Thursday, two years later Francecontroversial Increase in retirement ageThe National Assembly voted to withdraw the reform. Although the news was politically explosive because the far -right national rally helped the opposition on the left acquire a majority in the vote, the decision did not give any real legal result.
The situation reflects the continuous failure of the country to fight against structural reforms since the parliamentary elections last summer, which left the government without absolute majority.
But in the field of memory politics, there have been important movements. During the same week as the resolution of the toothless retirees, parliamentarians adopted three texts which reclaim historical events or offer the prospect of repairs.
Alfred Dreyfus was posthumously promoted
On June 2, the French Parliament voted unanimously to appoint posthumous Alfred Dreyfus to the rank of general brigadier. The Jewish officer was wrongly accused of high treason in 1894, on the basis of falsified evidence according to which he revealed military secrets at the German Embassy in Paris. Dreyfus then spent four years in the criminal colony of the Island of the Devil off the coast of French Guyana.
The Franco-German dimension of the case had explosive implications on foreign policy. The Jewish origins of the suspect and its family history in the Alsace-Lorraine region, which passed under German domination after the Franco-Prussian war, and tense relations with Germany, made it an ideal target for the nationalist distrust of many French people are home to the time.
The writer Émile Zola ranked on the side of Dreyfus in his essay “I accuse …!”, Who played an essential role in the exemption from the officer and military rehabilitation in 1906. Nevertheless, after having served in the First World War as Lieutenant-Colonel, Dreyfus was only restored to a lower grade.
This posthumous promotion of Dreyfus must still adopt the Senate. Alsatian deputy Charles Sitzenstuhl, member of the Central-Street Renaissance party of the French president Emmanuel Macron, who presented the initiative, offered a link with the present as a warning: “the anti-Semitism that afflicted Alfred Dreyfus is not a thing of the distant past”, he weakened.
Recognize Indochina returnees
One day after Dreyfus vote, the National Assembly also adopted a law to recognize and compensate for the former returnees of French Indochina after The colonial rule of territories, including Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, ended In 1954. About 44,000 people were repatriated to France, including colonial officials, soldiers and their families, the descendants of French colonizers and local women, as well as local collaborators.
Between 4,000 and 6,000 repatriated were found in temporary camps, which were often equipped with wooden barracks that lacked heating and plumbing. Rapatrians were also subject to degrading policies which included prohibitions to go out and have cars or other luxury products.
The new law introduced by the leftist Socialist Party now provides for financial support according to someone’s length of stay in the camps. It is estimated that up to 1,600 people could claim compensation.
Repairs for Haiti?
On June 5, the Assembly adopted a resolution bearing a “double debt” in Haiti which dates back to 1825. It was the year that France forced Haitiwhich had declared independence in 1804, to pay compensation of 150 million gold. This was conceived as recognition of independence which would also compensate for the loss of French colonial goods, including the revenues of slaves. Haiti was forced to settle this “independence debt” over the decades – a considerable economic burden that has contributed to long -term poverty and instability on the island.
The resolution, initiated by the Communist Party, calls for recognition, reimbursement and repairs for Haiti. But the text does not include concrete political stages or financial agreements. Nevertheless, the far -right national rally voted against.
A story to remember
The policy of memory has a certain tradition in France. In 2001, the law “Taubira”, named after the parliamentarian who presented it, recognized the slave trade and the practice of slavery as crimes against humanity. Since then, the subject has been one of school programs in France.
In October 2006, the National Assembly adopted a bill to criminalize the denial of the Armenian genocide From 1915 in the Ottoman Empire with a year in prison or a fine of € 45,000 ($ 51,300). The bill never entered into force after having failed in the Senate and was followed by an initiative condemned in the same way introduced under the President Nicolas Sarkozy. This bill adopted the two chambers of Parliament, but was declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Council in February 2012, which declared that it constituted illegal interference in freedom of expression and research.
Another example is the treatment of the so-called “Senegalese skirmishers”, the colonial soldiers of Africa who fought for France in the two world wars. For decades, many have received significantly lower pensions than their French comrades, especially if they lived outside France after decolonization. It was not until 2009 that President Sarkozy decreed an equalization of retirement benefits, a stage which has a great symbolic meaning.
Social maturity or empty gestures?
The last peak in such initiatives encountered interpretations mixed by political scientists. Some experts see the desire to take historical responsibility as a form of social maturity. But others point out that in a politically paralyzed legislature, symbolic initiatives are easier to adopt than structural reforms in fields such as pensions, education or budget.
This article was initially written in German.