The issues

In this the 150th anniversary year of the Treaty of Frankfurt, which saw the French and German governments make a mutual undertaking to maintain the war graves on their respective territories, it is interesting to think about how remembrance policy in the two neighbouring countries came into being. Intended to create a virtuous, mobilising national narrative, in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War the task of remembrance was assumed by the Church, before being taken over by the State. Following the two world wars, the narrative progressively widened to include the views and demands of other stakeholders, including not only veterans’ associations but civil society as a whole. The resulting multiplicity of remembrances leads at times to segmentation and today constitutes a genuine challenge – especially since the narrative of contemporary conflicts now embraces a complex, multilateral, Europe-wide context. Ultimately, then, the challenge for both France and Germany continues to be to make remembrance a civic project that brings citizens together.