Journée d'études - Marseille, 1973: questions of history and memory

Journée d'études

Marseille, 1973: questions of history and memory 

Friday 28 April 2023

Marseille History Museum / Musée d’histoire de Marseille   

Bringing together researchers in the humanities and social sciences, as well as a writer (herself an historian), this study day aims to foster awareness of the deadly violence that struck Marseille and the surrounding region fifty years ago, during the summer and autumn of 1973. This violence mainly targeted North Africans (in particular Algerians): at least 17 people were killed between late August and 14 December 1973, when four people died during a bomb attack on the Algerian Consulate in Marseille. The academic approach adopted aims to understand how this violence came about by going back to the interwar period before underlining the impact of the Algerian war of independence (1954-1962) on the social and political tensions present in postcolonial France. How should we understand both this violence and the judicial impunity that followed it? What was the social and political profile of the alleged perpetrators, and of their victims? In what areas of Marseille did this violence take place, how, and according to what sequence? Both immediately and over the longer term, what was the impact of the antiracist mobilisations which, as this violence unfolded, brought together a broad range of people in solidarity? Which groups and individuals have transmitted the memory of this violence? What light can fiction shed on these events? Adopting an academic perspective to mark the 50th anniversary of Marseille in 1973 seeks to encourage research (notably at PhD level) on these historic events of local, national and international importance. 

The program is available in French, through this link.