The legacy of the French Revolution is part of the national remembrance. However, the frontal attack of the “Yellow vests” on the Parisian Arc de Triomphe has put France on the weekend, like a shock wave in a new state. The Protest is similar to a counter-proposal to the program of Robespierre. the By Joseph Hanimann
The country which has created the prototype of the modern Revolution, pays strict attention to the difference between Revolution and rebellion. Since the suburban riots of 2005, the question of what you have to do it exactly with any outbreak of violence in France. From then on, the famous words of Louis XVI. on the evening of 14. July, 1789, the Duc de Rochefoucauld – “Is this a revolt?” … “No, Sire, this is a Revolution” – backwards quotes. Which makes the whole thing rather creepy.
The frontal attack on the Parisian Arc de Triomphe, the monument of the victories of the Empire and Republic on the enemies, and the image of Marianne-Relief with the broken face has put France on the weekend, like a shock wave in a new state. With the bicentenary of the French Revolution in 1989, the revolutionary heritage on those Champs is appeased-Elysées with Jean-Paul Goude choreographed a large folk festival in the final and laid on top of the Appreciate of the not to question our national memory. The Republic, permanent result of 1789, has just been summoned in the past years, after every terrorist attack in official Speeches and Gestures as the Foundation of internal cohesion.
Yellow West: riots in France
Why it’s burning in Paris
All of the other outbreaks of violence from within the ranks of the Nation were on the account of the “Jacqueries”, the revolts since the middle ages, occurring, Bauer, entered in the accounts. The Republic thought of them grown. This basic trust seems to be almost in a panic again tidy the debris field between the Place de l’étoile and Place de la Concorde to be brittle.
It has, at least, has floated a figure from the revolutionary memory subliminally. Unlike the sometimes almost to the Folklore depraved other leader of the revolution Maximilien de Robespierre, on the principles tab of the Ideal and the Impresario of the reign of terror, remained a matter of dispute, at least among Intellectuals. The a, especially a radical Left that wanted him, even if dogmatic – the guarantors of the revolutionary program. The other regarded him as a forerunner of all the dictators of the 20th century. Century. How much the uncompromising stand of the Republic?
This controversial figure of Robespierre seems to, more recently, in the horizon of the distant past, to move away. The violence of the “Yellow vests,” and in their Wake occurring riot command bring this process however, on a strange collision course. Historians such as Hervé Leuwers not strive for years, to see Robespierre just as a wayward lawyer, humiliated politicians and monsters of the Revolution. You have to distinguish between the human rights-considered a lawyer in Arras, the Rousseau-influenced member of the estates-General and the commander-in-chief, drew the reins the tighter, the more she slipped away from him.
in The autumn successfully in the French cinemas started the Film, “A people and be king” by Pierre Schoeller went in the same direction. He showed Robespierre as rigid, but deliberate speaker, the illustration regretful of his principled opposition to the death penalty and for the execution of Louis XVI agreed to. And the philosopher Marcel Gauchet Betticket has stripped off in his just-published book “Robespierre” everything you need to Know about the Person and from whose writings to reconstruct tried, how it was possible that this man could slip from the purest Conviction in ruthless tyranny.
The protests put on the “Human, all too Human”
As a counter-proposal appears in the current French popular protest Gauchets interpretation of the figure’s robe to confirm Pierres. The supersaturated adherence to Principles of the “untouchables”, who wanted to tolerate no shade of human weakness on the Ideal, in the case of the “Yellow vests,” a demonstrative renunciation on General principles. He only relies on the “Human, all too Human”: less taxes, better wages, more understanding of the government for personal concerns. The impatience led in one case to the Guillotine, to stones in the other flying to the pavement. In the comparison of these two situations Gauchets designs to be interesting.
The ideological value of Robespierre’s action was that of human rights for the first Time, the principle of legitimacy had been introduced into the life of society and, as such, the use of violence have to be justified, so Gauchet. Only in your “doubling” had become the radicalism of Robespierre’s downfall, he writes.
Who or what should replace the Power of the king, when he was suddenly removed? The Power of the people, but suddenly, in its purest form. Only the “people” for Robespierre as abstract as the principle of human rights. The Transition from principle to political practice had to be based on a hypothesis: that of the natural virtue of the people, guaranteed by Robespierre’s postulated God-like “Supreme being”.
From here, was the Ruin of Robespierre way to, in a systematic violence, in the eyes of Gauchets unstoppable. By contrast, the radical left-wing philosopher Alain Badiou argues that the path did not lead to Ruin, but only to the next stage in Marx. These have abandoned the category of virtue, and the people as a contradictory being realized.
it’s not called The people that put on the weekend in Paris and other cities across the country of fire, slices of abused and shops plundered, performed in the name of a virtue, is no “other” or “better” world. In contrast to the populist movements across Europe, there were not even as “the people”. It consisted entirely of individual entities, each of which has its own reasons to be there, and his own kind to justify the violence. It French, the distrust of the General in the form of government and members of Parliament, so were not that they were even willing to appoint leaders from their own ranks. The only common demand is for respect, which helped with words, protests, road blockages or blind violence, without any claim to virtue in the sense of Robespierre.
for Therein is revealed a narrow escape for President Emmanuel Macron and his government. He does not believe in the collective virtue of Robespierre, declared Macron prior to his election, he only believe in the “Roman virtue”, in the claim of each Individual to itself. With a little more respect from his side this virtue would have been easy to work with.