, the race for publication and the dizzying rhythm of progress in contemporary science. A deliberate policy for the constitution of science archives seems therefore even more necessary.

The historical archives of French political parties. The archives of political parties remain unevenly preserved and managed, as shown by a recent survey drawn for a colloquium held in Rome in December 1996. The creation of the first political foundations is a unique opportunity to launch a concerted action both on the national and local Ievel.