The duties of remembrance, of history and of defence are three notions whose complementarity is evident, as values that impart sense to the defensive spirit. Each contributes to the creation of the collective identity on which a part of the individual identity is also based. Remembrance brings together and is the vector of the sense of solidarity just as it leads to reconciliation, as long as these notions are not subject to a manipulative process.

The ‘remembrance war'⁽¹⁾ or ‘remembrance terrorism’⁽²⁾ which is currently raging, at both national and international level, is a threat to the future of the French citizen community. The historical obligation is necessary in order to arbitrate in the ideological conflicts where the collective memory, or its possible fragmentation, is at stake.

To question the place of memory in our society leads inevitably to questioning the notion of the transmission of the sense and the value accorded to it. And this is where the problem that some people are calling the ‘remembrance war’ is posed most sharply, and in which the stakes are ideological, political, economic and cultural. The remembrance war is a phenomenon that closely concerns defence, inasmuch as the latter has the majestic mission of conserving the values, interests, territories, traditions and principles which make up the fibre of the nation. It is why professional armed forces cannot allow themselves to ignore the need for serious reflection on the impact and resonance of the duty of remembrance within French society, since it is a vector of the most significant elements on which the defensive spirit is based.