From colonial propaganda to the representation of immigration

Fig.1: Front of the ‚Palais de la Porte Dorée‘ outlined by the architect Albert Laprade (photo: G. Lübbecke).

The Palais de la Porte Dorée was built in 1931 for the last major colonial exhibition in Paris. Since 2007 it houses the ‘Musée nationale de l’histoire de l’immigration’ (National Museum of Immigration History)^[1] originally conceived as a museum of colonial history (Fig.1: Front; Fig.2: Entrance). This astonishing development makes the Palais a unique, multi-layered place of remembrance: colonial and immigration history are confronted with each other here – elementary constants of the essential “problem(s) of the twenty-first century (…) that of living with difference”.^[2]

Fig.2: Main entrance to the building (photo: G. Lübbecke).

The Palais de la Porte Dorée was built in the interwar period, when tensions and crises were already beginning to emerge in French domestic and foreign policy. Although France was still an important colonial power, its empire began to disintegrate and the end of the regime of the Third Republic that lasted from 1871 to 1940 approached. Therefore, the French government felt the necessity to compensate those rising crises by celebrating the empire with an international colonial exhibition in 1931 (Fig.3). This exhibition was going nothing short of impressive. The east of Paris was specially urbanized for it so that the 110-hectare exhibition area with numerous national pavilions would allow around 8 million visitors to travel through the colonies in one day.^[3]

Fig.3: Postcards offered to the visitors of the International Colonial Exhibition of 1931 showing the pavilion of Cambodia and the temple of Angkor-Vat which attracted lots of visitors (Braun & Cie. Imp. Editeurs Concessionnaires Paris- France; photo: G. Lübbecke).

The Palais, designed by Albert Laprade, was central to the exhibition. In 1931, it showcased the history of French colonial rule celebrating its successes. However, its function was expressed not only through its exhibition on the inside of the building, but also through the language of its architecture on the outside to this day: A massive stone relief, crafted by Alfred Janniot, greets visitors and stretches across the entire façade of the temple-like building. It shows the various colonies of France, represented by stereotypical depictions of the respective indigenous population, as well as flora and fauna (Fig.4: Relief Detail). The indigenous people are shown at work, cultivating the land for the French colonizers. France it-self is represented as a naked female divinity enthroned right in the middle of the relief and on top of the entrance of the Palais (Fig.5).

Fig.4/5: Detail of the stone relief by Janniot showing African people working with tusks. Detail of the vast stone relief of Alfred Janniot that covers the whole facade of the Palais showing France as a naked female goddess (photo: G. Lübbecke).

Thereby, the visitor who enters the Palais gets an impressive overview over the French colonial empire and understands at the same time right away the economic benefit of it for France. This pictorial programme is reflected in a fresco by Pierre Ducos de la Haille in the central banqueting hall of the palace (Fig.6). The fresco illustrates the ‘virtues and values’ France brought to the colonies, including hygiene, education, in the spirit of its civilising mission (Fig.7). Thereby France could justify the colonial conquest and the violence that necessarily got along with it.

Fig. 6: Main part of the Fresko by Pierre Ducos de la Haille in the atrium of the building which served as a festival hall in 1931. It shows France as women in the center, holding a white pigeon as symbol for peace in one hand and taking the hand of ‚Europe‘ with the other one. They are surrounded by four other continents (Africa, America, Oceania and Asia) also figured as women (photo: G. Lübbecke). 

Fig. 7/8: Details of the Fresko showing the achievements and virtues and that brings France to the colonies. These two examples represent the achievement of christianization and piece (photo: G. Lübbecke).

The organizers’ report confirms that the Palais was already very popular in 1931.^[4] The decision was made: the Palais would be transformed into a permanent museum of the colonies. It thus became the French Republic’s ‘place of memory / lieu de mémoire’ (Pierre Nora),^[5] representing France’s (glorious) colonial past for decades.

The Palais was used as a colonial propaganda tool for the colonial and overseas ministries until the 1960s. However, the process of decolonisation made the museum appear increasingly obsolete as early as the 1950s. André Malraux, the first Minister of Culture of France after 1958, took charge of it and transformed it into a museum of African and Oceanic Art. The Palais has been renamed the Musée des Arts d’Afrique et d’Océanie (MAAO). It became a white cube for the display of non-European artefacts as works of art.

However, this supposed ‘neutralisation’ of the Palais, which was intended to eliminate the ‘colonial’ element, only worked to a limited extent. From 1994/95 until its closure in 2003, the museum appointed ‘star curators’ like Jean-Hubert Martin in an attempt to revitalise it. However, the museum’s increasingly precarious position in the museum landscape since the 1990s was then compounded by Jacques Chirac’s cultural policy ambitions, which were clearly aimed at ‘upgrading’ non-European art. The result was that the museum was closed in 2003, and the previous parts of the collections were transferred to the later Musée du Quai Branly and the already existing Musée de l’Homme. In 2004, the decision was made that a newly founded Immigration Museum would be housed here.

The initiative for this came primarily from various civil society actors: e.g. historian Gérard Noiriel complained repeatedly about the lack of engagement with and recognition of the topic of immigration already since the 1980s.^[6] The first initiative by Driss El Yazami and Majid Daboussi was launched as early as 1986, but it was not heard politically. Noiriel himself, in turn, founded the “Association pour un musée de l’histoire de l’immigration”^[7] together with Pierre Milza in the 1990s. In the 2000s, this association finally found a political hearing and a location – the Palais, which had already lost its function at that time.

Players of the civil society who were involved in the process repeatedly emphasise the small political window for this ‘birth’. President Chirac, a conservative on immigration, was forced to make concessions on immigration due to the looming election of the radical right-wing politician Jean-Marie Le Pen. Chirac appointed his confidant Jacques Toubon, who, to the surprise of many, fought passionately for the project. The museum was opened in 2007, but not by a state representative. Nicolas Sarkozy, the new elected president, openly rejected the project.

It was only in 2014 that the official opening took place, with François Hollande. The museum has frequently become a place of controversy as an official representation of immigration: In 2010, for example, a group of ‘sans papiers’ (illegal immigrants) occupied the museum for several months to draw attention to their situation.^[8]

The various layers of memory described – museum for French colonial history that showcases the achievements of the empire in the beginning, then museum of African and Oceanic Art and finally the Museum of Immigration History – make this place a crystallisation point for current debates about identity and difference: each of the institutional layers mentioned stands for a changed relationship and a changed museum representation of the colonial or migrant ‘other’. Also, the placement of a museum for immigration in such a location with is history is undoubtedly controversial, but it is also undeniably topical.

This case study proves that the museum itself, as an institution, is an important historical source. It provides information about the self-perception of a nation like France, the associated interpretations of ambivalent themes of the past and future, their demarcation and relationship to other cultures, as well as the museum’s integration into current, contemporary, social, political and cultural debates.

References

• Aldrich, Robert, Colonial museums in postcolonial Europe, in: Thomas, Dominic (Hrsg.), Museums in postcolonial Europe, London 2009. S.12-31.
• De L’Estoile, Benoît, Le goût des Autres. De l’Exposition coloniale aux Arts Premiers, Paris ²2010.
• François, Dominique (Hrsg.), Le palais des Colonies. Histoire du Musée des Arts d’Afrique et d’Océanie, Paris 2002.
• Lübbecke, Gwendolin, Die "Cité nationale de l’histoire de l’immigration" im Palais de la Porte Dorée. Transformationen eines Kolonialpalastes von der „Exposition coloniale“ 1931 bis heute, Stuttgart 2020.
• Lübbecke, Gwendolin, Das Museum als Quelle - der Palais de la Porte Dorée als lieu de mémoire. Vom Kolonialpalast zum Immigrationsmuseum, in: Didion, Philipp/ May, Sarah Alyssa/ Nicklas, Jasmin (Hrsg.), Zeitgeschichte transnational, Stuttgart 2024. S. 39-55.
• Murphy, Maureen, Un palais pour une Cité, Paris 2007.

^[1] First called the „Cité nationale de l’histoire de l’immigration (CNHI)“, then from 2014 the „Musée nationale de l’histoire de l’immigration (MNHI)“.

^[2] Hall, Stuart, Das verhängnisvolle Dreieck. Rasse, Ethnie, Nation, Berlin 2024. S. 106.

^[3] Cf. Rivoirard, Philippe, L’Exposition coloniale ou l’incitation au voyage, in: Musée municipale de Billancourt (Hrsg.), Coloniales 1920-1940, Paris 1989. S. 67-81. 

^[4] Cf. i.a. Generalgouverneur Olivier, L’Exposition coloniale est close – les enseignements qu’elle nous laisse, in: Le Petit Parisien (16.11.1931), S. 2.

^[5] Cf. Nora, Pierre (Hrsg.), Les Lieux de mémoire, Paris 1992.

^[6] Cf. Noiriel, Le creuset français, S. 13ff und Noiriel, Gérard, L’immigration en France, une histoire en friche, in: Annales No. 4/41 (Jul.-Aug. 1986), S. 751-769.

^[7] Cf. Escafré-Dublet, Angeline, La Cité nationale de l’histoire de l’immigration. Histoires, mémoires, in: Histoire@Politique (10. September 2008). URL: https://www.histoire-politique.fr/index.php?numero=1&rub=comptes-rendus&item=101 (02.02.2017)

^[8] Cf. i.a. Gastaut, Yvan, Les sans-papiers inaugurent la cité de l’immigration, in: Libération (15.10.2010).

Published September 2025