ABSTRACT

The concept of restorative justice is relatively unknown in France, by academics and practitioners alike. There are many reasons for this, the first of which is linguistic. The concept has been formed in English- speaking countries and there is no work specifically devoted to this subject in French. The few studies or review articles that have approached this subject have only done so incidentally (Cario and Salas 2001; Faget 1997). The second reason is historical and political. Restorative justice was born in countries significantly marked by colonization (Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada) in which the post-colonial state was incapable of finding any solution other than repressing the problem of adapting its indigenous peoples. Faced with this impasse the revalorizing of normative community traditions was a way of acceding to the identity claims of these people (Jaccoud 2003). But the French colonial context, for political and economic reasons that are too long to address here, is entirely different. The third reason is institutional. The French model of ‘social justice’, constructed after 1945, was at the forefront of western systems (Faget 1992) and, even if it has been exhausted, the practitioners (juvenile judges, social workers, etc.) still believe that they possess a sufficient range of educative measures and do not express the desire to research new modes of action. The fourth reason for this ignorance is conceptual. Seen from France or French- speaking countries the concept of restorative justice seems, to those who are familiar with it, too ambiguous to be diffused. Originally devised in opposition to the punitive system (Zehr 1990), then to the educative and therapeutic model (Walgrave 1994), it is unclear if it is inspired by a reformist will to humanize the judicial approach (according to the term restorative justice), if it is a strategy of conflict against the expiatory foundation of the criminal law system or whether it pursues the ambition to disseminate restorative practices in all domains of social life.