The presidential campaign has begun, and we hear sweeping statements, peremptory assertions, and references to a past that is no longer relevant…
Only in totalitarian and authoritarian states does an official history exist, most often used for political and ideological purposes, if it is not deliberately distorted and falsified.
France, its territories, its populations, its successive regimes, are a progressive construction, an interlocking of political, social, and economic processes. Not a creation ex nihilo.
Educating citizens requires objectivity and the development of critical thinking. It is the first bulwark against proselytism of all kinds and against efforts to destroy a nation founded on diversity, unifying principles, and adherence to a common project.
History, like geography, is a scientific discipline.
France certainly has a history, but it is not an isolate. There are links between past and present. Learning about the past does not mean transforming it by distorting facts or presenting them as one might wish they had been.
There is a “true” history, that is to say, one that relies on sources. Not a history that would belong to invention or fiction.
If there must be a narrative, it can only be one that takes into account all the actors of this history and all its aspects, both the times when France is on the side of progress and those when it experiences dark times.
