A special issue of the National City of Immigration City takes stock of the military engagement of foreigners, immigrants and colonized in the service of France – these “ natives “, As called the film which helped to rediscover them in 2006.
At a time when the President of the famous Republic, on the beaches of Provence, the “ Admirable courage of colonial troops », A issue of the Revue de la Cité Nationale de l’Immigration returns to this essential component of the French armies: foreigners, immigrants and colonized. For Alain Seksig, who coordinates this sometimes heterogeneous set, the “ time of recognition “(P. 6) came: it is clear that this story has not been the subject, for at least two decades, of an occultation. After scientific works and films (and in particular the important Nativesin 2006), nothing is more opposed to what the general public seizes this past: the review Man & Migration This work here is a popularization, at the same time as it connects these experiences to current debates on French society.
Germans in resistance
The diversity of contributions and authors, historians, sociologists but also military, makes this file an original whole, even if one sometimes struggles to understand its logic. Many articles are reissues ; We perceive through this collection the differentiated journey of several historiographies. The participation of non -colonial foreigners in the French war effort in XXe century is the subject of syntheses from the end of the 1980s. The contribution of immigrants to the Resistance is here at the heart of several contributions, such as that of Philippe Dewitte on Ftp–ME (Immigrant labor, resistant organization of communist foreigners), who pays tribute to these unknown men, often faceless in the French commemoration process. AWBLY AND YAN BRIS devotes an article to the extreme case of foreign engagement for France: that of the German maquisards in the Resistance. An article by Adam Rayski, former head of the Jewish section of the MEfinally describes this “ impetus of immigrants who lead them to throw themselves into the arms of France “, The one that Vichy did not disfigure in the minds of its refugee defenders:” Marianne remains Marianne, always immaculate and in no way marked by the vices of power (P. 72).
The blood shed of colonial soldiers undoubtedly poses more problems in terms of analysis and interpretation. Beyond the figure of the country of immigration, he questions the springs of the colonial republic, the imbroglio of French citizenship in the Empire. Two articles, signed by Philippe Dewitte and Jacques Frémeaux, take the place of summary on this “ blood debt »Contracted with regard to colonial peoples. The first comes back, in his contribution “ 1933-1945, the fight of immigrants for freedom (First published in 1989), on the place and the role of the fighting experience in nationalist fights. The Great War, in particular through its African veterans, played an acceleration role in the process of republican assimilation, but also in its overcoming. Thus, in 1917, the future deputy for Senegal Galalandou Diouf brought this claim in The independent Senegalese : “ Equality in society, as in the trenches before death (Cité p. 18). Jacques Frémeaux recalls, quite conventionally, the “ Citizen factory That could be the army, in its very contradictions, since it could just as well have constituted a home of nationalism.
Chinese cemetery and Muslim cemetery
Some unpublished contributions make the originality of this dossier. The worship rendered to the dead is fully part, today, of the way in which we intend to make the history of wars ; We will salute in this regard two innovative articles which contribute, in this perspective, to fully enrich the proposed panorama. Thus the work of Yassine Chaïb on the Chinese cemetery of Nolette in Picardy, which recalls indirect participation in the war effort, during the First World War, from 140 to 160,000 Chinese workers recruited by Great Britain. Grouped in work camps on the hexagonal territory, including that of Nolette in the Somme which welcomed 3000 of them, this workforce participated in the digging work for trenches, construction of roads and railways, but also in the recovery of the wounded and disobusing on the battlefields. There are 20,000 dead, many of them having remained without burial. NOLETTE, with its 838 tombs, is the largest Chinese necropolis in France. This cemetery is today a place of worship of the ancestors for new Chinese migrants. Marie-Ange d’Adler, for his part, looks at the military square of the Muslim cemetery of the Bobigny: created in 1937, he welcomed the burial of 60 soldiers buried from 1944 to 1954. Registered as historic monuments since 2006, he also plays a role in the appropriation of this history by the new generations which grew up in peacetime.
Finally, this issue gives way to contemporary questions. Régis Pierret’s contribution on the descendants of Harkis is striking in many respects. Reporting a real “ moral torture “Live by children of the French army’s auxiliaries in Algeria, the latter seeks to qualify what could be the identity of these heirs taken at the heart of a real” identity waltz ». The sociologist returns to the suffering felt by those who complain, in their own words, to be “ Assimilated to Maghreb And sometimes make the bearers of an intolerant discourse against immigration and immigrants. The contribution of another sociologist, finally, closes the file on the notion of ethnicity in the French army: from the investigation which he carried out on the French soldiers from immigration, commanded by the Ministry of Defense, Christophe Bertossi summarizes on the experience of these French. The prevalence of the colonial stands out clearly from the interviews conducted, which reveal the construction “ bottom »Of a powerful notion of ethnicity in social relations specific to the military institution. By rejuvenating the colonial categories, the soldiers with a name of North African origin are thus designated by the label of “ Muslim By their regiment companions.
The history of the commitment of foreigners, immigrants and colonized in French defense is not new. She already has her great figures (which we think of Lazare Ponticelli, Boris Halban or Adam Rayski, whose necrological notices are reproduced in the work) ; However, it can be deepened and renewed. This is the main merit of this issue of the review Men & Migration to demonstrate it.