ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the French government's construction in 2001 of a plaque at Paris Pont St Michel to remember the killing of Algerians in the so-called Paris Massacre of 1961. Plausibly supported by the St Michel commemoration, RA draws on Sens theory to defend a higher quality, sustainable peace which restores victims and perpetrators agency-freedom. Given France's historic commitments to impartiality and free conscience, it is worth considering an alternative approach which may be called Reconciliation-as-Civic-Trust (RCT). As pluralist societies cannot expect between all citizens agreement on a comprehensive theory of the good, it seems justifiable to turn to a non-sectarian concept based on peaceful coexistence and human rights. Conceiving the latter as potentially fundamental to life as the former, agency-freedom renders the capability approach attuned to human diversity by emphasizing the multidimensionality and possible non-materiality of human need.
