In the past decade, colonial memory has led to heated debates in France, among academics and within civil society. While the Parliament voted a law encouraging teachers to show “positive aspects of colonization”, second or third generation immigrants, with roots in the former Empire, developed a political claim to a national history encompassing their family’s past. During the 2005 banlieue riots, the colonial reference was constant; it was explicit also in the “Manifesto of the Indigenous people of the Republic”.

Why is it so difficult for France to face its colonial past? And how did the issue of history and memory of the Empire become such a political issue in which historians had to take sides?

The lecture is part of the 'Open Seminar Series' organised by the Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice (CSSGJ). Everybody is welcome.