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The article situates Mémoires d'outre-mer in current debates about lieux de mémoire, and in particular about the ways in which the concept elaborated by Pierre Nora is increasingly scrutinized in the light of its silences relating to colonial memory. Ferrier focuses on realms of memory such as the Mahajanga cemetery around which much of his text is constructed, but also engages directly with one of the subjects of Nora's collection, the school textbook Le Tour de la France par Deux Enfants, in order to open up a discussion of contemporary memory practices in contemporary France. He argues that French memory is often limited to national boundaries, and that any internal diversity is regulated, sanitized, hierarchized, with France's status as a transculturated, "travelling" culture denied in the process. The novel is a creative reaction to this mnemonic tendency, with the work situated at the intersection of the transnational and postcolonial, two concepts that are far from being synonymous but are nevertheless closely related throughout the text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the place of reparations for slavery in the contemporary politics and culture of France and the French-speaking Caribbean. Considerable attention has recently been paid to the recent decision of CARICOM leaders to set up a reparations commission, but similar questions relating to slavery and its (financial) afterlives have also been raised (and remain equally unresolved) in the Francophone world. In a press conference in Dakar in October 2012, François Hollande answered questions about the subject: "La réparation", he claimed, "elle n'est pas que morale, elle est aussi de savoir ce que nous voulons faire ensemble." (Weider, Thomas. "Couacs entre l'Elysée et Matignon sur les traites négrières." Le Monde. 14 October 2012). In the wake of these comments, legal action was launched in France by the group CRAN (Conseil représentatif des associations noires) against the Caisse des dépôts, itself accused of profiting from compensation paid by Haiti to the French state from 1825 onwards. The article draws on speeches by Sarkozy and Hollande as well as recent publications by the CRAN in order to locate reparations for slavery within the wider geopolitical, historical, and memorial context of the Francosphere. In conclusion, it will analyse one of the few cultural artefacts to address the question of reparations for slavery, the controversial 2011 comedy Case départ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What—in the context of the francophone world—is the relationship between social memories and official memory, between the memories of former colonisers and those of the former colonised? What are the links between literary and cultural manifestations of memory and the actually existing memories that these take as their objects of study? The aim of the article is to situate Didier Daeninckx's New Caledonia 'cycle' within the context of current debates surrounding colonial memory in France. Daeninckx focuses on the existence of competing memories, and explores the ways in which often divergent, even contradictory accounts may be read together contrapuntally, permitting the elaboration of what Ricœur dubs a 'récit partagé'. Cannibale and Le Retour d'Ataï suggest that such memories are situated in multiple locations, in the islands of Melanesia as well as in France itself. This article accordingly explores, in the frame of contemporary memory debates, the relationships between France and the wider francophone world of former colonies and overseas territories. Foregrounding key questions relating to the articulation of links between culture and empire in metropolitan France, it suggests the need for identification of more complex spaces and models in the light of which globalised postcolonial formations may be studied and understood. Quels sont—dans le contexte du monde francophone—les rapports entre la mémoire individuelle et la mémoire officielle, entre la mémoire des anciens colonisateurs et celle des anciens colonisés? Quels sont les rapports entre les manifestations littéraires ou culturelles de la mémoire et les souvenirs réels qui servent d'objet à de telles représentations? L'objectif de cet article, c'est de situer le 'cycle' kanak de Didier Daeninckx dans le contexte des débats actuels autour de la mémoire coloniale en France. Daeninckx se fixe sur la concurrence des traditions mémorielles, et explore la façon dont des histoires souvent divergentes et même contradictoires se prêtent à une lecture en contrepoint, ce qui permet l'élaboration d'une forme de ce que Ricœur appelle le 'récit partagé'. Selon des textes tels que Cannibale et Le Retour d'Ataï , il faut situer la mémoire coloniale dans des lieux multiples, en Mélanésie ainsi qu'en France elle-même. L'article explore de cette façon les rapports entre la France et le monde francophone des anciennes colonies et des possessions actuelles d'outre-mer. Il met en relief des questions-clé pour ceux qui s'intéressent aux rapports entre la culture et l'empire dans la France contemporaine, et avance la nécessité d'établir des espaces et des modèles plus complexes—espaces et modèles à la lumière desquels on peut étudier et comprendre des phénomènes mémoriels qui sont en même temps transnationaux et postcoloniaux. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]