Rene Girault

Historian with a pan-European perspective

Rene Girault, who has died of cancer aged 69, had a special place in the community
of historians. On his instigation a group from various European universities looked at
power and powerlessness in 20th-century Europe, each from a national perspective
but within a common framework.

Then, in 1990, under his direction 10 transnational groups, 150 historians in all,
moved on to research European identities and consciousness. He was until 1994
professor of international relations at the University of Paris (Pantheon-Sorbonne)
and director of the international relations research centre, Pierre Renouvin.

The group of historians studied post-war archives for evidence of European

consciousness in people's experience of frontiers, wars, seafaring, cultural and social
behaviour, and in the attitudes of the elites. Papers went into scholarly journals while
Girault worked on a conference on the project at the French Senate in 1994.

In a typically French intellectual way, Girault believed scholars have public

responsibilities. The European project was driven by the view that decision-makers
should be much better informed on the factors which underpin Europe's diversity,
what is deeply rooted, what is more liable to change.

Girault, unlike a number of his confreres, was a jocular figure. Some of his style must
have developed in a post-1968 baptism of fire as vice-president of the crisis-ridden
University of Vincennes. In the 80s Girault, at the request of the newly elected
President Mitterrand, worked on reform of the history and geography curriculum.

Girault was a product of the traditional French university and, as he said in his last
professorial lecture in 1994, every historian is a prisoner of his time. When he was
trained in the early 1950s, France's history students learned about other countries
largely through a nation's great literature, and their greatest achievement was to
write intelligently elegant syntheses (one of Girault's lasting skills).

The cold war had begun. Much of the French intellectual class was Marxist. Inside
the Sorbonne, they were living the great schism with historians like Fernand Braudel
working on the impact of long-term economic and physical phenomena. The
response of Girault's generation was a historical critique which reflected their time
and a new reading of history. When the political upheavals of 1968 gave the
universities a huge increase in teaching posts, Girault and like-minded academics
were ready to promote new disciplines and new treatments in international relations,
beyond the history of diplomacy.

When I met Girault, in 1985, I was a journalist whom he wanted as a tutor on a new
international relations course which would combine academic rigour and
professional skills. A master's level course would provide the disciplinary training but
students would also be given professional knowledge by practitioners to manage new
areas such as humanitarian aid and tourism.
This type of course never became a big feature of French universities, since teachers'
and students' unions convinced a fearful minister that since such courses were
selective they should not be allowed within French universities - which are non-
selective. But I look back on those days as a brave effort to show that the French
universities had moved with the times.

Girault's story in opening up the French university is part of an unsung general story
of evolution and achievement, unnoticed by those who focus on the grandes ecoles
and France's televisual academic stars. Since my mid-life decision to undertake a
doctorate with a European focus owes quite a lot to that opening out, I am sad that
he won't see the outcome. There must be many other grateful students.

He married twice. Both his wives survive him as do his two sons. His daughter
predeceased him.

Rene Girault professor emeritus of international relations, born December 12, 1929;
died July 8, 199

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