Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison

Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison
Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison
	Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison in 2015.
Born	19 September 1960
Nationality	French

Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison (born 19 September 1960), is a French political scientist and author whose work chiefly centres on colonialism. He is best known for his book Coloniser, Exterminer - Sur la guerre et l'Etat colonial.

Le Cour Grandmaison is a professor of

Collège International de Philosophie.^{[citation needed]} He is the president of the 17 October 1961 Association Against Oblivion, which advocates official recognition for the crimes committed by France during the 1961 Paris massacre.^{[not verified in body}

]

Coloniser, Exterminer

In his book Coloniser, Exterminer (2005), Le Cour Grandmaison states that techniques and concepts used during the period of late 19th-century

French conquest of Algeria

:

"In France I have often heard people I respect, but do not approve, deplore [the army] burning harvests, emptying granaries and seizing unarmed men, women and children. As I see it, these are unfortunate necessities that any people wishing to make war on the Arabs must accept... I believe the laws of war entitle us to ravage the country and that we must do this, either by destroying crops at harvest time, or all the time by making rapid incursions, known as raids, the aim of which is to carry off men and flocks"[2]

"Whatever the case, continued Tocqueville, we may say in a general manner that all political freedoms must be suspended in Algeria."^[3]

According to LeCour Grandmaison, "De Tocqueville thought the conquest of Algeria was important for two reasons: first, his understanding of the international situation and France’s position in the world, and, second, changes in French society."^[4] Tocqueville, who despised the July Monarchy (1830–1848), believed that war and colonization would "restore national pride, threatened, he believed, by "the gradual softening of social mores" in the middle classes. Their taste for "material pleasures" was spreading to the whole of society, giving it "an example of weakness and egotism". Applauding the methods of Thomas Robert Bugeaud, Tocqueville went as far as saying that "war in Africa" had become a "science":

"...war in Africa is a science. Everyone is familiar with its rules and everyone can apply those rules with almost complete certainty of success. One of the greatest services that Field Marshal Bugeaud has rendered his country is to have spread, perfected and made everyone aware of this new science".^[4]

LeCour Grandmaison states that techniques employed by the French army during the 1954-62

national liberation movements.^[6]

State racism

Following the views of Michel Foucault, LeCour Grandmaison spoke of a "state racism" under the French Third Republic, notable by the example of the 1881 Indigenous Code applied in Algeria. Replying to the question "Isn't it excessive to talk about a state racism under the Third Republic?", he replied:

"No, if we can recognize "state racism" as the vote and implementation of discriminatory measures, grounded on a combination of racial, religious and cultural criteria, in those territories. The 1881 Indigenous Code is a monument of this genre! Considered by contemporary prestigious jurists as a "juridical monstruosity", this code planned special offenses and penalties for "Arabs". It was then extended to other territories of the empire. On one hand, a state of rule of law for a minority of French and Europeans located in the colonies. On the other hand, a permanent state of exception for the "indigenous" people. This situation lasted until 1945."^[1]

23 February 2005 law

Olivier LeCour Grandmaison was one of a number of historians who criticized the

historical revisionism.^[7] The legislation was repealed by president Jacques Chirac in 2006 following criticisms in France from historians and the left-wing, and from abroad, including Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Négritude writer Aimé Césaire

.