Paper Trails: Entente Cordiale and Franco-British collections

Ten years after the Liberation of France, relations between the Republic and her British neighbours were sometimes fractious. Yet this was also the 50^th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale, a gentleman’s understanding signed between France and Britain in 1904 that tried to put Fashoda-style colonial rivalries in the past and map out a route to cooperation. The agreements would certainly be tested by the two World Wars that occurred over the next forty years.

In French History, I wrote about that difficult anniversary, about the commemorative fumbling which imperilled relations between France, Britain, and the United States of America. Two years later, the limits of those relations were clear during the Suez crisis, when British and French writs could not run, and the rescaling of the post-war world become markedly clearer.

Only last week, talk turned again to Suez, after American politicians criticised the British and French (alongside other European partners) for not doing enough to police navigations routes around the Suez canal. Yet, this was also a moment of repair for Franco-British relations after nearly a decade of difficulties following the Brexit referendum of 2016. On the front pages of newspapers President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Keir Starmer shook hands and stood front and centre amongst allies at conferences in London and Paris, describing themselves as “co-pilots” of a rejuvenated Europe.

The 120^th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale was marked in decidedly better humour than the 40^th, at least on my part. Personally, I marked the year of the anniversary by attending an event at the British Library which celebrated Franco-British collections, and the wealth of material relating to France held in collections all over the United Kingdom. This ‘rendez-vous at the British Library’ offered moments to encounter collections, find new opportunities for collaboration, and enjoy stories of research and discovery.

It was the previous iteration of that excellent event, which took place at the Institut français in November 2023, that convinced us of the need to try and raise the profile of these French collections in the UK. Working with the British Library, the French Studies Library Group, and the ESRI department of the French Embassy, we invited contributors to bring their articles together.

The result is a special update of Paper Trails that focusses on the interpretation, promotion and enjoyment of these French collections in the UK. You can read that update now as it is published Open Access by UCL Press.

Here is a contents list of the material included:

1. Karima Gaci (Leeds), Exploring French-Language Textbooks at the British Library: Exhuming Original Approaches and Preserving the Past (Collection Profile) 
2. Dinah Bott (Priaulx Library, Guernsey), ‘Angleterre et France mêlées’: the Priaulx Library, Guernsey (Collection Profile) 
3. Saskia Huc-Hepher and Nicola Bingham (University of Westminster), London French Special Collection in the UK Web Archive (Collection Profile) 
4. Saskia Huc-Hepher and Debra Kelly (University of Westminster), The Archives of London’s Société Française de Bienfaisance, Dispensaire Français and Hôpital Français (Collection Profile) 
5. Jessica Wardhaugh (University of Warwick), French Collections at the Modern Records Centre (University of Warwick) (Collection Profile) 
6. Irene Fabry-Tehranchi (University of Cambridge), The Caricatures of the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune (1870-1871) (Collection Profile) 
7. Hanna Diamond (University of Cardiff), The Barbier Papers at Cardiff University: a Rich Family Archive with More to Reveal (Collection Profile) 
8. Linda Parr (Independent), Postcards for Perec: Two Hundred and Forty-Three Postcards in Real Colour (Engagement) 
9. Heather Williams (National Library of Wales), Breton Collections in the National Library of Wales (Collection Profile) 
10. Charles Chadwyck-Healey (Independent), Creating the Chadwyck-Healey Liberation Collection (Collection Profile) 
11. Sophie Defrance, Victoria Morris and Anthony Chapman-Joy (British Library), Cataloguing Caricatures at the British Library (Co-production) 

My own recent reflection on Franco-British relations has been reading the somewhat hilarious Major Thompson Lives in France, agift from Professor Miri Rubin at Queen Mary, University of London. That satirical book, published in 1957 just after the tensions I described in the opening, is instructive of the ways that Franco-British relations have developed in the twentieth century (and its imitation of one culture, being translated into another culture, all while aping the role of the translator is enough to confound any literary analyst!). Far from enmity, a good-spirited rivalry spurred on by some fairly bracing mutual mockery had underpinned much of it. In the book, the titular Major Thompson teases that the “French are inclined to believe that other countries live with their eyes fixed on France.” While the fictional Major may have been bloviating, what this special update of Paper Trails achieves is to show us where that long-running Franco-British rivalry has left traces in the archives and collections of the United Kingdom.

Far from rupture and rivalry, that history instead is marked by high points of cooperation and understanding, and its traces in the libraries, archives, and collections of both countries offers ample opportunities to discover and develop that entente cordiale for years to come.