Historock, a show to restore a taste for French history to young people

Dimitri Casali is a writer, essayist and former professor of history and geography specializing in popularizing history.

He publishes numerous works including

Napoleon in the intimacy of a reign

FIGAROVOX.- What does the Historock

musical project consist of

Dimitri CASALI.-

The Historock educational project explores new and innovative ways of teaching history to younger generations to transmit to them our heritage, our culture and our values.

It aims more specifically to make 8 to 15 year olds aware of the history of France through music and video.

As a history teacher in a Priority Education Zone, in the northern suburbs of Paris, this is where I invented this new teaching method to arouse students' curiosity and make them want to know more. .

Thanks to music and videos embodied by real actors, I intend to arouse curiosity and the desire to take an interest in it.

It is not so difficult to explain to children that today's France is based both on a monarchical and Christian heritage of which we must be proud and never deny it and on a republican and secular heritage.

Dimitri Casali

The main part is the musical spectacle in seventeen scenes, from the cathedrals to General de Gaulle.

This is the first time that we have composed a rock opera on the history of France.

This is a big first.

We will give it on February 2 at 6:30 p.m. at the Alhambra in Paris, near Place de la République in the 10th arrondissement.

This show dusts off the history of France while remaining irreproachable on a scientific level.

All facts and information are true and verified.

This is why Professor Jean Tulard is the sponsor of the Historock education project.

On February 2, Franck Ferrand will be the narrator.

I wanted to offer a balanced vision of the history of France.

As I have for twenty years in my books, I am an ardent defender of a unifying national narrative and a chronology based on our two heritages.

This is the crucial point we always forget.

However, it is not so difficult to explain to children that today's France is based both on a monarchical and Christian heritage of which we must be proud and never deny it, and on a republican and secular heritage.

It is the balance of these two principles that makes us unique.

In these 17 songs that make up our Rock opera, there are first of all our great kings: Philippe Auguste, Saint-Louis, François Ier, Louis XIV, the essential, and our two emperors.

I start with the cathedrals which, in my opinion, are the origin of the birth of France.

The first verse is moreover:

.

But I also insist, from the wars of religion, on the appearance of the beginnings of the concept of secularism with the Edict of Nantes (1598).

Today, French secularism has become a specific characteristic that does not exist anywhere else in the world.

The republican heritage is very present with the revolutions and the Popular Front with Léon Blum.

There is no subject more crucial than raising our education and passing on our history to our youth.

They must relearn how to appreciate history, manage to recreate a national feeling, unite and bring together again...

Dimitri Casali

This initiative is important because I am convinced that the response to the crisis in our society will be above all educational.

There is no subject more crucial than raising our education and passing on our history to our youth.

We must teach them to appreciate history again, to give them the fundamental elements of our common history, to manage to recreate a national feeling, to unite and bring together again, to reduce the community divide, this is crucial if we do not want to prevent France does not come undone.

To do this, we must build a teaching of history that is a great unifying national narrative, which brings together and brings together all French people regardless of their origins, and which restores their confidence in a common destiny.

Can we bring young people into history with a rock opera?

Yes, by managing to excite them by using all the modern vectors available to us, music of course, but also video clips.

We produced 17 music videos intended to be accessible free of charge on the platforms so that in the depths of the most remote provinces or rural villages, every school or every family has access to them.

The 17 characters mentioned in the rock opera are all the subject of these music videos, directed by the great history Youtuber Ugo Bimar who made "Confessions of History" (one million views for each episode).

To reinforce our edutainment approach, we have chosen the comic vein.

For example, Joan of Arc tells her epic in today's language and humorous so that children aged 8 to 15 can understand it without difficulty.

Finally, we have also made the choice of modern music, easy to access (pop, rock, rap, R'n'b to be in tune with the times).

We seduce them with these easy-to-remember musical tunes but even more so with these actors who give flesh to the characters, to Joan of Arc or Louis XIV and who made them die of laughter.

Thanks to this set, we manage to arouse their curiosity.

Since then, they keep asking their teachers for more details.

For example, we managed to get four fifth-grade classes to sing, in the northern suburbs of Paris,

We seduce them with these easy-to-remember musical tunes but even more so with these actors who give flesh to the characters, to Joan of Arc or Louis XIV and who made them die of laughter.

Thanks to this set, we manage to arouse their curiosity.

Since then, they keep asking their teachers for more details.

For example, we managed to get four fifth-grade classes to sing, in the northern suburbs of Paris,

, now they want to know everything about this strange king, murdered by Ravaillac.

On the Historock Youtube channel, four videos are already freely available, including that of the good King Henry who tells his story and the context of the religious wars of the 16th century.

Have schools been sensitive to your approach?

We have already tested the music and videos in six ZEP middle schools and they were a huge success, the students loved them.

This is the reason why there will be 300 of these pupils at the premiere on February 2 in Alhambra, they almost all come from the particularly disadvantaged northern suburbs.

Through this project, you want to

We cannot love what we do not know, hence the need for the transmission of our History of France, because I affirm that the younger generations are unaware of their own history.

It is above all History that forms citizenship, Cicero already said “history is the teacher of life” and we have totally neglected it for 20 years.

Dimitri Casali

This is what our republican school should do to succeed in the fundamental challenge of integration. The School fails in its mission each time it does not know how to make these students French, that is to say citizens proud of their belonging to the nation, enriched by their personal stories. It is above all History that forms citizenship, Cicero already said

and we have totally neglected it for 20 years. It is a vital emergency from the democratic point of view: no public debate is possible, no real freedom is permitted, without the cultural foundations that allow a citizen to participate fully in civic life.While 82% of young people aged 18-24 abstained in the last regional elections.

For this we must stop with the guilt-inducing reading in school textbooks and also in all the media.

The public channels broadcast a story that is systematically charged, such as the latest France 3 program on the French colonies “Conquer at all costs…” or the series on France 2 l'École de la vie.

How do you explain the weakening of the level of history teaching in France?

What are the causes ?

Today we favor only the study of period documents that are deeply incomprehensible for 10-year-old children.

Pedagogists have seized on the teaching of history to dry up this cardinal discipline and create a real repulsion among students.

National Education is the last area where Marxism is still prevalent.

We see it very well in the school programs with certain textbooks [...] we teach our children and I weigh my words, the hatred of France.

Dimitri Casali

I go to the colleges of Trappes, of Mantes-la-Jolie.

We see that there is a real rejection of history.

The great characters are neglected because they are assimilated today to the cult of personality in a pedagogical school marked by ideology and very often still, by Marxism.

National Education is the last area where Marxism is still prevalent.

We see it very well in school programs with certain textbooks by Nathan and Magnard in particular or through certain periods such as the Algerian War, where we teach our children and I weigh my words, hatred of France.

Let's never forget that our history will shape our future!

If we want to walk towards the future, let's always go back to our roots, that's the message I deliver in the "Grand Final" of the show when I address myself to all children.

On February 2 there will be atmosphere, come see it promises...