Stories We Remember By: Narrativity and Memory-Making

This research examines how societies construct narrative frameworks to give meaning to traumatic events and process collective memory. The study focuses on the concept of “narrativity” as an organizing principle of social discourse, exploring how narrative and semiotic schemes make it possible to transform complex incidents into recognizable and transmissible stories. Taking as a case study the media response in France following the 2015 terrorist attack against Charlie Hebdo, the article investigates how the nation narrates itself through leading newspapers such as Le Monde. Through an analysis of journalistic texts and front pages, the research reveals the process by which crowds are discursively transformed from mere throngs (foules) into “the People” (le Peuple), thereby becoming the collective subject of national history. The findings show that this narrative architecture actively reconfigures national identity and sovereignty through the mobilization of symbolic grammars deeply embedded in French culture.