Abstract
The Algerian War occupies a particularly contentious and emotionally charged place in France’s national memory – serving as the source of a veritable war of memories that is regularly fought on various political and scholarly battlegrounds. Previous research has shown that the tension between republican universalism and the colonial crimes committed during imperial conquest has produced a colonial legacy that sits uncomfortably at the heart of French identity. Contributing to this scholarship, this article employs the theoretical premises of ontological security theory to examine France’s incomplete reconciliation with its colonial past. By analysing how interest groups generate ontological insecurity through the contestation of the state’s official narrative in their pursuit to gain official recognition and commemoration, this analysis provides a novel understanding of bottom-up memory lobbying in France. It thus examines how Harki memory entrepreneurs and associations commemorating the 1961 Paris massacre strategically frame their demands for recognition by attacking the Republic’s ontological security. The study suggests that a closer analysis of bottom-up threat constructions to the state’s ontological security order contributes to a more holistic understanding of the internal deliberation of the state’s sense of self.