Dufour, Stéphane

What to call Christmas today? Tensions and controversies surrounding the naming of the Nativity celebrations - 2024.


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‪Following the controversies in Canada and the United States around the contested use of the name Christmas to refer to the feast of the Nativity (War on Christmas), France is now experiencing a denominative conflict that has attracted unprecedented media coverage following the release of a European Commission document in 2021 calling for the word “Fête” (French for “Holiday season”) to be used instead of “Noël” (“Christmas”). This contribution questions the enunciative position of renaming or avoiding naming Christmas in the public sphere, and the controversies it generates.‪