Controversy around memorial laws

Type :

Presentation

Pages :

12 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

01/16/2009

Category :

Law & contracts

Sub category :

Other law subjects

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Summary :

Introduction.
An account of the controversy.
1. Passing of the law by the French on february 23rd 2005.
2. Petre-Grenouilleau's three arguements.
3. Passing of the Gayssot Law in the year 1990.
4. The petition 'Liberty for History'.
Analysis.
1. Drawing distinctions.
2. The specificity of the Gayssot law.
3. The inadequacy of the distinction between declarative and normative law.
A cost/benefit assessment.
1. The structure of the controversy.
2. Competition of memories, Republican ideal and multiculturalism.
3. Crisis of politics.
4. The danger of the legal tool.
Conclusion.
Bibliography.

Abstract

A controversy recently arose in France in which historians played a significant role. This controversy involves a number of actors: The French government, which passed the so-called "memorial laws"; the interest groups that lobbied the Parliament to pass them; the historians who became polarized and reacted in various ways and with different justifications to these laws; the academic community as a whole, which supported the historians or else rejected their reasoning; and finally the media, which publicized the controversy. After having described this controversy in a first part, this paper will then provide with an analysis of the latter. Indeed, mi first intention was to try to write the immediate history of the controversy that would treat it as symptomatic and relate the main ideas and sources of disagreements that fed the debates to broader trends in the French society and in the French legal and political system. But, I changed my mind. It would indeed be too artificial for me to refrain from judging the different arguments and developing my own position as I am French, connected with the field of social science and dealing with a contemporary issue.