From the Capitoline Hill to the Tarpeian Rock? Free French coming out of war (original) (raw)
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Les prisonniers de guerre allemands: France, 1944–1949, by Fabien Théofilakis
The English Historical Review, 2016
BOOK REVIEWS general the prose is not complex, unlike the weight of reflection and analysis it is required to carry. Although celebrated widely by historians on the left, the denseness and complexity of Una guerra civile left a vast space open for right-wing populists to exploit as Berlusconi and his neo-Fascist allies rose to power in the 1990s, and set about demolishing the Resistance 'myths' once and for all. This revisionist effort dominated the anniversary celebrations of 1995 and 2005. But the neo-Fascists split with Berlusconi in 2010, and faded away. The 2015 celebrations were the first in seventy years not to be dominated by the contingent political struggles between left and right of the moment, and passed by very quietly. In general, the economic crisis, which is also political and institutional, buried the old twentieth-century questions under a crushing weight of concern about the future. But Pavone's book will always remain as the outstanding monument to the Resistance movement in its philosophical and political dimensions. To the extent that this new edition in English generates heightened attention and respect from outside for the achievements of the partisan forces in Italy, that will be a measure of its success.
This famous quote by Jean-Paul Sartre, written in 1944, refers to a troubled and painful context: the years of occupation on French territory. Between resistance and collaboration, a whole grey area and an interlope world arise. The temptation to give in to fear, revenge or greed is opposed to involved acts, sublime in their selflessness. For the survivor Jorge Semprún, evil and good exist side by side in mankind, even in the state of exception of the concentration camp (G. Agamben). Neither can be eradicated or forbidden. Literature appears to be the proper space to expose these paradoxes and to suggest the ontological stake. Through a new corpus that has been very little studied until now, this comparative study aims to echo Sartre's assertion that “for the secret of a man is not his Oedipus complex, or inferiority complex, it is the very limit of his liberty, it is his power of resistance to torture and death” (Situations, III, 1948).
France 1939–1945: From strange defeat to pseudo‐liberation
Journal of labor and society, 2020
This essay provides a class‐analysis interpretation of France's role in World War II. Determined to eliminate the perceived revolutionary threat emanating from its restless working class, France's elite arranged in 1940 for the country to be defeated by its “external enemy,” Nazi Germany. The fruit of that betrayal was a victory over its “internal enemy,” the working class. It permitted installing a fascist regime under Pétain, and this “Vichy‐France”—like Nazi Germany—was a paradise for the industrialists and all other members of the upper class, but a hell for workers and other plebeians. Unsurprisingly, the Resistance was mostly working‐class, and its plans for postwar France included severe punishment for the collaborators and very radical reforms. After Stalingrad, the elite, desperate to avoid that fate, switched its loyalty to the country's future American masters, who were determined to make France and the rest of Europe free for capitalism. It proved necessary, however, to allow the recalcitrant leader of the conservative Resistance, Charles de Gaulle, to come to power. In any event, the “Gaullist” compromise made it possible for the French upper class to escape punishment for its pro‐Nazi sins and to maintain its power and privileges after the liberation.
En territoire occupé, Italiens et Allemands à Nice, 1942–1944
Modern & Contemporary France, 2014
repenser et de renégocier constamment les frontières entre le masculin et le féminin et de se repositionner par rapport à un Autre féminin ou à une masculinité périphérique' (14). Insofar as la virilité requires socially displayed proofs, it is more constrained than the relatively fluid masculin, in which 'on peut se sentir masculin sans s'aligner sur un idéal viril'. Thus if la virilité is usually defensive and 'emprisonnée dans ses codes universels' , le masculin 'joue avec le genre qu'il peut décider de troubler, parodier, renégocier, dépasser' (15). It is in this latter sense that men can experiment with gender, and even women are able to find a space in which to perform 'masculinity'. Many chapters explore the nuances of this distinction, more than can be properly addressed in the space of this short review. In one very interesting