(en) France, Alternative Libertaire AL #228 - Read: Eric Fournier: The City is not dead (fr)

March 18, 1871, the Parisian people rise, the government of Adolphe Thiers flees to 
Versailles, the city was in the hands of insurgent-es. For nearly three months, however, 
is not chaos will reign over the capital but a political experience completely original, 
an attempt to direct democracy: the Commune. ---- The Commune is not dead ?ric Fournier 's 
is a book where history and memory mingle, interviewing political uses that have been made 
??this major event from 1871 to today. ---- Without repeating the details on the progress 
of these seventy-two days that followed the uprising of Parisians, the author attempts to 
examine the various readings and appropriations Event Versailles memory, memory Communard 
load of symbolic Wall Federated ... How Common is it established as a memorial - to use 
the concept of Pierre Nora - ie that communities have " reinvested its affect and emotions"?

Without claiming to be exhaustive the book highlights the main political forces have made 
use of the event, the far-right libertarians including of course the Communists. We now 
understand the historical and political context plays a major role in the use that may be 
made of the Commune. His memory, or rather his memories are indeed changing: we do not 
call it the same way in 1871, in 1936 or today. Over time and in the light of the work of 
historians and historians reading the event evolves, as well as the memorial uses.

It is with great clarity that the author manages to expose the multiplicity and complexity 
of these memories as well as their evolution, if a certain scientific rigor is required to 
read the book is nonetheless enjoyable. The Municipality is in fact a great example of the 
politics of the use of history and this book is also meant to be food for thought for 
Activists: If the City is not dead, it is But now focus " to grasp the singularity of the 
past in the hope that this understanding "to understand the subject in all its diversity, 
in all it contains revolutionary hopes but also contradictions to to pay tribute to the 
communards communards and the most faithful manner.

Florian M.

? Eric Fournier, The Commune is not dead , Libertalia, 2013, 196 p., 13 euros.