Death in the Cathedral: the Long Battle over French National Identity and the Legacy of Vichy

The reaction to the law legalising same‐sex marriage in France shocked the nation and the world in 2013. Opposition to the law seemed to join forces with a plethora of new right‐wing activist groups, leading to mass demonstrations, violence in the streets of Paris and even to a death in the cathedral of Notre Dame. The social unrest can be explained in part by the increasing pressures of economic recession and the emergence of the far right as a mainstream but divisive political force; still, the level of passion that the law unleashed seems puzzling. A more profound explanation of that passion is that the law opened a deep faultline that has divided France throughout its modern history — the concept of its national identity. Contemporary France is troubled by frequent comparisons to the political ferment and disastrous turmoil of the 1930s. Diametrically opposed moral visions of national identity seem to recall, above all, the anneés noires , the “dark years” of German Occupation when the Vichy regime attempted to regenerate France though its National Revolution while also pursuing a policy of collaboration. Social reform in France, particularly any reform relating to perceptions of national identity, is still today overshadowed by the legacy of Vichy's moral vision and its attempt to create a New Man for a New Order. This paper will explore that legacy.