The centenary of the French presence in Algeria 1930 was commemorated in France through a variety of events and the production of posters glorifying France civilising mission in Algeria, notably the modernisation of the agricultural sector. On the other hand, the French Communist Party (PCF) and its affiliated union (CGTU) following the III International’ s anti-colonialism, insisted on colonial and capitalist exploitation of Algeria. The two posters included here allow to visualise such contrasting arguments

Eugène Delacroix’ painting ‘Le 28 juillet 1830: la liberté guidant le peuple’ (1831) was not welcomed by the critics in 1831, but has become since an icone of French republican identity. This resource provides links to two websites which contextualise and critically analyse the ambiguous and contested message of Delacroix’ s painting. Since then, the central character of the painting has been used, reused and transformed a countless number of time. At the start of the XXI century , its remains an ubiquitous icone, but its meaning may have changed. Undergraduate students may want to compare Delacroix’ painting with the poster produced by the French Communist Party in September 2009 for its annual conference/ celebration (La Fête de l’Humanité). The comparison may also include the flyer produced by Solidaires (a cartel of unions on the left of the left) for the 26 January 2009 demonstration against the reforms initiated by President Sarkozy. Students may want to discuss whether and how different re-workings of ‘Marianne’ have altered its meaning. Earlier representations are also included. A short indicative bibliography is included, stressing the significance of Maurice Agulhon's work on the subject. In his early work, Agulhon shows that there are two female symbols: 'Marianne', the earthy, loose-haired, threatening radical, with her Phrygian hat, sculpted by Francois Rude (1784-1855)on the Arc de Triomphe and a more stately, serene Goddess of Liberty with her start-girt crown, representing the Republique conservatrice. Finally further historical contextualisation, archival resources and interviews with experts can be accessed through the website 'France 1815 to 2003'.

An eighteenth-century map of France by Jean-Aimar Piganiol de la force. Used for description and travel. The original copy of this image can be found at the Roderic Bowen Library and Archives, University of Wales Lampeter.

A selection of resources built around the theme of the French presence in Africa

This collection contains original documents, academic texts and bibliographical references related to France and in its former Sub-Sahara African colonies.

Paper given September 2008 by Mark Greengrass entitled: 'Governing Rhetorics in Transitional Politics: The case of Henri IV of France (with some Dutch comparisons)'. This paper discusses transitions of politics in Bourbon France and the Dutch Republic.

Images of Eighteenth Century French Costume supplied by the collections of the Roderic Bowen Library and Archives, University of Wales Lampeter.

Robert Guédiguian’s film Army of crime (2009) should be understood in the context of contemporary debates about French national identity and the contribution of immigrants to French society (see interview with the lead actor,Simon Abkarian). The film throws light on the role played iby anti-fascist refugees from Spain, Hungary, Poland, Armenia, Italy during the Second World War in France (See Official UK Trailer[Youtube]). These refugees, often Jews, close or members of the Communist Party, saw France as the country of human rights and were often the first one to organise resisters’ networks. Fighting in the Communist-led FTP-MOI (Francs-tireurs et partisans – main-d'œuvre immigrée), they were specifically targetted by the Nazis and the Vichy regime, as testified by the infamnous ‘Affiche rouge’. Poetry (Louis Aragon’s 1956 Strophes pour se souvenir) and mortuary monuments (such as the ones to be found in the Pére Lachaise cimetry in Paris, commemorating the role of Spaniards and immigrants in the Resistance movements),have been the traditional media through which their memory has been commemorated. Recently, Toulouse, ‘capital of Spanish republican exile’, has set up a ‘remembrance tour’ of the city. The Ciy Council has produced a (touristic?) leaflet to guide visitors through the major sites of Spanish Resistance (included here). A short bibliography points to the way academic research has also approached the subject.

Until the Deixonne Law (1951) (see attached document), the status of regional languages in France had been rather precarious. Suspicion that regional languages hindered the propagation of progressive ideas and favoured separatist tendencies was rife among left-wing republicans. In this letter, a primary school teacher explained how the love of Breton is not incompatible with the love of France and how pedagogically the use of Breton is a tremendous tool to achieve a higher degree of fluency and accuracy in French. The letter is addressed to Maurice Deixonne, who was in charge to draft the legislative proposal which led to the formal, but limited, recognition of regional languages in 1951. The original letter can be found in OURS (Office Universitaire de Recherche Socialiste, Paris), the French Socialist Party’s private archives (web link included here). Final year and MA students may find this original document useful to discuss, evaluate and revisit the complex relations between French republicanism and cultural minorities.

In this inaugural lecture, Professor Tony Chafer charts the evolution of French interest in, and relations with, Africa from the 19th century to today. The text, the video of the lecture and the corresponding PowerPoint presentation are included here with a separate bibliography.

After President Chirac's official recognition (1995) that France actively participated in deportation of Jews, commemorative plaques were erected on the wall of each Parisian school stipulating the number of children who had been deported in each 'arrondissement'. (Here a plaque in the XVIII arrondissement, from which more than 700 Jewish children were rounded up by the French police before being deported). Chirac's 1995 discourse (here included in French) about the responsibility of the French state in the deportation of Jews marked a departure from the previous Gaullist orthodoxy. On the occasion of the official opening of the new exhibition in the French pavilion of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in January 2005, President Chirac reflected on the impact of the Holocaust on France (text in English). A few days before, President Chirac inaugurated the 'Memorial de la Shoah' in the IV arrondissement of Paris. Just outside the Memorial, 'Le Mur des Justes' (Righteous among the Nations) commemorates the French people who risked their lives to save Jews from extermination during the Occupation (6 photos included). Facing the 'Murs des Justes', in a street recently remaned 'Allée des Justes', a commemorative plaque adornes the door of the local secondary school (College Frederic Couperin, Photo included. It reminds passers-by that out of the 11,000 Jewish children arrested by the Vichy police in France between 1942 and 1944, 500 came from the 4th arrondissement of Paris. They were deported to Auschwitz. A Weblink to the INA site (Institut National de l'Audiovisuel) will enable visitors to see how the French television channel France 2 covered the event. This resource also includes a link to the Memorial de la Shoah in Paris, a site which provides invaluable resources (see in particular its 'Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine'. Students with a good understanding of postwar politics and history may want to use these sources to explain why Chirac broke from the postwar Gaullist narrative.

The Pecresse law (11.08.2007) aims to give French universities a degree of autonomy and freedom (also known as ' loi LRU', i.e loi relative aux libertés et responsabilités des universités).Its introduction has generated a massive discontent and a high level of opposition among students and academics alike. As part of her undergraduate dissertation on 'Toulouse 2008: Ideology, Tactics and Organisation of Student Movements 40 years after May 68' (supervised by Dr Natalya Vince), Rosalind Parkin studied the reception of the Pecresse law in Toulouse, focussing on students' opposition to the law. A good level of French is necessary to understand the text of the law itself as well as the arguments developed by Association Générale des Etudiants de Toulouse or Democratie et Socialism, a think-tank on the left of the Socialist Party (PS). Undergraduate and PG students are most likely to benefit from such sources.

Once France’s sub-Saharan African colonies became independent in 1960, African troops who had served France loyally both in the world wars and in its wars of decolonization did not fit easily into the official, nationalist narrative of postcolonial African leaders of an African nation united in the struggle against French colonialism. As a result their role and experiences were largely ‘forgotten’ for some forty years after independence. A powerful symbol of this official forgetting is that, as recently as 1999, in France’s oldest African colony Senegal, a French colonial monument originally cast in 1923 to commemorate the role played by African soldiers fighting for France in World War I, was removed to a small cemetery on the outskirts of Dakar because its presence in the centre of the city was considered too redolent of the country’s colonial past. Yet five years later the monument made a great comeback to the city centre after the announcement by the President Wade, in the presence of a plethora of African heads of state of former French colonies, of the creation of a national day to commemorate the tirailleurs. At the same time he also announced that the Senegalese government would henceforth pay an allowance to all Senegalese war veterans still alive on 2 March 2000, in addition to the increase in African war veterans’ pensions recently announced by France. Following this the monument was restored to the centre of the city to become the focal point of a vast commemoration project in which the Place de la Gare was renamed the Place du Tirailleur and designated as a memorial to African soldiers who perished in both world wars.

Dr Joseph McGonagle, Lecturer in Cultural Studies in the French Speaking World, University of Manchester answers questions on key themes in filmic representations of Franco-Algerian relations, the advantages and pitfalls of using film to help students understand historical and contemporary Franco-Algerian relations(interview carried out by Natalya Vince, March 2009). The 12 minute interview took place just after the one-day conference on 'France, North Africa and the Middle East Interdisciplinary and Multimedia Perspectives', held at the University of Portsmouth on 18 March 2009. 1. What are some of the key themes in films that represent Franco-Algerian relations? 2. What are some of the advantages and some of the pitfalls of using films as a tool to help students to understand contemporaries or Franco-Algerian relations? 3. Do you think students are able to place their understanding of films in context of the real world? Do you think there’s a danger of over –interpretation? 4. Which 3 films would you choose which are most useful for students to study?

Mark Greengrass, 'Rumeur et Bien Public dans Les Ligues Provinciales Catholiques: l'exemple de Laon'. Presented 17 July 2008. Discusses in particular Jean Bodin and the Catholic League.

Student politics in France is often dominated by a high degree - and high visibility- of political radicalism. If such radicalism is often the product of a well-organised minority on the extreme left of the political spectrum, it remains a central part of university life. As part of her undergraduate dissertation on 'Toulouse 2008: Ideology, Tactics and Organisation of Student Movements 40 years after May 68' (supervised by Dr Natalya Vince), Rosalind Parkin photographed a series of posters during her year abroad in Toulouse (2007-2008). Students' radicalism is not only aimed at president Sarkozy's reforms of higher education, but also expresses a commitment to feminism, anti-elitism, class-based politics, anti-fascism, and social solidarity. A good level of French is necessary to understand the posters and final year undergraduate and PG students are most likely to benefit from them.

This half day conference, organised by Dr Manus McGrogan at the University of Portsmouth on 12 May 2011, uncovered the trajectories of some of the movements that emerged in early 1970s France, helping to define the radical left politics of the era. This was the aftermath of May ‘68’s mass upheaval, when France, in the grip of student riots and a general strike, had seemed on the verge of revolution. May’s utopian dimension, embodied in slogans such as ‘sous les pavés la plage’ and ‘prenez vos désirs pour la réalité’, held the promise of a world transformed in which each could pursue their own desires, a powerful spur to thousands of young activists, students and workers. The mass revolt of May had also shown that collective action could change the world. These impulses, shaped subsequently by political, socio-cultural and international events, combined to generate new, youth-inflected gender/sexual liberation movements, independent immigrant organisation, ecology groups, underground press, and other movements that were linked to, or autonomous of left political organisation. However, activists also had to contend with a Gaullist State that tentatively introduced reforms, whilst clamping down on the hard left ‘troublions’ still agitating for popular revolt. Intervention in the workers movement also proved problematic given the PCF/CGT dominance in the major workplaces. President Georges Pompidou, on a path of modernising France, perpetuated the social conservatism of his predecessor de Gaulle; faced with these barriers, activists of the Mouvement de Mai sought to merge political radicalism with the cultural underground to fashion an alternative France, as a May-inspired slogan intoned, changer la vie. But what happened to this surge of hope for change? Five academics presented papers on important aspects of this early 1970s radicalism, with the participation of students and lecturers from similar disciplines. They considered the origins and development of the new movements, their significance within Pompidou’s France; the interrelationship of movements, and finally their resonance, or relevance in the France of today. The conference was also part of the undergraduate programme in French History and was generously supported by the LLAS subject centre. The exam was based on the themes developed during the conference. A half day conference, organised at the University of Portsmouth on 12 May 2011, uncovered the trajectories of some of the movements that emerged in early 1970s France, helping to define the radical left politics of the era. This was the aftermath of May ‘68’s mass upheaval, when France, in the grip of student riots and a general strike, had seemed on the verge of revolution. May’s utopian dimension, embodied in slogans such as ‘sous les pavés la plage’ and ‘prenez vos désirs pour la réalité’, held the promise of a world transformed in which each could pursue their own desires, a powerful spur to thousands of young activists, students and workers. The mass revolt of May had also shown that collective action could change the world. These impulses, shaped subsequently by political, socio-cultural and international events, combined to generate new, youth-inflected gender/sexual liberation movements, independent immigrant organisation, ecology groups, underground press, and other movements that were linked to, or autonomous of left political organisation. However, activists also had to contend with a Gaullist State that tentatively introduced reforms, whilst clamping down on the hard left ‘troublions’ still agitating for popular revolt. Intervention in the workers movement also proved problematic given the PCF/CGT dominance in the major workplaces. President Georges Pompidou, on a path of modernising France, perpetuated the social conservatism of his predecessor de Gaulle; faced with these barriers, activists of the Mouvement de Mai sought to merge political radicalism with the cultural underground to fashion an alternative France, as a May-inspired slogan intoned, changer la vie. But what happened to this surge of hope for change? Five academics presented papers on important aspects of this early 1970s radicalism, with the participation of students and lecturers from similar disciplines. They considered the origins and development of the new movements, their significance within Pompidou’s France; the interrelationship of movements, and finally their resonance, or relevance in the France of today. The conference was also part of the undergraduate programme in French History and was generously supported by the LLAS subject centre. The exam was based on the themes developed during the conference.

A lectuer powerpoint presentation for the module 'Theatre of Cruelties'. This lecture deals specifically with Henri IV.

A lecture powerpoint presentation for the module 'Theatre of Cruelties' focued on the prelude to the French Wars of Religion.

A lecture powerpoint presentation for the module 'Theatre of Cruelties'. This lecture deals with the monarchy's initial role in fighting heresy.

A lecture powerpoint presentation for the module 'Theatre of Cruelties' . This lecture dels with Geneva and Jean Calvin's role in the French Reformation.

A lecture powerpoint presentation for the module 'Theatre of Cruelties'. This lecture deals with the failure of the French monarchy between 1559-1562 and the outbreak of civil war.

A lecture powerpoint presentation for the module 'Theatre of Cruelties'. This lecture deals with religious, judicial and political reform.

A lecture powerpoint presentation for the module 'Theatre of Cruelties'. This lecture handles the topic of the St Bartholomew's massacre.

A lecture powerpoint presentation for the module 'Theatre of Cruelties'. This lecture refocuses the discussion of the French wars of religion to the nobles and how their culture added to a culture of 'noble violence'.

Seminar outline with bibliography.

Seminar outline with bibliography and biography on Richard Verstegan.

Seminar outline with seminar assignments, bibliography and extracts.

Seminar outline with seminar assignments, bibliography and extracts.

Seminar outline with seminar assignments, bibliography and extracts.

Seminar outline with seminar assignments, and a bibliography

Seminar outline with bibliography. This resource also includes two papers on topics related to the seminar - authored by Mark Greengrass.

Seminar outline with bibliography.

Seminar outline with bibliography and extracts.

This resource includes a reproduction of a 1923 monument commemmorating the Tirailleurs Sénégalais who fought for France during the First World War. The original of this monument was erected in Reims and destroyed by the Germans in 1940. An exact copy used to be displayed in Bamako (Mali) but is not currently on public display. This small-scale reproduction may be viewed at the Musée des Forces Armées in Dakar (Senegal) This resource also includes the reproduction of a certificate awarded to a Tirailleurs Sénégalais batallion, in recognition of its bravery in battle during the First World War. The website: www.tirailleursenegalais.com, is very interesting in the way that it rehabilitates the tirailleurs into a national narrative ('batisseurs du monde libre') but of course completely glosses over the fact that many tirailleurs also fought for France in its two wars of decolonisation in Indochina and Algeria.