On December 6, before censorship, the government announced to those responsible for the future terrorism memorial museum (MMT), the magistrate Élisabeth Pelsez and myself, the abandonment of the project, although very advanced, and its establishment on the Mont-Valérien. The only reason given: the budgetary situation.
In reality, this decision, which does not seem final, is political. If the project is supported by many public actors, by the judiciary or the educational world, it has also encountered reluctance, sometimes hostility. This is the mark of ambitious companies. The idea of such a museum of history and society clashed with a certain cultural conservatism, attached to a traditional vision of the museum.
Terrorism and resistance
The site chosen in 2021 by the Élysée, fortuitously close to the Memorial of Combatant France, a few months ago, very belatedly, gave rise to opposition from foundations dedicated to the memory of the Resistance, of Free France, of deportation or even the Shoah. They invoked a possible “confusion” between terrorism and resistance, while the proximity of the places on the contrary offers an opportunity to explain their difference. Despite the weakness of the arguments, they seem to have been heard in high places.
MMT, for its part, is the opposite of a competitive vision of national memory, over which these foundations hold no monopoly. It is part of a universalist vision: what was done for great historical tragedies must be done for terrorism, a phenomenon as much past as it is present.
This short-sighted decision could suggest that the memory of terrorism does not have the same status in France as others, such as that of world wars, genocides, colonization or slavery. But this is not the case, at least not until now. After the attacks of 2015 and 2016, public authorities, led by Presidents Hollande and Macron, became aware of the need for a public memorial policy dedicated to the victims of the attacks. They were preceded by associations and personalities: Françoise Rudetzki, who fought since the end of the 1980s for their care, or Guillaume Denoix de Saint-Marc, who founded the French Association of Victims in 2009. of terrorism.
A coherent whole
These actions were, however, carried out by civil society alone, as was the case for a long time for the memory of the Shoah. In 2018, at the request of the Élysée, Élisabeth Pelsez, interministerial delegate for victim assistance, was tasked with designing a new system. The memorial committee it brought together suggested 14 proposals, all accepted and implemented from 2019. Among the most notable: the creation of the National Day of Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism on March 11; inclusion of the subject in school curricula; the extension of the medal for victims of terrorism, created in 2016, to victims of attacks dating back to 1974 (date of the Publicis Drugstore attack); the filming of certain trials; finally, the creation of a memorial museum.
The latter must take into account both the long history of terrorism and erect a memorial to victims in France of all nationalities since 1974, as well as French victims abroad. It is on this basis that the MMT prefiguration mission was created in February 2019.
These decisions are unique in more than one way. This is the first time that a memory policy in France covers in the same movement so many dimensions which form a coherent whole: the recognition of the victims, already part of a long French tradition of care, national commemoration, school transmission, encouragement of research or even the cultural dimension. The memorial museum is in fact a central element in this whole.
Pay tribute to the victims
It's about creating a memorial national which is not to be confused with the numerous memorials erected at sites of attacks throughout the country, a consequence of the very nature of terrorism. The aim is to add a history and society museum into the same complex which will enable us to understand the terrorist phenomenon as a whole. It is therefore both a place of memory and a place of history.
Finally, last singularity, unlike the systems put in place for the Shoah, the Algerian War or slavery, the memory policy is here exempt from any acknowledgment of debt from the State. It expresses the need to pay tribute to victims who were targeted because it was the entire nation that was. It is by definition focused on victims more than on possible heroes, unlike commemorations of the Second World War, which sometimes clashes, here too, with a conservative conception of memory.
This is, again, only a reflection of the nature of terrorism, war violence in times of peace. The museum also shows to what extent the reaction to the attacks gave rise to numerous acts of courage, solidarity and mobilization, an integral part of this history. It is itself an act of cultural resistance.
