This multidisciplinary edited volume examines wide-ranging exchanges between France and its Mediterranean neighbours and their impact. It questions the changing notion of a Mediterranean space and its representation, centrality and relevance in terms of France's international relations under Sarkozy's presidency, from the launch of the Union for the Mediterranean and its complex articulations with the European Union's own agenda in the region, to the tortuous relations with Libya, made even more complicated by the 2011 'Arab Spring'. Beyond the realm of state relations and formal policy networks, the volume examines the crucial role played by diasporas, the interplay between postcolonial and transnational representations in the fields of cultural diplomacy, cinema and architecture, and considers how these can produce merged or hybrid identities. Later in the collection, the politics of ethnicity in post-war France, the interplay between negative perceptions of Islam and the changing memory of the Algerian War, and the evolution of Franco-Algerian relations since 1962 are used to question the weight of the colonial past when analysing the relations between France and North Africa.

Autorentext

Emmanuel Godin is Principal Lecturer in French Studies at the University of Portsmouth. Natalya Vince is Lecturer in French Studies at the University of Portsmouth.

Inhalt

Contents: Emmanuel Godin/Natalya Vince: Introduction: France and the Mediterranean in 2011 - Jean-Yves Moisseron/Manar Ezzat Bayoumi: The Mediterranean: A Contested Concept - Jean-Robert Henry: France's Mediterranean Policy: Between National Ambitions and European Uncertainties - Ivano Bruno: French Foreign Policy in the Mediterranean: Europeanization between Collective and National Approaches - David Styan: The Revival of Franco-Libyan Relations - Gérald Arboit: France and Cultural Diplomacy in the Mediterranean - Patricia Caillé: On the Confusion between Films about Women and Films by Women in the Construction of a Regional Cinema: The Maghreb vs. the Mediterranean - Mary Ben Bonham: Hybrid Cultural Significance for the Bibliothèque Municipale à Vocation Régionale de Marseille - Bruno Levasseur: French Artistes Engagés Transcending the Politics of 'Race' and 'Ethnicity' in the Republic (1980s-2000s) - Ed Naylor: 'A system that resembles both colonialism and the invasion of France': Gaston Defferre and the Politics of Immigration in 1973 - Andrea Brazzoduro: Postcolonial Memories of the Algerian War of Independence, 1955-2010: French Veterans and Contemporary France - Natalya Vince: Questioning the Colonial Fracture: The Algerian War as a 'Useful Past' in Contemporary France and Algeria.