Radio Broadcasting, Disabled Veterans, and the Politics of National Recovery in Interwar France

In interwar France a public consensus emerged that radio broadcasting could advances the rehabilitation of disabled veterans and further their reintegration into civil society. Radio appeared to offer particular advantages for behind and deaf veterans, serving as a "prosthesis" to replace their damaged eyes and ears. Thanks to two national charities that distributed free radios to the blind, the hospitalized, and the "infirm" between 1928 and 1935, facilitating disabled veterans' access to radio became a political imperative. The subsequent negotiations between physicians, legislators, and veterans themselves over the rehabilitative function of radio reveal how the airwaves became a virtual representation of the French nation and listening a practice of modern citizenship.