Le patrimoine européen dans les guides touristiques de mémoire

Drawing on discourse analysis, as conducted in a French methodological perspective, this paper aims to identify the discursive procedures used in tourist guide books of memory to construct a heritage discourse of European memory. After introducing the “tourism of memory” as well as the related civic and ethical issues the institutions and the various actors involved assign to this type of tourism, the paper underlines the books’ process of building the European dimension of French heritage sites seen as places of memory. The diverse range of guide book types covered (from the Michelin cultural guides to the practical Le Routard and Petit Futé) then allows to point a wide array of discursive procedures and layers gradually outlining the European character of these heritage sites