The historian in the fray

Since the end of the 1980s, the works of historians on the “ memory “, there “ commemoration » and others « relationships to the past » have multiplied to the point of today constituting a genre in its own right. A largely internationalized field of research now exists: memory studies. Within it, French production has a double specificity: unlike the Anglo-Saxon world, historians are in the majority there and many of them maintain an ambiguous relationship with their object. They are interested in the memory » and others « public uses of history ”, without ever ceasing to reaffirm their illegitimacy. In 2006, from the pens of several historians defending the Freedom for history – in a petition of the same name –, the qualification of “ memorials » was thus used to disqualify a set of laws passed by Parliament and deemed “ unworthy », by the authors of this text, of a democratic regime.

This paradox underlies the work of another historian, Marc Olivier Baruch. Outraged by this indignation, he questions “ these pejorative terms » (p. 213) and this “ deplorable kind » : « that of the relationship to the past as a social pathology. (…) the infinite repetitiveness of works pushing respect for metaphor to the point of modeling their construction on the medical process – etiology, semiology, diagnosis, therapy, prognosis – results in a saturation effect opposite to the desired goal: we read and reread a lot, we understand little, because this literature often lacks reflexivity » (p. 279).

From a reflection on the controversy surrounding these so-called laws “ memorials », Marc Olivier Baruch thus undertakes a critical review of this literature of which he is not one of the actors but which is not completely foreign to him. In 1997, a historian specializing in the workings of the French administration under Vichy, he agreed to testify at the Papon trial. He was then strongly criticized by some of his colleagues, first and foremost Henry Rousso, a historian specializing in “ memory “. This controversy already raised the question of the social role of the historian. This experience undoubtedly nourishes the writing of the book and partly explains why it is a “ essay » (p. 24). This choice of the enlightened pamphlet, freed from the canons of the academy, allows this original work to question several supposed obvious facts which are, among a long list, the “ memory inflation “, there “ competition of memories “, there “ rise of communitarianism ”, or even that of “ clientelism “. Breaking with most of the dominant analyzes among historians, and drawing on recent work by jurists, Marc Olivier Baruch thus defends the thesis that “ memory laws “, “ naturalized » wrongly as “ a homogeneous whole » (p. 20), actually cover “ not a concept but an amalgam » (p. 108). While this offbeat perspective may have inspired several works by sociologists or anthropologists, it is rare from the pen of a historian. It is even more stimulating.

From Pandora’s Box to the Black Box of the State

The point of view adopted is therefore that of a specialist in administration and the State on a phenomenon which, before being “ memorial ”, is indeed legislative. Borrowing more from law than from history, Marc Olivier Baruch is surprised to “ this refusal to seek to understand the modalities of operation of the apparatus of power (…) characteristic of a major weakness of many contemporary historical or legal analyses: by being disinterested in the actual practices of the State, they become prevent us from understanding the power relations at play there, and hence the political functioning of contemporary societies. This work, perceived as excessively austere, is abandoned in favor of recourse to analyzes whose very title sheds light on the part of myth that it covers: the term “Pandora’s box” has thus become a commonplace in writings calling into question causes memory laws » (p. 123).

By paying attention to the “ black box » of the State, that is to say to the procedural mechanisms and professional practices of the actors, the author invites us to look differently at the relationship between State and society which unfolds in the recent constitution of the “ memory » as a contemporary issue. It shows, for example, how ordinary factors, such as the procedural impossibility for Parliament to adopt resolutions, could have played a driving role in the passing of these laws, even more than the famous “ clientelism ” Or “ communitarianism “. Elsewhere, commenting on the notice of assembly issued by the Council of State in February 2009 “ on the responsibility of the State in the deportation resulting from anti-Semitic persecution “, he emphasizes that “ the supreme judge of the State (a) brings into positive law the “memory that must forever be left in the memory of the nation by the exceptional suffering endured by the victims of anti-Semitic persecution”. In fact, it was a new path that he chose by recognizing that institutional speech – in this case the speech given on July 16, 1995 by Jacques Chirac – could have a symbolic function of such magnitude that it became an element of the legal order » (p. 184).

While several researchers are today trying to identify and understand the symbolic dimension of public policies, the reflections proposed open a way to rethink the very nature of public action. Not only, and as the literature on policy feedbackthe most material public action instruments often have symbolic effects, almost always unexpected, but state measures of a symbolic nature can also ultimately have budgetary consequences. Here, putting the legal order into perspective over the long term of history undeniably broadens the perspective.

Although this essay may therefore be of interest to a non-historian reader, it is nevertheless at the heart of history as a discipline that the real, largely implicit, issue of the book lies. We must therefore wait until page 253, out of a total of 293, to see that, through a personal analysis of the laws known as “ memorials “, for Marc Olivier Baruch it is a question of pleading for another history of France, different from the approach in terms of Places of memorycoined by Pierre Nora in the 1980s. Noting, in a note, that “ the question of the State clearly appears to be one of the poor relations of Places of memory » (p. 259, note 94), the author thus returns to the 1980s and the publication of the History of France directed by André Burguière and Jacques Revel for “ regret that the concordance, perhaps desired, of its editorial calendar with that of the Places of memory prevented this enterprise from making as much of an impact on the historiographical landscape as it should have. Because no major historical construction that has appeared since the end of the Second World War places, as it does, the State at the heart of its demonstration. It is revealing (…) that these two major companies of the 1990s both explicitly present themselves as answers to the question, recalled above, of knowing “how to write the history of France”. Chronologically, it was André Burguière and Jacques Revel who answered it first “.

However, it is the second company, that of Places of memorywhich has gone down to posterity not only academic but also, and perhaps above all, social and media, in France as on the international scene, a success including the controversy over “ memory laws » is ultimately just one more manifestation. Marc Olivier Baruch rightly denounces on several occasions the interlocutorism of certain historians who adopt the posture of owners when it comes to public uses of history. It remains that, in turn, he ultimately confines a large part of the issue within the historical discipline, even if it is to defend another political history of France.

An essay that remains to be transformed: beyond history

Indeed, nourished by enlightening intuitions, the subject meets its limits here. A detour through disciplines foreign to the face-to-face encounter between the two parties involved in the debate, history and law, would have made it possible not only to go further, but also to be more convincing. It is therefore strange that almost no reference is made to the work of sociology and anthropology which, for several years now, in France and abroad, has been tackling the issue head-on, and based on empirical material, many of the issues addressed in the book. Marc Olivier Baruch would thus have discovered that several of this research have already confirmed some of the hypotheses he formulates.

This is certainly an essay and not a work of research. But the chosen form ultimately prevents the author from convincing anyone who is not already convinced. The work uses widely known second-hand data. And while repeatedly formulating outlines of empirical research, he immediately dismisses their usefulness (p. 105). Ultimately, the appeal to the moral and indignant complicity of the reader too frequently serves as a support for demonstration as shown, for example, by the repeated recourse to fiction and demonstration through the absurd (p. 11, 106 and 169). Ultimately, just like the signatories of the petition Freedom for history that the work criticizes, Marc Olivier Baruch is indignant, and it is this indignation which most often holds the pen, even if it is to defend an opposing position. No one can deny that the questions of “ memory » are loaded with ethical considerations, but making them an object of enlightened writing, if not research, requires precisely considering them as questions “ ordinary » leaving this unequivocal moral reading. Marc Olivier Baruch’s work is undeniably part of this salutary path, without however fully committing to it. In this respect, the essay remains incomplete.