The Archives: A Bridge of Memory between France and Australia

Among the 400 odd linear kilometres of archives preserved at the Archives nationales de France, dating from the seventh century to the present, can be found numerous documents relating to the history of other countries. This is notably the case for the archives from the expedition led by d’Entrecasteaux, who scoured the southern seas from 1791 to 1794 in search of La Pérouse, missing since 1788. This exceptional archive contains information on many of the countries located in this vast geographical zone: Australia, South Africa, Tonga, Solomon Islands, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor. Of particular interest are the documents pertaining to Tasmania and its resident Palawa people, including an extensive Palawa-French vocabulary list previously unpublished in its entirety. In 2023, the Archives nationales de France and National Archives of Australia established a collaborative project aimed at digitising the complete d’Entrecasteaux archive, so as to make these documents accessible to all. A further aim was to transcribe and translate into English those items relating to Tasmania. With the agreement of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, the two archival institutions proposed this documentary corpus for inscription in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register, a proposal which was formally approved in April 2025. In a global context increasingly characterised by memorial frictions between States, or between communities, this collaborative project may serve as a model for other projects that have the potential to contribute to ‘memorial peace’, which is essential for building a shared future.