Olivier LeCour Grandmaison
Encyclopedia
Olivier LeCour Grandmaison (September 19, 1960, Paris
) is a French
historian
. He is a professor of political science
at the Evry-Val d'Essonne University and also teach at the Collège International de Philosophie
, and mainly works on colonialism
issues. President of the October 17, 1961 Association Against Oblivion (which advocates official recognition of the crimes committed by the Fifth Republic
during the 1961 Paris massacre
), he is best known for his book Coloniser, Exterminer - Sur la guerre et l'Etat colonial (2005).
period at the end of the 19th century were then used for the Holocaust. He thus underlines how both Tocqueville
and Michelet openly talked of "extermination
" about the colonization of Western United States
and the Indian removal
period. Hence, he quotes Tocqueville himself, in 1841, about the French conquest of Algeria
:
"Whatever the case, continued Tocqueville, we may say in a general manner that all political freedoms
must be suspended in Algeria." According to LeCour Grandmaison, "De Tocqueville thought the conquest of Algeria was important for two reasons: first, his understanding of the international situation and France’s position in the world, and, second, changes in French society." Tocqueville, who despised the July monarchy
(1830-1848), believed that war and colonization would "restore national pride, threatened, he believed, by "the gradual softening of social mores" in the middle classes. Their taste for "material pleasures" was spreading to the whole of society, giving it "an example of weakness and egotism"." Applauding the methods of Thomas Robert Bugeaud, Tocqueville went as far as saying that "war in Africa" had become a "science":
According to LeCour Grandmaison, history of war
fare is not limited to the history of technical progress of weapons, but should englobe the "juridical, administrative and conceptual arsenal" which accompanies it: "We can only understand the extreme violences of the 1848 civil war - most of the times qualified as "bloody repression" - if we replace them in a longer genealogy, by the way exterior, and brought back to what was experimented before, most notably during the Algerian war [that is, the invasion of Algeria starting in 1830]" In the same interview, LeCour Grandmaison, basing himself on texts from Zola
, Victor Hugo
, Lamartine, but also Darwin
, André Gide
, Albert Londres
, Jules Verne
, Maupassant
, Foucault
, Barthes
, Joseph Conrad
, etc., distinguish criticisms of the abuses of colonialism and criticisms of the principle itself of colonization. He goes as far as claiming how even Marx and Engels were not immune to this racialist ideology
of the 19th century, as these authors also considered the colonization as inevitable and qualified, as did all their contemporaries, non-European people as "primitive
s" and "barbarian
s". It wasn't until the Third International that the socialist movement really opposed itself to colonialism and supported national liberation movements.
" under the French Third Republic
, notable for example with the 1881 Indigenous Code applied in Algeria. Answering to the question "Isn't it excessive to talk about a "state racism" under the Third Republic?", he answered:
voted by the Union for a Popular Movement
(UMP), which demanded to teachers to teach the "positive values" of the French presence abroad, "in particular in North Africa". The law was not only accused of interfering with the autonomy of the University toward the state, but also of being an obvious case of historical revisionism
. Confronted with intense criticisms, both from historians and the French left-wing and from abroad (e.g. president of Algeria Abdelaziz Bouteflika
and Négritude
writer Aimé Césaire
), president Jacques Chirac
finally had the controversial law repealed in 2006.
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
) is a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
. He is a professor of political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
at the Evry-Val d'Essonne University and also teach at the Collège International de Philosophie
Collège international de philosophie
The Collège international de philosophie , located in Paris' 5th arrondissement, is a tertiary education institute placed under the trusteeship of the French government department of research and chartered under the French 1901 Law on associations...
, and mainly works on colonialism
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
issues. President of the October 17, 1961 Association Against Oblivion (which advocates official recognition of the crimes committed by the Fifth Republic
French Fifth Republic
The Fifth Republic is the fifth and current republican constitution of France, introduced on 4 October 1958. The Fifth Republic emerged from the collapse of the French Fourth Republic, replacing the prior parliamentary government with a semi-presidential system...
during the 1961 Paris massacre
Paris massacre of 1961
The Paris massacre of 1961 was a massacre in Paris on 17 October 1961, during the Algerian War . Under orders from the head of the Parisian police, Maurice Papon, the French police attacked a demonstration of some 30,000 pro-FLN Algerians...
), he is best known for his book Coloniser, Exterminer - Sur la guerre et l'Etat colonial (2005).
"Colonize, Exterminate" (2005)
In this book, he claims how techniques and concepts forged during the New ImperialismNew Imperialism
New Imperialism refers to the colonial expansion adopted by Europe's powers and, later, Japan and the United States, during the 19th and early 20th centuries; expansion took place from the French conquest of Algeria until World War I: approximately 1830 to 1914...
period at the end of the 19th century were then used for the Holocaust. He thus underlines how both Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville was a French political thinker and historian best known for his Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution . In both of these works, he explored the effects of the rising equality of social conditions on the individual and the state in...
and Michelet openly talked of "extermination
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
" about the colonization of Western United States
Western United States
.The Western United States, commonly referred to as the American West or simply "the West," traditionally refers to the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. Because the U.S. expanded westward after its founding, the meaning of the West has evolved over time...
and the Indian removal
Indian Removal
Indian removal was a nineteenth century policy of the government of the United States to relocate Native American tribes living east of the Mississippi River to lands west of the river...
period. Hence, he quotes Tocqueville himself, in 1841, about the French conquest of Algeria
French rule in Algeria
French Algeria lasted from 1830 to 1962, under a variety of governmental systems. From 1848 until independence, the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria was administered as an integral part of France, much like Corsica and Réunion are to this day. The vast arid interior of Algeria, like the rest...
:
"In France I have often heard people I respect, but do not approve, deplore [the army] burning harvests, emptying granaries and seizing unarmed men, women and children. As I see it, these are unfortunate necessities that any people wishing to make war on the Arabs must accept... I believe the laws of war entitle us to ravage the country and that we must do this, either by destroying crops at harvest time, or all the time by making rapid incursions, known as raids, the aim of which is to carry off men and flocks"
"Whatever the case, continued Tocqueville, we may say in a general manner that all political freedoms
Freedom (political)
Political freedom is a central philosophy in Western history and political thought, and one of the most important features of democratic societies...
must be suspended in Algeria." According to LeCour Grandmaison, "De Tocqueville thought the conquest of Algeria was important for two reasons: first, his understanding of the international situation and France’s position in the world, and, second, changes in French society." Tocqueville, who despised the July monarchy
July Monarchy
The July Monarchy , officially the Kingdom of France , was a period of liberal constitutional monarchy in France under King Louis-Philippe starting with the July Revolution of 1830 and ending with the Revolution of 1848...
(1830-1848), believed that war and colonization would "restore national pride, threatened, he believed, by "the gradual softening of social mores" in the middle classes. Their taste for "material pleasures" was spreading to the whole of society, giving it "an example of weakness and egotism"." Applauding the methods of Thomas Robert Bugeaud, Tocqueville went as far as saying that "war in Africa" had become a "science":
"war in Africa is a science. Everyone is familiar with its rules and everyone can apply those rules with almost complete certainty of success. One of the greatest services that Field Marshal Bugeaud has rendered his country is to have spread, perfected and made everyone aware of this new science" .Thus, LeCour Grandmaison claims that the techniques employed during the Algerian War (1954-62) by the French army were rooted in past history.
According to LeCour Grandmaison, history of war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
fare is not limited to the history of technical progress of weapons, but should englobe the "juridical, administrative and conceptual arsenal" which accompanies it: "We can only understand the extreme violences of the 1848 civil war - most of the times qualified as "bloody repression" - if we replace them in a longer genealogy, by the way exterior, and brought back to what was experimented before, most notably during the Algerian war [that is, the invasion of Algeria starting in 1830]" In the same interview, LeCour Grandmaison, basing himself on texts from Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
, Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
, Lamartine, but also Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
, André Gide
André Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...
, Albert Londres
Albert Londres
Albert Londres was a French journalist and writer. One of the inventors of investigative journalism, he criticized abuses of colonialism such as forced labour. Albert Londres gave his name to a journalism prize for Francophone journalists.- Biography :Londres was born in Vichy in 1884...
, Jules Verne
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
, Maupassant
Guy de Maupassant
Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was a popular 19th-century French writer, considered one of the fathers of the modern short story and one of the form's finest exponents....
, Foucault
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
, Barthes
Roland Barthes
Roland Gérard Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, social theory, Marxism, anthropology and...
, Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...
, etc., distinguish criticisms of the abuses of colonialism and criticisms of the principle itself of colonization. He goes as far as claiming how even Marx and Engels were not immune to this racialist ideology
Racialism
Racialism is an emphasis on race or racial considerations. Currently, racialism entails a belief in the existence and significance of racial categories, but not necessarily that any absolute hierarchy between the races has been demonstrated by a rigorous and comprehensive scientific process...
of the 19th century, as these authors also considered the colonization as inevitable and qualified, as did all their contemporaries, non-European people as "primitive
Primitive
Primitive may refer to:* Anarcho-primitivism, an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization* Primitive culture, one that lacks major signs of economic development or modernity...
s" and "barbarian
Barbarian
Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...
s". It wasn't until the Third International that the socialist movement really opposed itself to colonialism and supported national liberation movements.
State racism
After Michel Foucault, LeCour Grandmaison has spoken of a "state racismState racism
State racism is a concept used by French philosopher Michel Foucault to designate the reappropriation of the historical and political discourse of "race struggle", in the late seventeenth century....
" under the French Third Republic
French Third Republic
The French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...
, notable for example with the 1881 Indigenous Code applied in Algeria. Answering to the question "Isn't it excessive to talk about a "state racism" under the Third Republic?", he answered:
"No, if we can recognize "state racism" as the vote and implementation of discriminatory measures, grounded on a combination of racial, religious and cultural criteria, in those territories. The 1881 Indigenous Code is a monument of this genre [monument du genre] ! Considered by contemporary prestigious jurists as a "juridical monstruosity", this code planned special offenses and penalties for "Arabs". It was then extended to other territories of the empireFrench colonial empiresThe French colonial empire was the set of territories outside Europe that were under French rule primarily from the 17th century to the late 1960s. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was the second-largest in the world behind the British Empire. The French colonial empire...
. On one hand, a state of rule of lawRule of lawThe rule of law, sometimes called supremacy of law, is a legal maxim that says that governmental decisions should be made by applying known principles or laws with minimal discretion in their application...
for a minority of French and Europeans located in the colonies. On the other hand, a permanent state of exceptionState of exceptionState of Exception may mean:* State of exception* State of Exception , a book written by Giorgio Agamben...
for the "indigenousIndigenous peoples of AfricaThe indigenous people of Africa are those people of Africa whose way of life, attachment or claims to particular lands, and social and political standing in relation to other more dominant groups have resulted in their substantial marginalisation within modern African states The indigenous people...
" people. This situation lasted until 1945."
February 23, 2005 law
Thus, it comes as no wonder that Olivier LeCour Grandmaison was part of the historians who harshly criticized the February 23, 2005 lawFrench law on colonialism
The February 23, 2005, French law on colonialism was an act passed by the Union for a Popular Movement conservative majority, which imposed on high-school teachers to teach the "positive values" of colonialism to their students...
voted by the Union for a Popular Movement
Union for a Popular Movement
The Union for a Popular Movement is a centre-right political party in France, and one of the two major contemporary political parties in the country along with the center-left Socialist Party...
(UMP), which demanded to teachers to teach the "positive values" of the French presence abroad, "in particular in North Africa". The law was not only accused of interfering with the autonomy of the University toward the state, but also of being an obvious case of historical revisionism
Historical revisionism (negationism)
Historical revisionism is either the legitimate scholastic re-examination of existing knowledge about a historical event, or the illegitimate distortion of the historical record such that certain events appear in a more or less favourable light. For the former, i.e. the academic pursuit, see...
. Confronted with intense criticisms, both from historians and the French left-wing and from abroad (e.g. president of Algeria Abdelaziz Bouteflika
Abdelaziz Bouteflika
Abdelaziz Bouteflika is the ninth President of Algeria. He has been in office since 1999. He continued emergency rule until 24 February 2011, and presided over the end of the bloody Algerian Civil War in 2002...
and Négritude
Négritude
Négritude is a literary and ideological movement, developed by francophone black intellectuals, writers, and politiciansin France in the 1930s by a group that included the future Senegalese President Léopold Sédar Senghor, Martinican poet Aimé Césaire, and the Guianan Léon Damas.The Négritude...
writer Aimé Césaire
Aimé Césaire
Aimé Fernand David Césaire was a French poet, author and politician from Martinique. He was "one of the founders of the négritude movement in Francophone literature".-Student, educator, and poet:...
), president Jacques Chirac
Jacques Chirac
Jacques René Chirac is a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He previously served as Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988 , and as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.After completing his studies of the DEA's degree at the...
finally had the controversial law repealed in 2006.
Some articles
See also
- ColonialismColonialismColonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
- French rule in AlgeriaFrench rule in AlgeriaFrench Algeria lasted from 1830 to 1962, under a variety of governmental systems. From 1848 until independence, the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria was administered as an integral part of France, much like Corsica and Réunion are to this day. The vast arid interior of Algeria, like the rest...
- Paris massacre of 1961Paris massacre of 1961The Paris massacre of 1961 was a massacre in Paris on 17 October 1961, during the Algerian War . Under orders from the head of the Parisian police, Maurice Papon, the French police attacked a demonstration of some 30,000 pro-FLN Algerians...
- Sven LindqvistSven LindqvistSven Lindqvist is a Swedish author, whose works include A History of Bombing.-Works in English:*China in Crisis *The Myth of Wu Tao-tzu...
, a Swedish author who also demonstrated links between colonialismColonialismColonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
and the Holocaust