ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the emotions, passions and movement that characterize World War II-related tourism in France, both during the war and in the occasionally contentious development of war-related tourist sites and what are often called lieux de memoire thereafter. It points to some of the emotion generated by World War II tourism and makes a hypothetical foray into the assessment of its significance in the larger tourism context using France as a case study. France is an important case in examining the connections between tourism and war especially in regard to World War II for three significant reasons. First, France's role as the current world leader in tourist visits and secondly, the development of the field of cultural memory following the work of French scholars such as Maurice Halbwachs and more recently Pierre Nora. Finally, the chapter focuses on the production of an extensive historical literature relating to the war and its interpretations in France since 1945.
