The French Historical Narrative and the Fall of France

Book excerpt: The fall of France in June 1940, La Débâcle, posed a challenge to France's understanding of itself. Could the existing “sacred” narrative of French history established by the Third Republic hold in the face of the defeat of France’s military and political systems, both built upon its foundations? The French Historical Narrative and the Fall of France: Simone Weil and her Contemporaries Face the Debacle focuses on assessments of the Debacle and places Simone Weil's writings of 1938 to 1943 within this continuum. This study recreates the debate in those fraught years to posit a “horizon of expectations” within which to place and better appreciate Simone Weil’s writing of the period, far reaching and bold but hardly “crazy” (as De Gaulle is said to have characterized her ideas).