travers le miroir: La dpartementalisation, paravent de l'imprialisme culturel franais chez Ren Mnil

This article highlights the consequences of the policy of assimilation applied in the French West Indies after the law of dpartementalisation was voted in 1946 in France. A reading of Ren Mnil's poetic and political works, demonstrates how assimilation amplifies the Antillean's estrangement within their cultural practices and everyday life. Faced with the impossibility of creating their own identity, the Antilleans mimic traditions and habits of the mtropole, consequently denying their own traditions and habits. Indeed, after centuries of colonisation, Antillean society becomes once again entangled in the antagonisms that founded it. Through several texts, Mnil insists on the need, nowadays, for the Antillean subject to build specific traditions for Antillean society rather than mimicking Metropolitan France or looking for foundations of a mythological identity in the past. By arguing for economic and politic autonomy in the French West Indies, Mnil denounces the dangerous aftermaths of the law of dpartementalisation.