Napoleonic history has marked our cities in France and in Europe.

This heritage deserves to be better known, better highlighted, better shared, better visited. It is around these observations that we wanted to create a federation of European cities of Napoleonic history. In the action of the great man, it is the values of the Revolution, of the Age of Enlightenment, the ideals of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity that bind us together. Rehabilitating historic sites, encouraging historical research, promoting our museums and living culture, opening ourselves up to the citizens of our countries and of Europe, it is to follow the complex, contradictory and sometimes antagonistic paths by which these ideals have imposed themselves in Europe. The dozens of European cities gathered in this movement thus want to contribute to the promotion of their own image, by reviving a considerable page of their history and by discovering how this past has been common to them. Because the Napoleonic period allowed Europe to become aware of itself - by its adhesion as by its opposition to the action of the small Corsican - and the adoption of public institutions inspired by the philosophy of the Enlightenment. Our countries, our Europe, need to increase awareness of their roots in order to increase their confidence in their capacity to meet the great challenges of their time. Our desire to better understand and better showcase our cultural heritage is therefore closely linked to our desire to move forward in terms of social and economic progress. The question of identity is at the heart of all the crises of our time. The changes in behavior necessary to meet the challenges of mastering the environment, the development of science and technology, the underdevelopment ... can only have peace as a breeding ground and therefore reconciliation with it’s past. Because, as the saying goes, there can be no future for those who do not accept their history. This is why we have undertaken to unite around this page of a great history which once divided us.

Charles Bonaparte
Founder of the Federation