France plans new Terrorism Museum
Coinciding with the opening of the trial for the horrifying November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, the AAPA was invited on 9 September 2021 to meet the man behind France’s upcoming museum on terrorism, expected to open in the Paris area in 2027.
Historian Henry Rousso previously helped create the Caen Memorial Museum on the WWII Normandy landings, and the Shoah/Holocaust Memorial in Paris. Now, he’s presiding over an expert group behind France’s future terror museum — one of only a handful existing worldwide.
France’s museum-memorial will focus on terrorist attacks on France since the 1970s from a dual perspective. “The goal of a museum is to explain events,” said Rousso. “while a memorial is intended to honor the victims.”
France's 'Monsieur Patrimoine' Stéphane Bern talks to the AAPA
Stéphane Bern, the ardent defender of France's cultural heritage, treated the AAPA to an hour of his insights into the post-pandemic state of play, progress on resurrecting Notre Dame Cathedral, the Christo stunt at the Arc de Triomphe, and more.
The ebullient journalist and author is a household name in France thanks to his hugely popular television shows, and is a darling of crowned heads and aristocrats.
“I never understood why they closed down the museums” during the pandemic, he said, noting that privately owned cultural sites were hurt the most as the public ones enjoy subsidies.
The man who rubs shoulders with royalty all over Europe – he remarked that he has known Prince Albert of Monaco for 30 years – was somewhat wistful about British attitudes towards cultural heritage compared to those of the French.
“Britain is still a monarchy, so in the collective unconscious it's not history, it's the present,” he said.
His opinion about the Christo installation? It gets people talking, it highlights the monument, and it's only ephemeral anyway!
Bern quashed any idea of alternatives to restoring Notre Dame’s spire to its original Gothic self. France is a signatory to the 1963 Treaty of Venice, first and foremost, which stipulates that damaged monuments must be returned to their last known form. Also on the spire, he said the finest oak was being sought out across France.
“It's pretty symbolic,” he said. “All the regions where there are lovely oak forests can glory in it. It causes a national élan in favour of the reconstruction.” And the timeline? “I’m sure we'll be ready for 2024” when France will host the Olympics.
On other subjects, he pulled no punches regarding wind farms, condemning them as counter-productive given the materials needed to build them, and divisive because they are a scourge for the generally rural people who live in their noisy shadow.
And Bern dished a bit -- but ever so diplomatically -- on the state of Prince Albert’s marriage, as his wife Caroline has been absent for quite some time. He said he is sensitive to the challenges of being a royal, pivoting quickly to the desertion of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Macron's road to reelection runs through Africa
How will Africa play out in a French presidential election year? On 21 June 2021, the AAPA was pleased to welcome Pascal Airault, staff writer and columnist for L'Opinion and co-author with Antoine Glaser of Le Piège Africain de Macron: Du Continent à l'Hexagone. The same Emmanuel Macron, drawn in by his nation’s role as a former colonial power in places like Chad and Mali, wants to display that he’s a reformer from a new generation, says Airault: when he revisits France’s role in Rwanda or talks debt relief and Covid vaccines in South Africa, Macron knows that in a nation where millions of citizens are of African descent or dual nationals, the 2022 election may come down to courting the right constituencies, he adds. The return of “le en même temps”?
François Picard
Sneak Preview of the Stunning Pinault Collection in the Bourse du Commerce
The AAPA visited the new Pinault Collection on May 18 (4 days before the official opening), thanks to the organizational skills of Elaine Cobbe (with Shellie Karabell shepherding on-site). Both the building and its contents were impressive!
Architect Tadao Ando’s welcoming and subtle design, blends history with contemporary art. The spatial layout of concentric circles features 10 galleries over 75,000 square feet of exhibition space, including a studio dedicated to video and audio works and an auditorium for conferences, meetings, screenings, concerts, and events. A restaurant headed by Michelin-starred chef Michel Bras occupies an upper level and is open to the public until midnight thanks to a separate after-hours entrance.
Luxury magnate and art collector Francois Pinault himself chose the 30 artists and 700 pieces for the inaugural “Ouvertures” exhibition (many of which have not been seen before), including works by Bertrand Lavier, David Hammons, Rudolf Stingel, Miriam Cahn, Tarek Aroui, and Thomas Schutte.
History Preserved
The Bourse du Commerce is a monument to four centuries of French history: this was the site of Catherine de Medici’s 16th century palace, Hotel de Soissons, boasting the city’s first free-standing column. The palace was torn down in the 18th century but the pillar remains in the domain of the museum.
An iron and glass dome (inspired by the Pantheon in Rome, featuring murals representing French trade across the continents) was added in 1811, and in 1888–89, much of the building’s structure was replaced, retaining the layout and the dome. The dome is listed as an historical monument, subjecting the building’s $195-million renovation to very strict rules from France’s heritage authorities: the building is only leased (for 50 years), not purchased, at a cost of $18-millon upfront, $75,000 annually, and a share of the ticket sales. At the end of the lease, the building must be returned to the state minus the renovations.
French historian Benjamin Stora discusses French-Algerian reconciliation
AAPA members met with French historian Benjamin Stora, author of a recent and controversial report commissioned by President Macron on French-Algerian relations. Prof. Stora is an expert on the topic from the colonial period until today, and is especially known for his work covering the years of the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962).
With about 25 members attending the zoom conference on April 21, Prof. Stora discussed the report that President Macron asked him to produce (without remuneration, he specified). The President wanted Prof. Stora to elaborate a plan that would permit true reconciliation between the two nations, sixty years after the end of the war. The history of this tragic period is infused with passionate memories and the report has been met with criticism on both sides of the Mediterranean.
Prof. Stora provided many insights into understanding the complex and traumatic relationship between the two countries. He stressed the importance for all parties concerned to search for la juste mémoire, a fair and accurate memory of events. "The objective is not to write a common history, but to seek to explain the colonial event together, and not to believe that everything can be resolved in a final verdict,” he said. Both France and Algeria have favored their own memories, ignoring those of the other side. This has resulted in a double resentment that undermines both societies still today.
He warned against what he calls "dangerous memories" (mémoires dangereuses), a recent phenomenon among French citizens of Algerian descent, in which "the war of memories" has shifted into the making of identities that are no longer defined exclusively in relation to the war but refer to notions such as race, religion or social inequality. The confrontation of memories has morphed into a confrontation of identities and their relationship to the French Republic.
Thomas Haley
Britain Post-Brexit
The AAPA welcomed back an old friend on April 7 when veteran diplomat Lord Peter Ricketts, a life peer in the UK House of Lords (and Ambassador in Paris from 2012 to 2016) joined us on Zoom to discuss Britain Post-Brexit in a discussion moderated by AAPA VP Shellie Karabell.
He admitted he was "surprised by how ill-prepared the government was" for Brexit and wondered how the country would achieve the findings of the Government Integrated Review touting Britain's future as "tech power" world leader, adding that it seemed as though the Johnson government had no sense of priority regarding the order in which problems and opportunities could be tackled.
But he acknowledged that the country's handling of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic has given the Johnson government its own shot in the arm, and turned the mood in the country more positive.
Other topics drew on Lord Ricketts' 40-year diplomatic background in foreign and security/defense affairs.
Highlights:
- on European defense, a strong link between France and the UK in mutual defense;
- on trade, UK would probably side with Europe in relations with China on trade rather than with the US, and will keep monitoring ma. rights issues in China;
- on unilateral trade and business: despite continued attempts at forging closer ties with India, efforts with the former empire's "jewel in the crown" have not produced lasting results;
- on the "special relationship" between the UK & US...probably more in the mind of the UK than the US; he expects some difficulties with the US regarding the Irish border post-Brexit, but also expects improved UK-US relations with the Biden Presidency;
- on Russia, the UK is less interested in closer ties than other European nations (i.e, France), given the Kremlin's use of London as a poisoning theatre;
- and the question the UK will have to face is what role it wants to play in the world?
Answers to be found in his new book, Hard Choices, due out on May 13!
'Nationalist' Marine Le Pen denounces 'globalist' Macron in meeting with AAPA
Marine Le Pen, leader of France's far-right Rassemblement National party, was hosted by the AAPA in a well-attended video-conference on March 30. Le Pen has been in the news since opinion polls started showing her within a whisker of beating President Emmanuel Macron in a putative second round of the presidential election in 2022.
Le Pen maintained her drive to "detoxify" (dédiaboliser) the brand and movement set up by her father Jean-Marie Le Pen and taken over by her a decade ago, maintaining her stand against mass immigration but saying she would opt for a government of national unity if elected.
In what may be seen as a timely warning to European liberals, Le Pen positioned herself firmly alongside Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the UK’s Brexiters — and by implication former US president Donald Trump — as a nationalist pitted against the forces of globalisation. “There’s no more split between left and right, there’s a split between the globalists and the nationalists,” she said, adding that she stood for “regulating globalisation”, “controlling borders” and “protecting citizens by using the tools of the sovereign nation state”, whereas Macron was “unashamedly a champion of the internationalist model".
She answered questions on the Covid-19 pandemic, vaccinations, the French left, the national debt, and immigration among others. Le Pen also rejected the "extreme right" label. “I am not extreme,” she said. “What’s more, a good part of what I am proposing is already enforced in many countries around the world, including in some cases in the US and Great Britain.”
by Victor Mallet
Ex-AAPA VP Michael Balter tells us about the $10-million defamation suit he is facing for his #MeToo reporting
The AAPA met with ex-VP Michael Balter on March 18 to hear about the $10-million defamation lawsuit he is fighting and the issues surrounding it. Michael was served with the suit last June by archeologist Danielle Kurin, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Victims, or survivors as they prefer to be called, allege she was complicit in her former husband’s sexual harassment of female students while on fieldwork in Peru.
Michael, who now lives near New York City, started reporting on sexual harassment in academia five years ago, before the Harvey Weinstein case pushed #MeToo to center stage. His first piece on the issue was a major investigation in Science of a case at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Since then he has continued his #MeToo reporting for The Verge, among other publications, and as a freelance journalist.
"I stand entirely by my reporting, which has only been bolstered as discovery in the lawsuit has gone forward, » he told the AAPA. "This lawsuit is not just about me. The real issues are freedom of the press and the rights of victims and survivors to tell their stories without fear of retaliation, including in the form of lawsuits."
Michael is backed in the lawsuit by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and the Committee to Protect Journalists, and is represented by a pro bono team of six attorneys.
Authors’ Panel
Looking for inspiration and guidance on writing that book? Eight AAPA authors provided advice on finding a publisher, getting an advance, choosing an agent, marketing your opus and more in a panel discussion on Zoom on December 10. Click the link below to hear what the panelists—Monique El-Faizy, Peter Gumbel, Susan Herrmann Loomis, Linda Hervieux, Victor Mallet, Stefania Rousselle, Dana Thomas and Harriet Welty Rochefort--discussed with moderator VP Shellie Karabell. It'll be 90 minutes well spent! AAPA Authors' Panel - Zoom
AAPA meets with Catholic priest to discuss laicité, sex abuse scandal, and scouts
The AAPA met on November 20 with Yves Combeau, a Paris-based Dominican priest, scholar and historian. Father Combeau is a specialist in the history of youth movements, particularly scouting, and has published several works of non-fiction and fiction on the subject.
Combeau’s briefing has come at a time when France's Catholic Church is in crisis. The terrorist threat at places of worship has been at its highest level, and the ongoing sex abuse scandal continues to threaten the Church's reputation, as 6,000 victim testimonies have been recorded since 2018. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, churches across France struggled to fill seats.
Combeau spoke openly about numerous topics, especially laicité, which has taken center stage in recent conversations in France. He talked about how the Church has faced its sex abuse scandal, how the pandemic has affected attendance, and whether we can expect the Church’s rules on celibacy to change anytime soon.
He also explained where funding for Catholic TV comes from, why we still hear church bells ringing out through this "laique" country, and why scouts always wear shorts – even in bristling winter weather.