Où va la francophonie au début du troisième millénaire? Actes du Colloque de Bari 4 –5 mai 2005 (review)

Volumes that are made up wholly or largely of conference proceedings are often something of a curate’s egg: euphemistically ‘good in parts’. This particular volume, drawing on contributions from a 2005 conference in Bari that was the brainchild of the doyen of Francophone studies in Italy, Giovanni Dotoli perhaps conjures up a slightly different culinary image: the pain surprise. Those who are familiar with pain surprise will know that it contains lots of small sandwiches, some very appetizing, some less so: one can never be quite sure as to the quality or the flavour of the next mouthful. Above all, aficianados will know that the outer shell, the loaf itself, is largely decorative and is not really intended for consumption. The framing of this volume, its outer shell so to speak, tells the reader a great deal about what to expect in terms of its intellectual (should I say ideological?) content. The volume opens with an address by Dominique de Villepin, at the time Minister of the Interior and about to be named Prime Minister of France. This is followed by a contribution from the chef de cabinet of another Minister, Xavier Darcos, who was thus vicariously ‘present’ at the conference. The volume’s two closing texts underscore the links with governmental and institutional instances of francophonie: the Maurice Druon-inspired Manifeste pour le français langue juridique de l’Europe of 2004 and the so-called Appel de Bari in favour of, well, in a word, francophonie. Both texts were signed by the 127 participants at the conference. The flavour of the overall offering can be deduced from the rather proselytizing tone evident in these framing texts that emanate from, or are addressed to, the ‘powers-that-be’. Whereas Anglo-American approaches tend to foreground the cultural dimensions of francophonie and have increasingly linked the word to the complexities, disjunctures and inequalities of postcoloniality, the majority of contributions collected in this volume are imbued with the Franco-centric perspectives and values of ‘official’ francophonie: a discourse that ostensibly espouses diversity and non-hierarchical cultural exchange yet retains a certain degree of nostalgia for those glory days of cultural and linguistic supremacy that metropolitan France once enjoyed. There are tasty morsels in this volume nonetheless: Marc Quaghebeur’s rather isolated dissident voice on the cultural aspects of francophonies (insisting on the final ‘s’), a fascinating contribution from Jean Pruvost on ‘Le Français, la Francophonie et les Dictionnaires’, and a succinct yet nuanced piece on L.S. Senghor from Pierre Brunel. Other ‘regional’ contributions provide valuable ‘snapshots’ of aspects of the French-speaking world around the turn of the millennium. Nonetheless, readers are constantly reminded what a very Republican platter the pain surprise is; it conjures up many different flavours but it remains mainly bread.