00:00Well, to talk about this a little more on this very important day here in France where so many commemoration ceremonies are being held, I'm joined on the line now by French sociologist Sarah Gensberger.
00:13She is an academic who specialises in the subject of collective memory, working at the CNRS Research Centre here in Paris.
00:22She's also written extensively about the attacks on November the 13th. You can see one of her books there.
00:30Sarah Gensberger, first of all, perhaps I want to thank you first for coming on to the programme to talk to us.
00:36I'm sure our viewers will be really interested to hear your specialised thoughts.
00:43Perhaps I could begin by asking, you know, what do you think about these services today?
00:48How valuable, how important are these memorial services?
00:52Oh, they are very important and they will be, I think, a turning point in the national policy of commemoration of November 13 in France.
01:03So in some ways they are the same as the other years, like they have all the same rituals, but at the end, as you will address, I think in a minute, they will inaugurate the new memorial garden behind the Paris City Hall,
01:20which is a result of a 10-year process of discussion and cooperation between the victims' associations, the victim organisations and the City Hall.
01:31And this memorial garden will really become the official place for the next commemoration in the future, where you have all the names of the victims of all the places,
01:44because as you just reminded people, for now, all the commemoration happens in each of the locations.
01:51And now you will have, like, a place for every victim, including Manuel Diaz from the Stade de France.
02:00And in addition to that, you have also this garden, which symbolise life.
02:14People are here to celebrate the victims, but also to celebrate the very idea of life and working together, being together, the togetherness of the French society.
02:29You mentioned there this garden that is going to be inaugurated later today and how it involves a lot of discussions between various different groups.
02:39Now, without getting into too much detail about the geography of Paris and different associations, which would mean a lot to our international viewers,
02:47perhaps you could tell us some of the areas of concern.
02:51Why was there so much discussion? What were the worries? What were people keen to?
02:56Of course. Yeah, I can do it very simply, in a very simple way.
03:00The main discussion was what this garden had to celebrate.
03:04So the two organisations are quite different.
03:07One is gathering more people who lost someone, a dear person, like the parents of young people who died.
03:17And the other organisations, they gather more people who survived.
03:23So one of the tensions was what this garden is going to celebrate.
03:27Is it going to celebrate the dead people or the fact of surviving and the kind of resilience that people want to put forward?
03:37That's why they ended up with a project of a memorial garden, because the fact that it is a garden is also a way of celebrating living again.
03:48And the second issue was the location.
03:51So in some ways, a lot of people wanted it to be in the Elevance Arrondissement, but others wanted it to be in a cemetery for this idea of mourning.
04:02So symbolically, it was decided that it was going to be behind the city hall like that.
04:08It really epitomised the very spirit of the city.
04:13It was the two main discussions.
04:15But after all, it was a very collaborative process with not that many conflicts.
04:23Now, you've written a lot about collective memory.
04:27And whilst the events of the 13th of November are indelibly, tragically etched on some people's minds, for others, the memory is fading.
04:40To what extent does that really matter?
04:43Why does it matter?
04:45Can you help us understand?
04:46Yeah, of course.
04:49So even if we think of the event as being historical, it's not that historical for everyone at the same level.
04:57And the first thing is that when you study memory, you realise that there's social differences.
05:04Even if it's an event that almost anyone knows about, it's more important for some people and less for other people.
05:13And here you have kind of social inequalities also, like people who have a high level of education, who are based in Paris, who have like our professionals, are more have a more tendency to remember the events and pay attention to this memory as others, like who live in, for example, in the countryside and who are less high level of education.
05:38So this is not an issue in itself, but at some point it can also associate this memory to a smaller part of society, which is why the public policy are meant to really make it meaningful for everyone.
05:56And the second difference is the fact that some people give different political meaning to the events.
06:03Of course, today it's a very consensual ceremony.
06:07Everyone speaks first about the victim and the fact that we need to remember them.
06:12But when you move away from the ceremony itself, you realise that there are kind of political divides in the way, in the meaning you give to the event.
06:21But why the terrorist attack took place, what kind of lessons we need to draw from the events, this is not as consensual as the fact of paying tribute to the victim.
06:33On that subject, I know that I've heard sometimes you've written about how the media can also help shape the narrative of these events.
06:46And I've heard survivors say that they can be very upset when there is this reluctance to use the word Islamist, which, of course, is not the same as Muslim.
06:58When there is a reluctance to use the word terrorist, they feel there is a kind of denial.
07:02Well, other survivors do not necessarily feel the same way.
07:07But how do you think the media have contributed to shaping the narrative around November the 19th?
07:14And how has it changed maybe over the last 10 years?
07:18Yeah, the media are creating a framework for the interpretation of the event, even for the victims themselves.
07:26So the studies show that when, for example, the public debate and media are speaking more and more about immigration and the so-called migrant crisis.
07:39At this time, when you ask people to make sense of November 13th, they have a tendency to make sense of it through the lens of this immigration concern.
07:51So it's not only about quoting Islamist or not, it's more it's a broader framework where depending on what the media focus on, the meaning given to the event can really change, which in some way can be dangerous, but also can be something which is positive.
08:14Because today, for example, if you look at the media, including yourself, a lot of commentators really stress this solidarity, collective memory process.
08:25So it can also, in this way, enable a more consensual discussion.
08:33There's going to be a museum soon in Paris, which is going to be dedicated to the victims and survivors of terrorist attacks.
08:42General, that encompasses a lot of different attacks.
08:47And this in itself, it's not just about November the 13th, is a delicate subject.
08:53There's sometimes a sensitivity over different events, a concern that there might be some sort of hierarchy of victims.
09:00What are your thoughts on that in this museum?
09:04Yeah, it was actually the main concern about the museum.
09:09One, because, as you know, France has a long, very long history and terrorism is nothing but new.
09:15And so, was the museum going to, for example, include the events linked to the Algerian war, where a lot of terrorist attacks took place?
09:25So, this kind of discussion was, were really difficult, and the decision that the museum took was the fact to start the, what they call the contemporary history of terrorism in France in 1974,
09:51And so, this is considered as the beginning, starting point of this new time of terrorism.
09:59So, this was the first difficult decision to be taken.
10:02The other thing is, of course, the diversity of terrorist attack, even in the very, very contemporary time, like people from Nice, terrorist attack, which took place in the 14th of July 2016,
10:16they consider that the museum will be in Paris and will, maybe, they are afraid that it will may give too much attention to things which happen in Paris.
10:28So, here again, you have this discrepancy between Paris and the rest of France, which is also one of the tensions.
10:34And the other issue is, okay, a museum, but to tell what story and to use which kind of artifacts, because, as you know, a museum needs collections to tell the story.
10:46So, it was a very long process of trying to identify what kind of objects, testimonies, and photographs the museum was going to be able to use to tell the story it was going to tell.
11:01Right now, and so, the museum had been in danger in some ways, this project.
11:07So, now it's, it will happen, and it will open in Paris in the 13th arrondissement, but we don't know exactly the year yet.
11:18We don't have a lot of time.
11:20Just very quickly, one last question.
11:22You know, Paris is considered by very many people.
11:26It is a world city, is a city appreciated by people all over the world, the city of love.
11:30And when these attacks happened on November the 13th, there was a worldwide outpouring of sympathy.
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