# From "Francophonie" to "World-Literature in French":
A Contextual Analysis

Nicolas Di Méo

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To cite this version:

Nicolas Di Méo. From "Francophonie" to "World-Literature in French": A Contextual Analysis. Literature, Geography, Translation. Studies in World Writing, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp.54-66, 2011. hal-05007262

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From “Francophonie” to “World-Literature in French”: A Contextual Analysis

Nicolas Di Méo

Université Bordeaux Montaigne

"The British often refer to
him [the Zulu king Shaka] as the black
Napoleon, but I say Napoleon was a
white Shaka"

Miriam Makeba

On March 16th 2007, a manifesto entitled “Pour une littérature-monde en français” (“Toward a World-Literature in French”) was published in the newspaper *Le Monde*. It was followed two months later by a collective book called *Pour une littérature-monde*, edited by Jean Rouaud and Michel Le Bris and published by Gallimard. The notion of “world-literature in French” refers to two different things here: first, to literature written in French by authors coming from all over the world, regardless of their nationalities; secondly, to literature as a way of describing the world, of speaking of it, as opposed to other literary productions that would only be interested in microscopic explorations of the self and formalist games¹. According to both texts, French literature had been declining for years because of French writers and intellectuals’ hostility to foreign influences, but also because of their obsession with formalist research. Thus, promoting “world-literature in French” was the only way of revitalizing French literature by encouraging French writers, readers, and critics to welcome new voices, more in phase with the complex and transnational contemporary world. Though the notion of “world-literature” was not that new in 2007, since it was already commonly used in many English-speaking countries, the manifesto and the book were hugely discussed, celebrated, or criticized. They claimed a vanguard position, presented themselves as the signs of a “Copernican revolution”, and were seen as cultural events; but they were also accused of perpetuating a Franco-centric conception of literary legitimacy. In this article I would like to study their complex relations to the French context in which they appeared. At the core of “Pour une littérature-monde en français” is the idea that the notion of “world-literature in French” should replace that of “Francophonie”. This proposition cannot be fully understood without taking into account the ways in which France has been dealing with its colonial past, its model of integration, and its self-perception as a declining cultural superpower for the last fifteen or twenty years.

Both the manifesto and the book argue that the French literary field is profoundly unequal and that Paris is an omnipotent center dominating numerous peripheries. Writers coming from these peripheries are unlikely to get the recognition they deserve. According to Alain Mabanckou, provincial and Francophone authors have to face the same kind of contempt, the Parisian elite being unable to admit that anything of interest can be produced outside of Paris (Mabanckou, 57). In the case of Francophone writers, who often come from former French colonies, this lack of recognition is closely linked to the ways France's colonial past is still perceived in the country. The nationalist idea that France carried out a “civilizing mission” has not disappeared. The persistence of a “colonial culture” in France (Blanchard, 165) is a key element in order to understand the context in which the manifesto and the book were published. In 2005, for instance, the government tried to pass a law in favor of French citizens who had been repatriated during and after decolonization. In this law it was said that France had played a “positive role” in its former colonies and that colonization should be taught in a “positive way” at school. These formulations were later abandoned, but they prove that colonization is still considered indulgently by large parts of French public opinion. On July 27th 2007, two months after *Pour une littérature-monde* was published, French President Nicolas Sarkozy flew to Dakar, Sénégal, and gave a dismaying speech in which he said that
the consequences of colonization were both good and bad and that the problem of Africa was
that “the African man” was still living in a repetitive time preventing him from entering
history. This racist speech was not really surprising, since Nicolas Sarkozy, who had just been
elected, was known for repeating that France had no reason to be ashamed of its past. The
manifesto and the book cannot be understood without taking this political context into
account. In *Pour une littérature-monde*, several articles, such as those by Nimrod and Lyonel
Trouillot, insist on the fact that colonization was an exploitation of entire populations and that
the so-called “civilizing mission” was a pretext aimed at justifying colonial ideology
(Nimrod, 219). The hierarchical organization of the French literary field derives from
France’s colonial complex of superiority and shows the persistence of this complex.
Francophone writers are often seen as exotic authors, legitimate as long as they talk about
their traditions, but unable to produce works of universal value.

It is not surprising, then, that the manifesto and the book oppose the concept of “world-
literature in French” to the notion of “Francophonie”. Created at the end of the 19th century,
the word “Francophonie” became popular in the 1960s when it was used by former President
of Sénégal Léopold Sédar Senghor to designate an international space in which French was
used as a common language, even though many inhabitants of the “Francophone countries”
did not speak French at all. An international agency was created in 1970, whose goal was to
foster development and cooperation between Francophone countries. Since 1998, this agency
has been called “Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie” (OIF). But behind this
façade, the concept of “Francophonie” has often been accused of fostering new forms of
imperialism. The rejection of the notion in the Francophone world today (or at least in some
parts of it) is due to the fact that it has come to symbolize the existence of neo-colonial
relations between France and its former colonies. The manifesto echoes this view and sees “la
Francophonie” as “le dernier avatar du colonialisme” (“the last avatar of colonialism”).

Since the 1990s, and especially since the 1994 Rwanda genocide, many studies, like the
works of François-Xavier Verschave, have addressed this neo-colonialism. Verschave used
the neologism “Françafrique” to describe the collusion between French and African leaders
after decolonization (the term means “France and Africa”, but it is also a play on words, since
“fric” is a slang word for “money”). The system he described was characterized by a high
level of corruption, with France supporting African dictatorial regimes who in return financed
French political parties. It is hard to say to what extent this system is still working today, but
it is obvious that France’s colonial and neo-colonial past is still perceived very ambiguously
within French society. On the one hand, colonial and neo-colonial crimes are more and more
often denounced, especially (but not only) by academics and intellectuals. On the other hand,
colonial and neo-colonial ideologies are still vivid. As Catherine Coquio puts it, one of the
reasons why there is no such thing as a French postcolonial theory is that colonial crimes are
not seen as “historical disasters” (Coquio, 25). Both the manifesto and the book arise from
this ambivalent context. As Charles Forsdick argues, when Michel Le Bris launched the 1992
*Pour une littérature voyageuse* manifesto, that can be read as a prefiguration of “Pour une
littérature-monde en français”, or when he used the expression “World Fiction” in a 1993
edition of the journal *Gulliver*, “there seem[ed] not yet to have been any perceived need for a
[...] critique of ‘Francophonie’” (Forsdick, 12). In the beginning of the 1990s, the critique of
France’s neo-colonialism was not as sharp and as frequent as it is today. The 1994 Rwanda
genocide was the turning point that really started to shed light on this aspect of France’s
history and since the end of the 1990s, “Francophonie” has been more and more considered as
a marginalizing and/or imperialist category, though large parts of French public opinion are
still reluctant to acknowledge the extent of colonial and neo-colonial crimes. “Pour une
littérature-monde en français” is therefore less a vanguard manifesto than a contribution to
ongoing debates mirroring the evolution of the French political context in the last fifteen
years. Replacing the notion of “Francophonie” by that of “world-literature in French” is not
only a way of rethinking the relations between center and peripheries within the literary field;
it is also a way of denouncing the remnants of French “colonial culture” at a time when the
condemnation of colonization, neo-colonialism, and their consequences coexist with the
persistence (or the resurgence) of pro-colonial mythologies.
However, as Dominic Thomas remarks, this critique of “Francophonie” is legitimate as far as the French context is concerned; but in other contexts, such as the “Anglophone academy”, the word “Francophone” does not deserve to be systematically rejected, since the distinction between French and Francophone has always had far different purposes: “Michel Le Bris’ conceptualization of the term ‘Francophone’ as a potentially marginalizing category rather than as an affirmative one, is fallacious in the context of the Anglophone academy. [...] The suggestion that such distinctions are no longer necessary [...] might seem to point to a leveling of the playing field. Yet, the issue has never been exclusively about ‘incorporating’ Francophone authors to the curriculum but rather more importantly about rethinking the ways in which cultural inquiries are conducted” (Thomas, 50-51). Obviously, Dominic Thomas has a point, though his argument can also be interpreted as a way of defending institutional choices made by some US universities that decided to give priority to Francophone Studies in a national and global context characterized by an increasing competition between academic institutions, and therefore by the need to create specific department identities within the field of French and Francophone studies. But if it is true that the terms “Francophone” and “Francophonie” do not have the same implications in the American and French contexts, it is also likely that bridging the gap between French and Francophone studies will be one of the major challenges academics interested in the field will have to take up in the future. For if the goal is to improve the “contextualization of the French language experience in the world” and acknowledge that “unstoppable transformations in the coordinates of the cultural landscape have been provided by vibrant global production that exceeds the narrow parameters of a monolithic history interpretation of human relations” (Thomas, 51), one cannot be entirely satisfied with the distinction between French and Francophone, since this dichotomy does not provide any help in order to conceptualize the complex, interwoven relations between France and the rest of the Francophone space. It rather suggests the idea of two distinct, separate entities, as if France was excluded from “vibrant” contemporary cultural exchanges within the French-speaking world. In the worst-case scenario, this vision leads to the simplistic conception of Francophone literatures as mere subversions of French literary norms and to the stereotyped representation of France as a nation unaware of its actual diversity, obsessed with its traditions and literary canon, and whose sole remnant of true creativity is to be found in its *banlieues*.

Actually, the issue is not the existence of the words “Francophone” and “Francophonie” itself, but rather the way in which these terms are used. Michel Le Bris seems to be aware of that: “La fin de la francophonie [...]? Oui, si l’on entend par là un espace sur lequel la France mère des arts, dépositaire de l’universel, dispenserait ses lumières. Fin de cette francophonie-là, et naissance possible d’une littérature-monde en français” (“The end of Francophonie? Yes – if by that one means a space over which France, mother of the arts, guardian of the universal, would dispense its lights. The end of this Francophonie, and the possible birth of a world-literature in French”) (Le Bris, 45). What is at stake here is clearly the fading of the epistemological and ideological distinction between French and Francophone, and not the mere rejection of the term “Francophone”. In this perspective, Alain Mabanckou’s statement that French writers are Francophone writers among others (Mabanckou, 56) is probably the best way of describing what the Francophone literary field should be. Unfortunately, to a great extent, this vision is still wishful thinking, since cultural prejudices are reinforced by economical and demographical inequalities: “The *littérature-monde* manifesto rightly views this Parisian dominance as the expression of an ongoing Gallic patriarchalism; however, this is only a partial explanation [...]. Numerically, Britain is dwarfed by the populations of its former colonies (as are Spain and Portugal), whereas France remains by far the single most influential French-speaking country. [...] [It] must be recognized that the sheer weight of both demographics and the economics of publishing have been as central to the processes of exclusion as any ideological factors” (Murphy, 73). Open-mindedness is not the only issue involved here. In the manifesto and the book, the key question is one of integration, with all the political relations of power, negotiation, centralization, and decentralization that this concept involves. Both texts argue in favor of a better inclusion of cultural and individual differences in the field of literature written in French, at a time when this field is still largely
dominated by Paris (even though this domination has been more and more criticized). This
call for recognition and inclusion explains why “Pour une littérature-monde en français” and
*Pour une littérature-monde* have been accused of paradoxically reinforcing the role of the
center instead of promoting a truly decentralized Francophone literary field (de Toledo, 67-
68; Thomas, 53). Yet, both texts, which criticize French universalism, appeared in a context
characterized by recurring debates about the efficiency of the French model of integration. Of
course the call for a more equal treatment of French-speaking writers who are not from
metropolitan France within the French and Francophone literary fields cannot be compared to
the call for a better integration of minorities within French society as a whole. Social,
political, economical, and cultural stakes are not the same. Nevertheless, the manifesto and
the book seem to transpose ideas and debates concerning the issue of integration into the
sphere of international literary exchanges, and this transposition justifies a study of their
relations to the French model of integration.

This model became a key component of the nation's "laïque" ("secular") identity in the end of the 19th century. Citizens are supposed to have a direct relationship to the state. There can be no intermediate communities between individuals and the state. Cultural and religious differences belong to the private sphere and have no place in public life. One of the main consequences of these principles is that universal values are seen as more legitimate than particular affiliations. In other words, local and particular identities are supposed to be erased in order to promote a kind of uniform citizenship – at least in theory². *Pour une littérature-monde* rejects this official, dominant model and argues in favor of a complete recognition of existing differences; but at the same time the contributors to the book do not really call into question Parisian domination over the Francophone literary field. In his article, which is the first one of the book and can be read as a sort of program, Jean Rouaud regrets that writers choosing to write in French are asked to renounce their cultural backgrounds in order to get full recognition. He cites Guillaume Apollinaire, Eugène Ionesco, and Samuel Beckett. Though these examples are not recent, they demonstrate the violence that French cultural norms exert over those who decide to write in French and therefore to be published in a literary field dominated by Paris. Rouaud argues that this price should not be paid anymore and that every writer should be able to express his or her identity (Rouaud, 20). As Alain Mabanckou puts it, Francophone writers should not have to dissimulate their identities in order to be accepted as French writers (or, on the contrary, they should not have to exaggerate these identities in order to be read as exotic authors). They should fight for transforming the French literary field into a genuinely multicultural Francophone literary field and stop considering French literature as a model everyone has to imitate (Mabanckou, 56-57). This view echoes critiques that have been addressed to the French model of integration for years, such as the accusation of being blind to cultural differences. The lack of affirmative action policies in France (at least of affirmative action policies founded on the identification of ethnic or gender minorities) is often interpreted as a refusal to take the issue of diversity into account, while the defense of universal values is seen as a way of excluding recent immigrants from national community, because these immigrants do not immediately master French cultural norms. Generally speaking, many critiques of the French model insist on the strong resistances the concepts of diversity and minority are still facing in contemporary France (Ndiaye, 64-67).

It is hard to say, however, whether these resistances will last or not. During the 2007
presidential and parliamentary election campaigns that saw the victory of Nicolas Sarkozy
and his right-wing party, the issues of immigration, integration, and national identity were
considered crucial. Nicolas Sarkozy defended the French model in often nationalist words,
but at the same time he said that he was not opposed to affirmative action. Though nothing
has been done since his election, his stand on the topic proves that the notion of
multiculturalism is more and more taken into consideration in France, even if it is far from
being a prevailing paradigm. Furthermore, though race statistics such as those produced by
the US Census are forbidden in France, polls indicate that the majority of the French
population is now in favor of statistics measuring "le ressenti d'appartenance" ("felt
belonging")³. If authorized, these statistics could be a step toward a more multicultural
conception of the nation, or at least toward a conception of national belonging that would take
cultural differences into account. The reactions to the governmental initiative of a "grand
debate on national identity" officially launched in November 2009 also prove that large parts
of French public opinion do not admit the simplistic idea of "national identity" anymore and
consider France as a diverse nation whose complexity cannot be reduced to stereotyped
formulas. Newspapers, Internet websites, and academic journals were full of commentaries
denouncing the debate as an anachronism, or as a political maneuver aimed at flattering the
extreme-right.

Thus, contemporary French society seems to be characterized by a growing, unresolved
tension between two conflicting models, assimilation and multiculturalism (even if the first
one is probably still dominant). *Pour une littérature-monde* echoes this tension, since it pleads
in favor of a better recognition of cultural differences within the literary field, but at the same
time states that writers should not be considered as spokesmen or spokeswomen for specific
communities. In their own way, the manifesto and the book illustrate Homi K. Bhabha's
distinction between "cultural diversity" and "cultural difference" (Bhabha, 76-77). Indeed,
though Gary Victor opposes globalization to cultural authenticity (Victor, 318), most
contributors to *Pour une littérature-monde*, like Michel Le Bris and Nimrod, strongly refuse
this notion of authenticity (Le Bris, 34, Nimrod, 220). They want to maintain the existence of
an individual link between their works and the international literary field. In order to do so,
they argue against the systematic identification of Francophone writers to the communities
they come from. There is some universalism in this statement, since it suggests that writers
should be integrated to the literary field as individuals with their own cultural backgrounds,
with their own complex, continuously evolving experiences, but not as members of specific
groups. In other words, "world-literature" is not a space in which every cultural group should
be represented by its own delegates, but a space in which every individual should be able to
construct his or her identity without losing or gaining legitimacy in the process – a space in
which writers should be considered as writers only, regardless of their origins, but without
having to deny these origins. Therefore, even if the construction of an international literary
field cannot be compared to the integration of minorities within a specific national society, it
seems that the concept of "world-literature in French" nevertheless mirrors contemporary
debates about integration.

In both the manifesto and the book, the critique of French universalism as an imperialist
and anachronistic model appears to be closely linked to another rather common discourse that
sees France as an exhausted and declining country. In *Pour une littérature-monde*, Jean
Rouaud expresses this belief in his opening article, where the notion of "world-literature in
French" is considered as a way of revitalizing French literature. To him, World War II and the
1940 defeat against Nazi Germany marked the end of France – that is to say the end of France
as a nation firmly believing in itself and in its universal vocation (Rouaud, 14-15). According
to Rouaud, this decline of France was the direct cause of the decline of French literature after
the war. He argues that French literature became anecdotal, being only interested in formalist
games and microscopic explorations of the self. This is the reason why the notion of "world-
literature" is presented both as a political and as an aesthetic antidote. Speaking of the world,
speaking of reality, but also welcoming new sources of inspiration coming from other parts of
the French-speaking world are presented as the only ways of preventing the complete decline
of French literature and culture.

One can express a certain surprise when reading such an argument. According to Rouaud,
literary texts do not belong to "world-literature" because they circulate or because they are
translated, but because they possess intrinsic qualities making them worthy of the appellation.
Processes of reception and circulation, such as those described by David Damrosch in *What Is
World Literature?*, are ignored, as if literary texts had no cultural histories and as if their
"universal" values were not the results of the ways they are read and appreciated by readers
belonging to different cultures. Furthermore, Rouaud's thesis rests on the idea that the vitality
of a specific literature is the exact reflection of the vitality of the country that produces it, as if
literature were the expression of the soul or the moral state of a nation – an argument in
contradiction with the very idea of "world-literature". The myth of decline is a simplification
of history leading here to a simplification of literary history. French literature after 1945 was
not limited to vanguard movements such as the Oulipo or the Nouveau Roman, which are the
main targets of Rouaud's attacks and are not signs of decline anyway. The idea that France
was a declining country was widespread between the 1870 defeat against Prussia and the
Second World War. It became popular again in the 1980s, in a context of economic crisis and
growing unemployment. Recently, especially during the 2007 election campaigns, this cliché
was at the center of heated debates revealing some of the socio-economical difficulties the
country was facing. The same thing can be said of the belief that France's exhausted literature
should be revitalized. This idea is not a new one either. As Blaise Wilfert-Portal remarks,
*Pour une littérature-monde* seems to replay the quarrel between vitalism and symbolism that
took place in the end of the 19th century, in a context characterized by an obsession with the
loss of vital energy. And as Kathryn Kleppinger points out, Michel Le Bris' fascination with
“le cratère furieux des villes-mondes” (“the furious crater of world-cities”) (Le Bris, 38) is
“reminiscent of the 1930s surrealists who sought to save French culture from itself by
introducing a fetishized idea of African art” (Kleppinger, 79). Decline and regeneration are in
fact recurrent representations (not to say recurrent clichés). Both the manifesto and the book
continue an old tradition in French literary history – a tradition dating from the 19th century
and seeing literary cosmopolitanism as a way of enriching French culture in order for it to
play a leading role in the world (Di Méo, 172-179). In the context of the beginning of the 21st
century, the revitalization of French literature that Jean Rouaud and Michel Le Bris call for
can be interpreted as an attempt to compete with Anglophone literatures at the age of
globalization (Wilfert-Portal), even if Le Bris writes that it is not the case (Le Bris, 42).
Though they criticize the way cultural integration has been carried out until now, the
manifesto and the book, at least implicitly, still consider France and Paris as extraordinary
integrating powers. As Le Bris puts it, France should therefore imitate Britain and the US,
who have welcomed and acclaimed Anglophone writers with non-Western backgrounds for
years (Le Bris, 33). This statement reveals the complexity of the relation between *Pour une
littérature-monde* and what one could call the Anglophone model: though it is seen as a rival,
the Anglophone literary field is nevertheless presented as an example that should be imitated.

This is the reason why *Pour une littérature-monde* violently attacks French universities. According to Michel Le Bris, academic programs should be blamed for failing to integrate Francophone writers and consequently for accelerating the death of literature written in French (Le Bris, 31). Actually, texts by Aimé Césaire, Edouard Glissant, or Ahmadou Kourouma have been regularly taught for years. Students are more and more interested in Francophone studies and courses have developed accordingly. Yet, no one can deny that Francophone literatures do not get the same recognition in French universities as they do in American ones for instance. There is still much to do in order to fight the Franco-centric perspective prevailing in many “départements de lettres” (“literature departments”), where most courses continue to focus on metropolitan France. Reacting to the manifesto one week after its publication, Nicolas Sarkozy, who was then campaigning for the presidential election, said that more academic chairs in Francophone studies should be created⁴. He did not keep his promise after his election, but his stand on the topic during the campaign proves that the issue plays an important role in French politics. However, in France, especially in the fields of history, literature, and language studies, universities are not the places where students obtain real academic legitimacy. University degrees are almost worthless when compared to national “concours” (“competitive examinations”) such as the *concours d’entrée à l’Ecole Normale Supérieure*, the *agrégation*, or, to a much smaller extent, the *Certificat d’Aptitude à l’Enseignement Secondaire* (CAPES). This situation derives from France’s over-centralized educational system. It is probably a monumental strategic error in a context of increasing international competition, since students devote a great deal of time and energy to the preparation of *concours* that are reserved to European citizens and have no real value in the eyes of the rest of the world; but it is the way the French system works and one must take this specificity into account when commenting upon academic programs. As far as Francophone literatures are concerned, it is obvious that they have not really been integrated to that most prestigious part of the French curriculum. For instance, no Francophone writer with non-
Western origins has ever entered the French literature section of the program of the *agrégation de lettres modernes*, and very few have entered the Comparative literature section<fnref n="5" />. Though the critiques Rouaud and Le Bris address to the French academic world can seem a little harsh (and certainly are, for not all academics are “dwarfs”, as Michel Le Bris generously calls them), one must unfortunately admit that they are not entirely devoid of truth.

## Notes

## Bibliography

Amselle, Jean-Loup. *Vers un multiculturalisme français*. Paris: Aubier, 1996.

Bhabha, Homi K. *Les Lieux de la culture*. Paris: Payot, 2007. Translation: Françoise Bouillot. First edition: *The Location of Culture*, 1994.

Blanchard, Pascal. "L'impossible débat colonial". *Retours du colonial? Disculpation et réhabilitation de l'histoire coloniale*. Ed. Catherine Coquio. Nantes: Librairie L'Atalante, 2008.

Casanova, Pascale. *La République mondiale des lettres*. Paris: Seuil, 1999.

Coquio, Catherine. "Retours du colonial?" *Retours du colonial? Disculpation et réhabilitation de l'histoire coloniale*.

Damrosch, David. *What Is World Literature? Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2003*.

Di Méo, Nicolas. *Le Cosmopolitisme dans la littérature française de Paul Bourget à Marguerite Yourcenar*. Geneva: Droz, 2009.

Forsdick, Charles. "From 'littérature voyageuse' to 'littérature-monde': the Manifesto in Context". *Littérature-monde: New Wave or New Hype? Ed. Roger Célestin and Eliane DalMolin. Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, vol. 14, issue 1, January 2010.*

Gassama, Makhily (ed.). *L'Afrique répond à Sarkozy. Contre le discours de Dakar*. Paris: Editions Philippe Rey, 2008.

Kleppinger, Kathryn. "What's Wrong With the Littérature-monde Manifesto?". *Littérature-monde: New Wave or New Hype?*

Lapacherie, Jean-Gérard. "La littérature sans le monde". Book review (on *Pour une littérature-monde. Mondes francophones*, September 18th 2007.

Le Bris, Michel. "Pour une littérature-monde en français". *Pour une littérature-monde*. Ed. Jean Rouaud and Michel Le Bris. Paris: Gallimard, 2007.

Mabanckou, Alain. "Le chant de l'oiseau migrateur". *Pour une littérature-monde*.

Murphy, David. "Literature After Empire: A Comparative Reading of Two Literary Manifestos". *Littérature-monde: New Wave or New Hype?*

Ndiaye, Pap. *La Condition noire. Essai sur une minorité française*. Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 2008.

Nimrod. "'La Nouvelle Chose française'. Pour une littérature décolonisée". *Pour une littérature-monde*.

Rouaud, Jean. "Mort d'une certaine idée". *Pour une littérature-monde*.

Thiesse, Anne-Marie. *Ils apprenaient la France. L'exaltation des regions dans le discours patriotique*. Paris: Editions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme, 1997.

<footnote n="1">¹ This argument is an attack against literary movements such as the Nouveau Roman and the Oulipo.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² In fact, feelings of local or regional belonging have been regularly stimulated, especially during the Third Republic (1870-1940), because they were seen as first steps facilitating the construction of broader feelings of national identity (Thiesse).</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ *Le Monde*, April 29th 2009. 65 % of the French population are in favour of such statistics.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴ *Le Figaro*, March 22nd, 2007.</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ In 2009-2010 and 2010-2011, Aimé Césaire was studied in the Comparative literature section.</footnote>
Thomas, Dominic. "Decolonizing France: from National Literatures to World Literatures". *Littérature-monde: New Wave or New Hype?*

de Toledo, Camille. *Visiter le Flurkistan ou les illusions de la littérature-monde*. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2008.

Trouillot, Lyonel. "Langues, voyages et archipels". *Pour une littérature-monde*.

Verschave, François-Xavier. *La Françafrique*. Paris: Stock, 1999.

Victor, Gary. "Littérature-monde ou liberté d'être". *Pour une littérature-monde*.

Wilfert-Portal, Blaise. "La littérature française dans la mondialisation". Book review (on *Pour une littérature-monde*). La Vie des idées.fr, July 1st 2008 (http://www.laviedesidees.fr/La-litterature-francaise-dans-la.html).

"Pour une littérature-monde en français". *Le Monde*, March 16th 2007.