Le football en France : un autre récit national

Football maintains a rich and complex relationship with French history. It quickly became a popular sport, centered around the Coupe de France, a veritable "national celebration" extolling the virtues of French meritocracy, and which the President of the Republic has honored with his presence since 1927. Its leaders and journalists invented major European and world competitions, even if, for a long time, footballing Waterloos outnumbered Austerlitzes. Football has also been a place of integration, sometimes difficult, for the marginalized: workers, immigrants, women, and today it constitutes one of the most powerful expressions of a unifying patriotism. It is, in itself, a narrative of the French nation written on the pitch or from the stands of the stadiums. From the 1980s onward, historians began to investigate the power and allure of football and produced a solid historiography, complemented by the creation in 2022 of the journal Footballs(s). History, culture, economy, society (https://journals.openedition.org/foot.... Published in print and digital formats, her application has just been accepted by the OpenEdition portal. The roundtable will offer an opportunity to compare the perspectives of historians specializing in these topics, which have shaped contemporary French history since the Belle Époque. Moderator: Olivier CHOVAUX, Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Artois Speakers: François DA ROCHA CARNEIRO, PhD in Contemporary History from the University of Artois, specialist in the history of football Paul DIETSCHY, Professor of Contemporary History at Marie and Louis Pasteur University, historian specializing in sport Mélanie TRAVERSIER, Professor of Modern History at the University of Lille Sylvain VENAYRE, Professor at Grenoble-Alpes University Roundtable discussion from the 28th Rendez-vous de l'histoire (History Rendezvous) on the theme "France?" in 2025. Voiceovers: Michel Hagnerelle (2006), Michaelle Jean (2016), Michelle Perrot (2002) https://rdv-histoire.com/