The Shaping Of French National Identity

"In April 1684, the traveller, diplomat, and essayist, François Bernier (1625-1688), anonymously published in the Journal des sçavans his 'Nouvelle division de la terre, par les différentes espèces ou races d'hommes qui l'habitent'. He there made the case that although geographers had always divided the earth into countries and regions, thanks to his travels he now believed that another kind of mapping was possible:"--

The Shaping of French National Identity casts new light on the intellectual origins of the dominant and 'official' French nineteenth-century national narrative. Focussing on the historical debates taking place throughout the eighteenth century and during the Restoration, Matthew D'Auria evokes a time when the nation's origins were being questioned and discussed and when they acquired the meaning later enshrined in the official rhetoric of the Third Republic. He examines how French writers and scholars reshaped the myths, symbols, and memories of pre-modern communities. Engaging with the myth of 'our ancestors the Gauls' and its ideological triumph over the competing myth of 'our ancestors the Franks', this study explores the ways in which the struggle developed, and the values that the two discourses enshrined, the collective actors they portrayed, and the memories they evoked. D'Auria draws attention to the continuity between ethnic discourses and national narratives and to the competition between various groups in their claims to represent the nation and to define their past as the 'true' history of France.

Casts new light on of the 'official' French nineteenth-century narrative by examining how historians and philosophers conceived of the country's past.

The first decades of the new millennium have been marked by major political changes. Although The West has wished to revisit internal and international politics concerning migration policies, refugee status, integration, secularism, and the dismantling of communitarianism, events like the Syrian refugee crisis, the terrorist attacks in France in 2015-2016, and the economic crisis of 2008 have resurrected concepts such as national identity, integration, citizenship and re-shaping state policies in many developed countries. In France and Canada, more recent public elections have brought complex democratic political figures like Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau to the public eye. Both leaders were elected based on their promising political agendas that aimed at bringing their countries into the new millennium; Trudeau promotes multiculturalism, while Macron touts the diverse nation and the inclusion of diverse ethnic communities to the national model. This edited collection aims to establish a dialogue between these two countries and across disciplines in search of such discursive illustrations and opposing discourses. Analyzing the cultural and political tensions between minority groups and the state in light of political events that question ideas of citizenship and belonging to a multicultural nation, the chapters in this volume serve as a testimonial to the multiple views on the political and public perception of multicultural practices and their national and international applicability to our current geopolitical context.

An examination of the evolution of national and cultural identity in French Flanders over a period of 200 years. This study examines the evolution of national and regional, cultural and political identities in that northern region of France which borders Belgium, over the two centuries which followed the French Revolution. During that time the region was transformed by the development of the industrial economy, population shifts, war and occupation, and numerous changes of political regime. Through an analysis of a wide range of issues, including language, regional and national political movements, educational policy, attitudes towards immigrants and the border, the press, trade unions, and the church - as well as the attitude of the French State - the author questions traditional interpretations of the process of national assimilation in France. At the same time he illustrates how the Franco-Belgian border, originally an arbitrary line through a culturally homogeneous region, became not only a significant marker forthe identity of the French Flemish, but a real cultural division. TIMOTHY BAYCROFT is lecturer in French history, University of Sheffield.

This book retrieves conceptions of national identity and ways of feeling French that competed against each other in the 19th century. By distinguishing between two groups of French writers, three who experienced the 1789 revolution as adults (de Gouges, de Chateaubriand, de Staël) and three who did not (Stendhal, Mérimée, Sand), it captures evolving understandings of the nation, as well as thoughts and emotions associated with national belonging.