” Yes it’s me. » The civil registrar asked me to check that my new identity card did not contain any errors before handing it over to me. The plasticized rectangle meeting the ID-1 standard (85.60 mm × 53.98 mm), in force since August 2, 2021, which contains some biometric information, slips easily into my wallet: it is in bank card format. To tell the truth, everything seems to be in bank card format in this case, in order of appearance: a catering card, a photocopier badge, another for access to the swimming pool, a Vitale card, a press card, a loyalty card from a garden center brand, a business card from an orthodontist, a health insurance card, a Navigo card and even this one, all white, whose function is forever forgotten…
Barely crossed the threshold of the administrative center, a certain confusion came over me. I remember my old identity card. It had been stolen from me, years ago, with the contents of a bag. I didn’t slip it into my wallet, it didn’t fit there with its ID-2 format (105 mm × 74 mm)… I remember with more nostalgia the previous version, hardcover in two parts, 149 mm format × 119 mm, fitted with a riveted plate. The cardboard was creased and chipped, and the photo, originally a brush-cut school portrait of the time, had had time to become furiously retro.
A new order… already old
How did this new order impose itself in my pocket? Who thought that my access to the car park and my belonging to the French nation should be treated on an equal footing? Very immediately, this new identity card is the result of a desire for harmonization launched by the European Union. But let’s not jump right away like goats, shouting: ” Brussels ! Strasbourg! » This relentless force that inexorably shapes the contents of our wallets goes back much further. Like confluent rivers, powerful normalizing currents have been converging there for decades. One hundred years precisely for the French identity card, decreed by the prefect of police of Paris Robert Leullier, on September 12, 1921. This civil servant with the beautiful mustache wanted to put the anthropometric innovations of Alphonse Bertillon and his ink pads within the reach of all citizens, including those who were not unfavorably known to the police.
It is also with the idea of forging a single card valid at all merchants that Bank of America conducted a life-size experiment in September 1958. At a time when oil companies, chain stores and restaurants were multiplying cards for regulars paying by the month, the Californian bank distributed its prototype BankAmericard – ancestor of Visa – to 60,000 Fresno customers – the Californian city being considered able to offer sufficient guarantees to test the innovation, without however running the risk of triggering a financial cataclysm. A specimen is held by the National Museum of American History in Washington. In plastic, 85 mm × 55 mm… Like the business cards among which she discreetly wished to embed herself.
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