The conversation with Sébastien Poublanc and Edgar Lejeune highlights the ambivalent situation of digital history in France. Poublanc does not see himself as a digital historian, but rather as a user of technical tools from other disciplines, and believes that the field is not yet firmly established institutionally. Lejeune, on the other hand, defines digital history in terms of belonging to a research community and sees it as a continuation of quantitative historiography, particularly in medieval studies. Together, they point to serious structural deficits: digital resources such as databases are hardly recognised scientifically, which means that historians have little incentive to acquire technical skills. As a result, other disciplines make greater use of historical data, while the discipline of history itself assumes little institutional responsibility.
