France

La France et la Belgique occupées sont, durant la Première Guerre mondiale, l’objet d’une propagande intensive orchestrée par l’autorité allemande. Le journal le plus important est sans aucun doute la Gazette des Ardennes dont le rayonnement s’étend jusqu’en territoire libre. Cet organe pamphlétaire utilise la politique étrangère de la Grande-Bretagne comme thématique principale. L’hostilité historique avec la France ainsi que la politique coloniale agressive sont utilisées sans modération afin de modeler l’image d’un pays cynique, calculateur et dépourvu de toute humanité. Une multitude d’articles, poèmes et caricatures sont publiés durant les quatre années d’existence du journal. Le présent article vise à examiner la façon dont cette propagande fut orchestrée. Les thèmes principaux, ainsi que les formes employées, sont détaillés ainsi que la réponse apportée par la Grande-Bretagne.

The Italian occupation of France has been largely forgotten both in France and Italy, but also in Britain. This has been made possible only by an almost complete lack of commemoration, both at a national and regional level. The Second World War in France has been dominated by the German experience and occupation, reducing the Italian occupation as an almost “non-event”. The comparably gentle and non-obtrusive nature of the occupation has inevitably been one of the main reasons for this lack of commemoration, yet the regions occupied by Italy were particularly active during the period. The reasons for this lack of commemoration, therefore, are rooted in the exaggerated memory of the Resistance, the myth of that Italians were brava gente – good people, and the rapid re-establishment of Franco-Italian relations following the war. The paper also seeks to explain whether only “traumatic” events are worth commemorating, comparing the Italian and German occupations and their place in the national consciousness.

""Au carrefour de l'Etat, du marché et de la société civile, de l'intime et de la sphère publique, du national et du local, la gastronomie est l'un des aspects incontournables de l'identité culturelle française. Cet article analyse la gastronomie comme une forme de nationalisme ordinaire en interne, mais aussi comme un nationalisme culturel en externe. Au plan national, la gastronomie permet en effet de « rappeler » la nation dans la vie quotidienne des gens ordinaires. Mais dans la mondialisation, elle nourrit aussi un nationalisme culturel basé sur les vertus d'un savoir-vivre français vis-à-vis des autres nations. Dans ce processus, l'Etat joue un rôle intermittent, souvent marginal, dans la définition et la valorisation d'une cuisine nationale.


At the crossroads between the state, the market and civil society, the personal and the public spheres, the national and the local, gastronomy is one of the central features of contemporary French cultural identity. This article argues that gastronomy can be analysed both as a form of banal nationalism within the country and a manifestation of cultural nationalism abroad. Inside France, gastronomy "flags" the nation in the daily lives of ordinary people. But in the global world, it also feeds a form of cultural nationalism based on the alleged virtues of French savoir-vivre vis-à-vis other nations. The article also reflects on the intermittent, ailing role of the French state in the definition and promotion of a national cuisine.""

Nowhere else do politicians and citizens refer as much to the notion of „republic” as in France, where its existence, non-existence and its quality seem to be a cornerstone problem of post-revolution political history. The word republic is a polysemic one. In France, for instance, it can refer to the contrast of monarchy, but also to the concrete system of government of the Fifth Republic. It can also refer to a special normative idea developed in France. The latter normative notion covers concrete values like the republican conception of (financial) solidarity, democracy itself, the radical separation of the church and the state, or the free and obligatory education system. However, the idea and its practical realization is disputable precisely due to its inherent normativity – on the other hand, critics often face the wrath of the republican elite in the form of the „republican reflex”. This study aims to distinguish and explain these different usages of the word “republic” in the French context, even if the French themselves seldom do this exercise.