Telling a revolution from a revolt in France

Just like the citizens storming the Bastille more than two centuries ago, protestors' anger today is more powerful than a legendarily reactionary police force

“It is not a revolt; it’s a revolution.” The Duke of Rochefoucauld-Liancourt responded thus to King Louis XVI’s query about the storming of the Bastille in July 1789. The monarchy has long been dead but the spirit — and appropriations — of the French Revolution lives within and beyond the present borders of France. It is easy to look at the visuals from Paris and other cities in France, Italy, and even Portugal and Albania and feel outraged by rioters causing destruction to public and private properties, including monuments of note. What needs to be kept in mind, however, is that the explosive rage spilling out on the European streets has a context — familiar and predictable if one knows even little history.

The student protests in France, against a broken public school education system, have been gathering momentum in the past four months. Joining them are larger groups who are unhappy about the constantly rising cost of living, fuelled further by US actions in West Asia. (AFP)

The student protests in France, against a broken public school education system, have been gathering momentum in the past four months. Joining them are larger groups who are unhappy about the constantly rising cost of living, fuelled further by US actions in West Asia. These concerns are legitimate, even though they have provided a ready platform to mischief makers and the government’s adversaries. President Emmanuel Macron has admitted to “failures in anticipation and intelligence,” while rejecting the resignation of interior minister Laurent Nuñez. Just like the citizens storming the Bastille more than two centuries ago, the anger of the protestors today is more powerful than a legendarily reactionary police force. Whether it will effect a regime-change and whether the change will benefit French society in totality remains to be seen. What is certain is that France’s colonial history and social inequities have not gone anywhere and those fault lines are getting deeper with conflict in other parts of the world. History teaches us that angry populations need cooler heads in power to prevail and not those who can’t tell a revolt from a revolution.