ABSTRACT
This chapter explores in greater detail the “recycling” of some other sites in Paris, suggesting that efforts to repurpose them form part and parcel of France’s difficult, and attempt to come to terms with its colonial past. Colonialism produced its opposite, but the state was hardly eager to consecrate sites of anti-colonialism. Ones that recall opposition to empire nevertheless exist in Paris, though often not signposted. An anti-colonial exposition of 1931 was held in the Place du Colonel-Fabien, dominated by the headquarters of the French Communist Party. The colonialist “sites of memory” have become sites for contestation of the colonial past. The question that remains largely unanswered is whether and how the “recycling” of old sites can aid in coming to terms with the colonial past. Old and new sites connected with French overseas expansion and decolonization, have become significant stakes in debates and public policy in the postcolonial age.
