what the frenzy of texts adopted in Parliament says about our relationship to collective reminiscence | EUROtoday

At the top of 2025, the National Assembly adopted texts on the elevation of Alfred Dreyfus to the rank of brigadier normal, on the victims of anti-abortion legal guidelines earlier than 1975 or anti-homosexuality legal guidelines earlier than 1982. For historian Sébastien Ledoux, “these memorial laws are not a French exception”. But this frenzy “testifies to a reversal of the traditional functions of forgetting”. Previously, public oblivion was perceived “as an instrument of pacification of societies”whereas memorization was “potential factor of trouble”. Today issues are reversed: we should keep in mind with the intention to transfer ahead.

In the 2000s, main debates passed off between historians and politicians following a number of legal guidelines. In addition to the popularity of the Armenian genocide in 2001, a 2005 regulation required college packages to acknowledge “the positive role” of colonization in North Africa. “It is reliable for politicians to debate the previous, notes Sébastien Ledoux. But we have to be vigilant in order that the legal guidelines don’t grow to be repressive and that they’re based mostly on historic work. »

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