The history of mobility in France: A recent, but now accepted, turn

Flonneau, MH in France
June 2011
Mathieu Flonneau is assistant professor of contemporary history at Université Paris I
Panthéon-Sorbonne. He is a researcher at IRICE-CRHI, and director of studies in the
Erasmus-Mundus program TPTI. He teaches mobility history at Institut de Sciences
Politiques in Paris, and has been co-leader of a seminar series dedicated to the history of
mobility since 2005. He is editor of Cultures Mobiles, a book series published by Descartes et
Cie, and is involved in the research group P2M, “Passé Présent Mobilité” (Past & Present
Mobility).
The author would like to offer sincere thanks to Arnaud Passalacqua for reading a draft of this
article, and Christopher Mobley for the English translation.
The history of mobility in France:
A recent, but now accepted, turn
This description of mobility history in France is not encyclopedic in scope, because
the field is too vast. Instead, it is obviously a mere overview that is too brief to touch on all
topics. The scope is limited and imperfect, but nevertheless real: the aim is to describe a
trajectory, while providing a toolbox and bibliographic references that serve as signposts or
suggested links within this evolving and lively multidisciplinary field of research that is
gathering pace.
From a methodological standpoint, it may seem logical to begin an overview of
mobility history in France by determining when and where this term is used and promoted.
Mobility history is not just transport history, which has undergone a recent shift for more than
six years now. At present, we can consider this way of writing history to be stabilized in the
French academic field, even though there is still no academic chair or recognized institution
(nor is there for transport history, in fact)1. However, a university seminar in mobility history
has been held since 2005 and acts as a practical observatory to provide material for our
analysis.
The emergence of mobility history in France is the result of a twofold phenomenon of
hybridization and importation. Firstly, while the field of mobility history has actually staked
out partial autonomy thanks to a sort of “mobility turn”, this was not the goal per se, but
rather the result of a more general cultural turn affecting the interest traditionally focused on
transport.
1
See Stéphanie Sauget’s entry on “Transports” in Dictionnaire d'histoire culturelle de la France contemporaine,
Paris, PUF, 2010, pp. 808-811.
1
Flonneau, MH in France
Indeed, mobility history results in an indisputable increase in meaning, as well as a
less naive approach to the question of transport. To achieve this, its methods have drawn on
transdisciplinarity and been enriched by the work of the most contemporary and
groundbreaking sociologists. This research field is a pioneer in relaying the concepts of Bruno
Latour2, Marc Augé3, Paul Virilio4, François Ascher5, Georges Amar6, Jean-Pierre Dupuy7
and Jean Viard8, in France, and Ulrich Beck, John Urry or even Vincent Kaufmann in an
international setting. Some of these intellectuals, who reach an audience that goes well
beyond the traditional academic world, thus play the role of “patrons” that inspire the research
of historians.
One of the objectives of the proponents of “mobility history” thus lies in recognizing
at least the existence, if not the preeminence, of the cultural, social and ultimately political
aspects of mobility, rather than the technical questions9. Indeed, the artificial form of
autonomy attributed to technology is an outdated interpretation that corresponded to the
modal approach that social sciences applied to the transport sector for a long time.
“Transmodal” or “demodalized”, the new approach proposed through the introduction of
“mobility” is also intended to benefit from the international viewpoints opened up by various
groups of researchers seeking to cast light on the complexity of contemporary society.
What is the starting point? An attempt at genealogy
In the first edition of the T2M Yearbook, on the general trends of this historiography,
we read that “France profited as no other country from T2M’s decision to organize one of its
conferences in Paris”10. This event, held in 2006, admittedly did not invent the notion of
mobility, but acclimated it to historical science and especially crystallized and made visible
all the research available on this question.
2
Bruno Latour, Aramis ou l’amour des techniques, La Découverte, 1992.
Marc Augé, Un ethnologue dans le métro, Hachette, 1986, Le métro revisité, Seuil, 2008, Pour une
anthropologie de la mobilité, Payot, 2009.
4
Paul Virilio, Vitesse et politique, Galilée, 1977.
5
François Ascher, Métapolis, Odile Jacob, 1995.
6
Georges Amar, Mobilités urbaines, L'Aube, 2004, Homo Mobilis. Le nouvel âge de la mobilité. Eloge de la
reliance, Paris, FYP Éditions, 2010.
7
Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Pour un catastrophisme éclairé, Quand l'impossible est certain, Seuil, 2004.
8
Jean Viard, Eloge de la mobilité. Essai sur le capital temps libre et la valeur travail, L'Aube, 2006.
9
Part of this project is the “Cultures Mobiles” collection, published by Descartes et Cie under the direction of
Mathieu Flonneau and Arnaud Passalacqua since 2009 (five volumes published in two years).
10
Gijs Mom, Colin Divall and Peter Lyth, “Towards a paradigm shift? A decade of transport and mobility
history”, pp. 13-40, T2M Yearbook, vol. 1, Mobility in History, Neuchatel, Swiss University Presses, Alphil,
2009, quoted on p. 24.
3
2
Flonneau, MH in France
The state of the art shows that the momentum of this approach and the major effort to
update enquiries date from the past decade. However, we can go as far as to say that before
being termed “mobility history”, this historiography had a few predecessors and a few fields
that developed useful research.
This is undeniably the case with railways, for which an association for the history of
French railways, the AHICF, has organized the academic and associative worlds and launched
a vast field of research. The ambitions for this research were presented in the first issue, in
1989, of the journal created to cover these findings11. Twenty years later, the AHICF launched
another research program and continues to hold colloquia on an international scale12. It has
also begun a systematic campaign to gather an archive of oral history from companies in the
railway sector (SNCF, RATP, Réseau Ferré de France). The pioneering initial works by
François Caron13 motivated many researchers, and the cultural turn has also inspired
innovative research14.
Apart from the emblematic example of the railways, which already covers the
industrial era, the question of mobility before the Industrial Revolution has also been
addressed by modern historians. The methods of a research such as Daniel Roche are
particularly interesting and worthwhile for contemporary historians15. Following this research,
the question of the horse as a means of transport has been largely covered16. Anne Conchon’s
11
Revue d’histoire des chemins de fer, no. 1, Autumn 1989. “L’histoire des chemins de fer: points de vue et
perspectives”.
12
Michelle Merger and Marie-Noëlle Polino, Towards a European intermodal transport network: lessons from
History. A critical bibliography, AHICF, 2004. To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the TGV, a series of
meetings and colloquia on the topic of high-speed travel was held in 2010-2011.
13
François Caron, Histoire des chemins de fer en France, vol. 1, 1740-1818 and vol. 2, 1883-1937, Paris,
Fayard, 1997 and 2005. Pascal Griset, “De fer et de cuivre: rail et télégraphe. A l’origine des grands réseaux”, in
Les entreprises et leurs réseaux: hommes, capitaux, techniques et pouvoirs, XIXe-XXe siècles, 1998, pp. 671680, Bertrand Rouvillois, Histoire de la signalisation ferroviaire en France de 1827 à 1914, dissertation at
CNAM, 1999.
14
See “Les chemins de fer dans la ville”, Revue d'histoire des chemins de fer, no. 5-6, Autumn 1991-Spring
1992; Karen Bowie (dir.), Les Gares parisiennes au XIXe siècle, Paris, City of Paris’s artistic delegation, 2003;
and Architecture ville et territoire: histoire, patrimoines et paysages vus depuis le chemin de fer. Réflexions sur
un parcours de recherche, 1987-2010, habilitation dissertation, Université of Versailles Saint-Quentin-enYvelines, 2010; Stéphanie Sauget, A la recherche des pas perdus. Dans la matrice des gares parisiennes, 18371914, dissertation in history, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2005, published as: A la recherche des pas
perdus. Une histoire des gares parisiennes, Tallandier, 2009.
15
Daniel Roche, Humeurs vagabondes. De la circulation des hommes et de l'utilité des voyages, Paris, Fayard,
2003 (republished in the paperback collection Les circulations dans l’Europe moderne, XVII-XVIIIe siècles,
Paris, Pluriel, 2011), “Les mobilités concrètes, XVIe-XXe siècles”, in “Mobility in French History”, French
Historical Studies, vol. 29, no. 3, Summer 2006, pp. 513-515. Another example of a thesis on these modern
forms of mobility is that of Renaud Morieux, Une mer pour deux royaumes. La Manche, frontière francoanglaise (XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles), Rennes University Presses, 2008; “Diplomacy from Below and Belonging:
Fishermen and Cross-Channel Relations in the Eighteenth Century”, Past and Present, vol. 202, no. 1, February
2009, pp. 83-125.
16
Daniel Roche, La culture équestre de l'Occident, XVIe-XIXe siècle. L'ombre du cheval, vol. 1, Le cheval
moteur, Paris, Fayard, 2008. On this same topic, we would note two fundamental works: Ghislaine Bouchet, Le
3
Flonneau, MH in France
work on the economic conditions of transportation in Ancien Régime France also warrant
mention17.
Moreover, histories of the movements of pioneers or adventurers18, or of tourism, have
also opened up very interesting paths, as in the research of Catherine Bertho-Lavenir or some
authors that wrote about Michelin19. Research into sports is also expected to be published in
the near future.
In terms of implementing the cultural turn, Marc Desportes’s 2005 book, published in
Gallimard’s prestigious “Bibliothèque Illustrée des Histoires” collection, may be considered a
spectacular turning point20. By studying the transformations in how space was perceived from
the 18th to the 20th centuries, Desportes became something of a French Wolfgang
Schivelbusch21, by also daring to focus on all modes of transport.
In this, his work built on the groundbreaking approach of Christophe Studeny, who
made an indelible imprint on the history of the national space22. Looking closely, we see that
these works point out the following obvious fact: the history of mobility is also the history of
a value, speed, that is profoundly linked to modernity23. This interpretation was shared by
medialogists (researchers analyzing contemporary concrete mediation), whose conceptual
innovations are still useful24.
cheval à Paris de 1850 à 1914, Genève, Droz, 1993, and Nicholas Papayanis, Horse-Drawn Cabs and
Omnibuses in Paris. The Idea of Circulation and the Business of Public Transit, Baton Rouge/Louisiana State
University Press, 1996.
17
Anne Conchon, “Péages et circulation marchande au XVIIIe siècle”, in La circulation des marchandises sous
l'Ancien Régime, CHEFF (Committee on the Economic and Financial History of France), Paris, 1998, pp. 145162, Le Péage en France au XVIIIe siècle. Les privilèges à l'épreuve de la réforme, Paris, CHEFF, 2002. In
2009, a study day was organized to research the price and cost of transport in pre-industrial Europe.
18
Sylvain Venayre, La gloire de l’aventure. Genèse d’une mystique moderne, 1850-1940, Paris, Aubier, 2002,
and “Le siècle du voyage”, featured article in Sociétés et Représentations, no. 21, April 2006.
19
Catherine Bertho-Lavenir, La Roue et le stylo. Comment nous sommes devenus touristes, Odile Jacob, 1999.
We could also cite Georges Ribeill, “Du pneumatique à la logistique routière, André Michelin promoteur de la
‘révolution automobile’”, Culture Technique, no. 19, 1989, pp. 191-204, Stephen L. Harp, Marketing Michelin.
Advertising and Cultural Identity in Twentieth-Century France, Baltimore and London, John Hopkins University
Press, 2001, Lucien Karpik, “Le Guide rouge Michelin”, Sociologie du travail, no. 42, 2000, pp. 369-389.
20
Marc Desportes, Paysages en mouvement, Transports et perception de l’espace XVIIIe-XXe siècle, Gallimard,
Paris, 2005.
21
Schivelbusch’s Geschichte der Eisenbahnreise, published in 1977, was translated into French as Histoire des
voyages en train and published in 1990.
22
Christophe Studeny, L'invention de la vitesse, France XVIIIe-XXe siècle, Paris, Gallimard, 1995.
23
This is one of the conclusions likely to be addressed in Agnès Pipien’s dissertation, which she is still working
on, entitled Construire la modernité, développer les territoires alpins. Une histoire sociale de la route (XIXeXXIe siècles), Université Grenoble II, LARHA. For more about this presumably positive link between mobility
and modernity, see: Sylvain Allemand et al., Les sens du mouvement, Modernité et mobilités dans les sociétés
urbaines contemporaines, Belin, IVM (Institut pour la Ville en Mouvement), 2004.
24
The now-defunct journal Cahiers de médiologie indicated several important signposts: “Qu’est-ce qu’une
route?” no. 2, 1996; “La bicyclette”, no. 5, 1998; and “L’automobile”, no. 12, 2001.
4
Flonneau, MH in France
Thus, this research came on top of other more traditional but sometimes very unique
research that focused on analyzing the national territory’s actual or mythological construction,
and its strategic, military and economic control25.
Continuing in the same lines, we can also consider that historians have benefited
substantially from contemporary research by geographers26 (whose education was
traditionally related to that of historians) and city planners27. The sustainable development
field can also be a source of research into decisive historical aspects, even though the risk of
errors due to anachronisms must be avoided28.
Lastly, among these major predecessors for the most recent mobility history, we can
cite the published proceedings of the colloquium on the history of European postal services,
held in Paris in June 2004 at the headquarters of the French Postal Service and at École
Normale Supérieure. This event illustrates the French Postal Service’s high-level support of
historical research. By publishing these proceedings in 2007, Muriel le Roux, with the
contribution of Sébastien Richez, provided a remarkable tool for a comparative history of
European postal services over the long period of contemporary history29. A similar process
had been undertaken a few years earlier at RATP (Régie Automone des Transports Parisiens,
the Paris public transport authority) when it redefined its corporate strategy: as part of the
“Réseau 2000” plan, systematic research projects were launched30.
25
Antoine Picon, L'invention de l'ingénieur moderne. L'École des Ponts et Chaussées 1747-1851, Paris, Presses
of École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, 1992; Marc Desportes and Antoine Picon, De l’espace au territoire.
L’aménagement en France, XVIe-XXe siècles, Paris, Presses of École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, 1997;
Vincent Guigueno, Au service des phares. La signalisation maritime en France XIXe-XXe siècles, Rennes
University Presses, 2001.
26
Emile Mérenne, Géographie des transports, Rennes University Presses, 2003; Jean Ollivro, Quand la vitesse
change le monde. Essor de la vitesse et transformation des sociétés, Apogée, 2006; and Jean Varlet and Pierre
Zembri, Atlas des transports. Les paradoxes de la mise en réseau du monde, Autrement, 2010.
27
Jean-Pierre Orfeuil, Une approche laïque de la mobilité, Paris, Descartes et Cie, 2008; and Mobilités urbaines,
l'âge des possibles, Paris, Les Carnets de l'info, 2008; and under Orfeuil’s direction, Transports, pauvretés,
exclusion. Pouvoir bouger pour s'en sortir, L'Aube, 2004. Also see Gabriel Dupuy, Urban Networks. Network
Urbanism, Amsterdam, Techne Press, 2008.
28
Marc Rivière, Socio-histoire du vélo dans l’espace urbain. D’une écologie politique à une économie
médiatique, dissertation, Université Toulouse II, 2009; and Maxime Huré’s ongoing research on the bicycle , “La
création d’un réseau de villes: circulations, pouvoirs et territoires, le cas du Club des Villes Cyclables (19892009)”, Métropoles, no. 6, 2009, pp. 216-255.
29
Muriel Le Roux (ed.), Post Offices of Europe, 18th – 21st Century, A Comparative History, Committee for
History of La Poste, 2007 – bilingual edition. The dynamism of postal history is also visible in two other books:
Patrick Marchand, Le maître de poste et le messager. Les transports publics en France au temps des chevaux,
Belin, Paris, 2006; and Virginie Detry, Cambouis et tôle jaune. La Poste et la voiture depuis 1930, Les cahiers
pour l’histoire de La Poste, no. 13, Committee for History of La Poste, 2010.
30
As for La Poste, which published a research guide in 2005 entitled Guide de recherche sur l’histoire de la
Poste en France des origines au premier Empire, a source guide was published with support from RATP: Guide
des sources de l'histoire des transports publics urbains à Paris et en Ile-de-France, XIXe-XXe siècles, Paris,
Sorbonne Publications, 1998. University research resulted from these efforts: Sheila Hallsted-Baumert, Le
Métropolitain: technologie, espace et création d’identités urbaine dans le Paris de fin du siècle, doctoral
dissertation at EHESS and New York University, 1999; Pascal Desarbres, Le chantier du chemin de fer
5
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From T²M (Traffic Transport and Mobility) to P²M (Past & Present Mobility): an
appropriate juncture for the convergence of various historiographies
Obviously, historians did not invent the concept of mobility: the examples of La Poste
and RATP show that mobility appears to be the intellectual and institutional “operator” that
drives the issues of transport history in the academic world. For the past few years, mobility
has entered the public debate, company rhetoric and the social sciences, which have all
incorporated a reflection on mobility (in social and concrete terms) into their programs.
In this context of converging parallel histories, just as some former research projects
were reaching maturity, the 4th Conference of the International Association for the History of
Transport, Traffic and Mobility (T2M) was held in France, at the Paris Sorbonne and the
École des Ponts of Marne-la-Vallée, in 2006. This is the largest T2M conference to date, with
more than 120 presentations.
In particular, this one-time event triggered a dynamic at the local level, with a series of
seminars that will end its sixth season in 2011. More than 100 researchers from France and
other countries have presented their research at these seminars. P2M (for “Past & Present
Mobility”), a new association based on the informal group managing these seminars, will be
created soon. The initial results of this experience gave rise to a general publication gathering
research from around 30 authors: De l’histoire des transports à l’histoire de la mobilité? États
des lieux, enjeux et perspectives de recherche (University Press of Rennes, 2009). As the title
suggests, the contributions were focused on the question of a shift from transport history to
mobility history.
The inclusive and extensive rationale behind the mobility history seminar is worth
looking at briefly. It was initially driven by Université Paris I (Mathieu Flonneau, History of
Contemporary Western Societies in the 19th and 20th Centuries, then the Heritage Techniques
and Territories of Industry Master’s in the Erasmus Mundus program) and the École des Ponts
of Marne-la-Vallée (Vincent Guigueno), then by Université Paris IV (Pascal Griset’s seminar
on the history of technology) and Université Paris VII (Arnaud Passalacqua). This seminar
acts as a special observatory, with a substantial audience at its monthly sessions, reaching up
métropolitain de Paris, de 1898 à 1946, dissertation in history at Université Paris IV, 2007. In addition, the
summary work by Dominique Larroque, Michel Margairaz and Pierre Zembri, Paris et ses transports XIXe-XXe
siècle, Editions Recherches, 2002. The parallels between La Poste and RATP also included publications, the
same year, of inventories of their respective heritage: Henri Zuber et al., Le patrimoine de la RATP, and André
Darrigrand, Le patrimoine de La Poste, Flohic, 1996.
6
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to 80 people for special sessions. The strengths and shortfalls in research and knowledge are
pointed out, visits are organized for well-known and classic sites, while eclectic or
iconoclastic themes are explored in unique meeting venues.
Insert book cover!
Also following on from the 2006 T2M International Seminar, we would mention the
colloquium organized in November 2008 and dedicated to “Air Culture”, held at the Cité des
Sciences et de l’Industrie. At the initiative of a few researchers whose work focuses on
subjects involving air transport since the 18th century, the aim of this colloquium was to give
impetus to research into a new history of aeronautics by integrating the field of cultural
history and representations, along with technical advances and their political and economic
implications31.
Among the venues that are familiar with this new theme, we would also cite the
French Ecology Ministry’s history committee and its journal, Pour mémoire, as well as other
journals such as Flux, Métropoles and Histoire urbaine32.
The histories of international expertise33 and communications34 have also drawn on the
themes covered by mobility history. In this regard, a summer university program was held in
September 2010 in Pleumeur-Bodou, Brittany, and organized by Pascal Griset and the
CNRS’s IRICE laboratory, Paris I and Paris IV. This program covered the combined themes
of communications and mobility.
31
Luc Robène, L'homme à la conquête de l'air. Des aristocrates éclairés aux sportifs bourgeois, Paris,
L'Harmattan, 1998; Marie Thébaud-Sorger, L’aérostation au temps des Lumières, Rennes University Presses,
2009; Une histoire des ballons. Invention, culture matérielle et imaginaire, 1783-1909, Paris, Édition des
Monuments Nationaux, 2010; and Nathalie Roseau, L'imaginaire de la ville aérienne, dissertation, Université
Paris Est, two volumes, 2008.
32
“Transports en ville”, Histoire urbaine, no. 11, December 2004.
33
Marine Moguen-Toursel (dir.), Stratégies d’entreprise et action publique dans l’Europe intégrée (1950-1980):
affrontement et apprentissage des acteurs / Firm Strategies and Public Policy in Integrated Europe (19501980): Confrontation and Learning of Economic Actors, P.I.E.-Peter Lang, 2007. Fabrice Bardet and Sébastien
Gardon, “Des autoroutes dans la ville. Les ingénieurs des ponts et chaussées à la conquête des politiques
urbaines lyonnaises”, in Action publique et légitimités professionnelles, Ed. LGDJ, Paris, 2008, pp. 197-208.
Sébastien Gardon, Arnaud Passalacqua and Frank Schipper, “Pour une histoire des circulations sur la
circulation”, Métropoles, no. 6, 2009, pp. 1-17. Sébastien Gardon, “Pouvoirs urbains et ingénieurs de l'État, La
construction d’infrastructures routières dans la région lyonnaise au vingtième siècle”, Métropoles, no. 2,
September 2007, pp. 63-102. Harold Mazoyer, “Le rôle de l’expert et son usage des savoirs. Les études du métro
de Lyon (1963-1973)”, in Aux frontières de l’expertise. Dialogues entre savoirs et pouvoirs, Rennes University
Presses, 2010, pp. 67-82.
34
Here, we must mention in particular Léonard Laborie’s works, “Navigation, itinérance, enracinement. La
mobilité aux frontières de l’histoire de la communication et de l’histoire des transports, XIXe-XXIe siècles” in
De l’histoire des transports à l’histoire de la mobilité?, op. cit., and L’Europe mise en réseaux. La France et la
coopération internationale dans les postes et les télécommunications (années 1850-années 1950), Brussels, PIE
Peter Lang, 2010.
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The example of the renewal of the history of roadways and automobilism
Given the new historiographical orientations that we would like to promote by
applying the criteria of the mobility turn, the case of the automobile, the uses of which were
long ignored by historians, is a useful example. One of the recurring questions is now the
following: should the history of the automobile – in France, elsewhere in Europe, or
worldwide – remain a history of automobiles themselves? Wouldn’t it be more pertinent to
reason in terms of automobilism? Indeed, the stakes of a comprehensive history of the
automobile and of mobility as a technical system derived from this invention go well beyond
the “primary” economic and productive aspects that are already well known. The “secondary”
aspects – uses, but also the “roadsides” covered by US and UK researchers, is still relatively
unknown, and while not neglected, it has only been subject to a relative focus35. The best
overview of the French automobile published to date36 contains a bibliography organized by
carmaker, which is further proof of the resilience of the conventional limits of the admittedly
rich and fascinating history of the industrial strategies of the various firms. Now, the focus is
shifting to the influences of the automobile system37, the development of trucks38, road
safety39, city planning40, vehicle penetration in rural areas41 or the environmental issues that
35
In 1972, Patrick Fridenson’s initial call for a history of the automobile, “Pour une histoire de l’automobile en
France” (Le Mouvement Social, Oct.-Dec. 1972, pp. 3-8), only triggered a partial reaction in the French
academic world. A rare and noteworthy exception is Anne-Françoise Garçon (dir.), L’automobile. Son monde et
ses réseaux, Rennes University Presses, 1998. Several master’s theses were written on this topic, notably those
of Jean-Claude Boulay (1962), Nicolas Spinga (1973), Ghislain Wouters (1980), Frédéric Viéban (1987),
Brigitte Laville (1999) and Hervé Debacker (1999). Note also the recent master’s thesis of Amandine Condoure,
La promotion de l’automobilisme par l’Automobile club du sud-ouest, réussites et limites de 1887 à nos jours,
Université Bordeaux 3, 2009.
36
Jean-Louis Loubet, Histoire de l’automobile française, Paris, Seuil, 1998.
37
Jean Orselli, Usages et usagers de la route. Mobilité et sécurité 1860-2008, dissertation at Université Paris I
Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2009.
38
Jean-François Grevet, Au coeur de la révolution automobile: l'industrie du poids lourd du Plan Pons au
regroupement Berliet-Saviem. Marchés, industries et État en France de 1944 à 1974, dissertation at Université
de Lille III, 2005. Elisabeth Augustyn-James, Évolution du métier de chauffeur routier, 1934-1970, history
dissertation at Université du Havre, 2009. Anne-Catherine Rodrigues, Évolution des représentations et des
modes d’investissement dans les métiers de la conduite routière à travers leur féminisation, dissertation (under
way) at Université Paris XII. Mathieu Flonneau and Arnaud Passalacqua (dir.) L'utilité de l'utilitaire: aperçu
réaliste des services automobiles, Paris, Descartes et Cie, 2010. We would also add Richard Darbera, Où vont les
taxis?, Paris, Descartes et Cie, 2010.
39
The seminal article is Patrick Fridenson’s “La société française et les accidents de la route, 1890-1914”,
Ethnologie française, no. 3, 1991, pp. 306-313. Note also Sébastien Gardon, “La ville et ses mondes
automobiles: Genèse d’une politique de sécurité routière (1902-1972)”, in Guilbot Michèle (dir.), Sécurité
routière et réseaux institutionnels locaux, INRETS proceedings no. 111, Paris, 2009, pp. 129-153.
40
Mathieu Flonneau, L’automobile à la conquête de Paris. Chroniques illustrées, Paris, Presses of École
Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, 2003, and Paris et l’automobile, un siècle de passions, Paris, Hachettes
Littératures, 2005.
8
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are generally neglected by “modal” historians. In this regard, the goal can also be to
understand the important and recent change in the position of carmakers, which are now very
aware of their role in society, as they face the threat of an automobile “counter-revolution”, at
least in a very dominant, persistent message conveyed by the media. Thus, the automobile
“world” has undoubtedly definitively stopped being a world of its own, and has literally
entered a political phase – certainly the most delicate – that is obviously fascinating to
observe and debate with a certain critical distance42. In this framework, a series of workshops
were created in 2009 by the CCFA (the French Carmakers’ Committee) and the Sorbonne (i.e.
Université Paris I and Université Paris IV). These workshops cover an area that needed to be
opened up: their resolutely cultural and social orientation leaves substantial leeway for a
historical perspective43. Yet these perspectives were neglected for a long time, leaving the
automobile to be covered by “technicians” or even economists. The uses of automobilism, in
their wide variety, are thus at the heart of the analyses. This shift finally affected key
institutions such as the GERPISA (a research group focused on the automobile industry and
auto workers), active since the 1970s, and the IVM (“Institute for the City in Motion”), a
research body created by Peugeot SA in 200044. This field benefits from new histories of
infrastructure45 and public transport46, placing urban history in a now entirely political arena.
This history of automobilism probably needs to return to classic historical fields such
as the history of roadways and the history of transport policy, two fields that have not been
researched extensively47. The existence of a strong branch of roadway history was also
41
Continuing the research undertaken for his master’s thesis, Étienne Faugier is preparing a doctoral dissertation
that compares the situation in the Rhône department and Quebec, “Contestations croisées anti-automobiles au
début du XXe siècle. Les cas du département du Rhône et de la Province de Québec”, in Mathieu Flonneau
(dir.), Automobile: les cartes du désamour, Paris, Descartes et Cie, February 2010, pp. 81-91.
42
Mathieu Flonneau, Les cultures du volant. Essai sur les mondes de l’automobilisme, Paris, Autrement, 2008.
This takes a fresh look at Kristin Ross’s older, and sometimes controversial, Fast Cars, Clean Bodies,
Decolonization and the Reordering of French Culture, MIT Press, 1996.
43
Three workshops have been held to date: “Généalogie de l’anti-automobilisme. L’espace de l’automobile
citoyenne entre logique industrielle, critiques légitimes et autophobie” (on the origins of anti-automobilism),
4 June 2009; “L’Utilité de l’utilitaire?” (on the usefulness of utility vehicles), 3 Dec. 2009; and “Art, volume et
mouvement, les cultures de l’architecture et du design dans l’automobile” (on art, volume, movement and
automobile design), 14 October 2010 (the latter workshop was organized during the Paris Motor Show).
44
This institution was a pioneer in promoting the notion of mobility from a sociological standpoint. It funds a
university chair.
45
Sébastien Gardon, Gouverner la circulation urbaine: des villes françaises face à l'automobile (1910-1960),
Sciences Po Lyon, Université Lyon 2, 2009, soon to be published in 2011 as Goût de bouchons, Congestions et
Solutions, Lyon, les villes françaises et l’équation automobile, Descartes et Cie; also by Gardon: “Impasses et
limites dans la ville, Les projets d’autoroutes urbaines”, Pour Mémoire, no. 7, Winter 2009, pp. 52-60, “Les
autoroutes urbaines: une histoire inachevée”, Routes/Roads, no. 344, 2009, pp. 90-93.
46
Arnaud Passalacqua, L'autobus et Paris. Histoire de mobilités, Paris, Economica, 2011. Note also by
Passalacqua, La bataille de la route, Paris, Descartes et Cie, 2010.
47
Joseph Jones, The Politics of Transport in Twentieth Century France, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1984.
Nicolas Neiertz, La coordination des transports en France de 1918 à nos jours, Paris, CHEFF, 1999.
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Flonneau, MH in France
emphasized when the proceedings of the World Road Association-PIARC’s congresses were
published online for an historical studies day organized for the association’s 100th anniversary
in 200748.
Mobility history’s numerous and various promises
Among the promising themes that may bring even greater visibility to the notion of
mobility, we would like to point out two directions. The first involves the effects of transport
since the evolution in public policy under pressure from users and associations.
These topics have proven their value in recent research carried out as part of interministerial programs on “Road Safety” or the National Research Agency’s “Euro Norms,
Innovation, Risk Assessment and Drafting Standards on the EU Level. A Comparison of the
Automobile and Drug Industries” program, directed by Marine Moguen-Toursel49.
Another National Research Agency research program, directed by Pascal Griset for the
period 2010-2014, has been launched on these themes: “RESENDEM”: Major Technical
Networks in a Democracy: Innovation, Uses and Groups Involved in the Long Term (late 19th
– early 21st centuries)50.
The second particularly rich orientation is the heritage sector’s involvement in the
mobility field. In the Greater Paris region, two initiatives are worth mentioning. The first is
the Cité des Sciences et l’Industrie’s permanent exhibit on mobility, which was designed with
aid from historians (to be inaugurated in Summer 2011). A new museum urban and interurban transport is also set to be inaugurated in 2012 by the inter-urban community of Chelles-
48
Vincent Guigueno, “Pluralité des histoires de la route: vers une histoire de la mobilité routière”, Roads,
Routes, no. 336/337, 2008, pp. 192-199. Denis Glasson, “Un siècle de congrès mondiaux de la route”, Pour
Mémoire, Autumn 2007, pp. 7-58. There are some classic works on this topic, including: Jean-Claude Thoenig,
L’ère des technocrates, Le cas des ponts et chaussées, L’Harmattan, Paris, 1987 (1973) and L’administration des
routes et le pouvoir départemental, Vie et mort de la vicinalité, Cujas CNRS, Paris, 1980; André Guillerme,
Corps à corps sur la route. Les routes, les chemins et l'organisation des services au XIXe siècle, Paris, Presses of
École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, 1984; Bernard Lepetit, Chemins de terre et voies d’eau. Réseaux de
transports et organisation de l’espace en France (1740-1840), Éditions de l’EHESS, 1984, Georges Livet,
Histoire des routes et des transports en Europe, des chemins de Saint-Jacques à l'âge d'or des diligences,
Strasbourg University Presses, 2003; Antoine Picon, “Vers un nouveau contrat politique et social? L’histoire de
la route française et ses enseignements”, January 2007, available on the website of the Union Routière de France.
49
For automobilism, the pertinence of the 1960-70s and the cultural turn of 1968 was particularly emphasized,
e.g. in the chapters on mobility in Le grand dessein parisien de Georges Pompidou, Somogy, 2010. See also “La
ville contre la voiture?”, MEFRIM, École Française de Rome, 120/1, 2008.
50
Study day entitled “Les projets d’autoroutes urbaines, Impasses, contestations et alternatives: Perspectives
historiques et enjeux contemporains”, National Research Agency’s RESENDEM program, Sciences Po Lyon,
9 June 2010.
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Flonneau, MH in France
Marne-Chantereine. In terms of museum programs, the inventories carried out by ministries51
or in private structures52 should also be highlighted.
To conclude, the previous few pages are aimed at describing the stages in the
invention, importation and stabilization of a field of historical research. The question of a shift
was already raised in the title of the above-mentioned collective work De l’histoire des
transports à l’histoire de la mobilité? In fact, the question mark in the title now appears to be
superfluous in France; mobility history has become a field of its own53.
____________
51
Examples of these inter-ministerial efforts include the training sessions organized by Paul Smith at the
Ministry’s heritage department, intended for professional curators (in Paris in March 2010 and Lyon in
November 2011), as well as Rodolphe Rapetti’s report entitled Musées et patrimoine automobile en France,
French Ministry of Culture and Communications, French museums department, 2007, available online.
52
Work in progress: Guillaume Kozubski, Guide de recherches sur l’histoire de la carrosserie en France,
master’s thesis (under way), 2010. Note also “Les patrimoines de la mobilité”, International Workshop, Erasmus
Mundus master’s program coordinated by Anne-Françoise Garçon, Universities Paris I, Evora and Padua, held in
July 2010 (proceedings to be published in 2011).
53
Related to the theme of mobility, there are several fellowships or dissertation/master’s thesis prizes available,
notably the Fédération Française de la Carrosserie’s fellowship, founded in 2010, or the Jean-Panhard
Automobile et Société prize, created in 2007 and based on the fellowships already funded by AHICF or La
Poste.
11