Iranian Studies in France

Abstract

There is, in France, a pronounced awareness of an “Iranian world” that can be identified in terms of cultural, linguistic, ethnic (Aryan peoples) or geographic (highlands, cold winters) characteristics common to the civilizations of all Iranian-speaking peoples living in Afghanistan, Iran, Kurdistan or south central USSR, in particular, Tajikistan. This “world” stands in contrast to the Arab, Indian and Turkish ones. The notion of a Middle East extending from Casablanca to Kabul does not exist in French. Newspapers usually refer to the Moslem lands to the south and east of the Mediterranean as the “Arab world,” as if Turkish- and Persian-speaking peoples were peripheral minorities therein.Owing to its colonial and military heritage, France has long given special importance to the Maghrib (Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria), the Near East (Lebanon and Syria, in particular) and, as a result of the Napoleonic campaigns and Champollion's expeditions, Egypt.