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‘National Reconciliation?' Mitterrand, Chirac and the Commemorations of Vichy 1992–95

The highly controversial inauguration of a central monument commemorating the deportation of Jews from Paris in 1942 became the focus of presidents Mitterrand's and Chirac's attempts to secure national reconciliation from 1992. Memories of state persecutions and victims of national policy presented an obstacle to the representation of conventional national 'identity'. This essay analyses the ways in which this monument and related commemorations of Vichy were nevertheless used to legitimate a cohesive official state memory: by rhetorical appeals to humanist traditions and to nationhood as an ideal, almost religious vocation.