Mois : décembre 2017

En 1957, une Convention d’association rattachée au traité de Rome pose les bases d’une politique européenne d’aide au développement. Fondée initialement sur l’idée d’une zone de libre-échange euro-africaine, celle-ci concerne presque exclusivement l’Afrique francophone où un Fonds européen de développement finance des investissements à but économique ou social. À partir des années 1970, avec la signature de la première convention de Lomé (1975), l’aide européenne au développement évolue de manière importante, à la fois par le nombre de pays concernés et par les instruments qu’elle adopte. Après avoir été renouvelée trois fois, la convention de Lomé a laissé la place en 2000 à l’accord de Cotonou qui doit rendre l’aide européenne compatible avec l’Organisation mondiale du commerce et intégrer les nouvelles priorités de l’UE dans le monde de l’après-guerre froide.

Depuis le xix^e siècle, les occupations militaires en Europe ont souvent suscité l’hostilité et l’opposition des populations occupées. Les raisons expliquant ces mouvements de résistance sont cependant variées et ceux-ci constituent eux-mêmes des phénomènes complexes. Il n’existe pas de définition unique de la « résistance » qui a pu adopter de nombreuses formes, de la lutte armée à la grève, des mouvements coordonnés à l’opposition spontanée. L’hostilité réservée à l’occupant est souvent motivée par des motifs idéologiques d’ordre religieux, nationaliste ou politique aussi bien que par les décisions imposées par les forces occupantes. Expliquer et définir ce phénomène peut-être inévitable et évaluer le succès qu’ont rencontré ces mouvements demeure une tâche aussi difficile que fascinante.

Beginning in the late fifteenth century, the gradual opening up of Europeans to the world prompted them to examine what form their cohabitation in distant overseas spaces would take. Subsequently, the process of colonization forced Europeans to gradually extend to the entire world the principles and practices of an international law originally forged for countries of the old continent. The development of a legal framework on the world level consequently accompanied European expansion, over both land and sea, first in America and later in Asia and Africa. The concept of limited sovereignty in particular made it possible to introduce a hierarchy between states and to legitimize colonial conquests, while imposing a uniformization of norms and practices. From the late nineteenth century onwards, however, globalization and the increasing complication of the international system called the Westphalian model into question, in order to propose other legal traditions that favoured the emergence of a “mestizo” international law.

The distinction between the victors and the vanquished, arising from the many conflicts which have marked European history, has not been stable over the long-term. The perception that both groups have of victory and defeat is not linear. The postures of different groups are constructed, with memorial traces varying based on the period. The figures of the victor and the vanquished have evolved based on their confrontation with events and accounts. The enemy—whether absolute or conventional—becomes hereditary, affected by stereotypes that shape its identity. The explanation for defeat is inseparable from the person of the traitor and the discourse on betrayal. It therefore seems appropriate to explore defeat, running counter to a history which is often built on victories, or even on defeats transformed into triumphs. Victor-heroes stand alongside vanquished-martyrs. Surrender and enemy occupation of territory call for revenge. Beyond their actual content, peace treaties are interpreted in varying fashion by the vanquished and the victors. The resulting territorial recompositions create minorities of the vanquished among the victors.

From the date of its publication in France in May 1949 to the 2000s, the European reception of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex—of which the French component is well known—gave rise to many debates and critiques in literary and political circles as well as among feminists. Its contents indeed challenged the dominant sexual order, and served as an invitation for the liberation of morals and gender equality. Neither the work nor its reception can be separated from the rest of the author’s work, or from her life, travels, and political commitments. Until the mid-1960s, the critical reception was closely linked to the international diffusion of French existentialism as well as the political and cultural logic of the Cold War. Feminist debates dominated from the 1960s to the 1980s, before the development of Beauvoirian studies led to a scholarly reevaluation of the book.