Historically Speaking
From Charlemagne to Charles de Gaulle, from absolutist dynasties to a vibrant modern democracy - France has come a long, long way indeed. Dogged constantly by wars, murky palace intrigue and internal strife, France eventually became the European birthplace of the modern republic through a series of immortal events that are indispensable chapters in a modern social science textbook.
The earliest settlers in the area now occupied by France were the brave and rustic Celtic Gauls who moved into this area between 1500 and 500 BC (remember Asterix comics?!). The Gaul warriors finally fell to the Roman emperor Julius Caesar’s legions between 55 and 52 BC. Christianity came to France in the 2nd century AD, and the first church was built in the Paris area around 200 years later.
By the 5th century AD, Roman occupation came to an end, to be followed by dynasties like the Merouvius and the Carolingian, of whom the Great Emperor Charlemagne was a member. Charlemagne moved his capital to Aix-en-Chapelle (now Aachen in Germany), where the Carolingians, now ridden with internal feuds, ruled. By this time, the Counts of Paris elected Hugh Capet as king at Senlis. Capetian dynastic rule lasted for the next 800 years and during this period, Paris became a thriving center for commerce, politics and culture – in 1135, work had started on the basilica at Saint Denis in Paris, and many other important institutions like the University of Paris and the Sorbonne were established soon afterwards.
However, during this period of Parisian glory, the Vikings (also known as Norsemen or the Normans) had managed to gain control of the north and west of French territory. In 1066, they used the coast of Normandy to launch an attack on the English - the famous Norman Conquest. By 1337, the hostility between the Normans and the Capetians had degenerated into the Hundred Years War, which was fought in fits and starts until 1453. English forces defeated the French at Agincourt in 1415, after which Paris succumbed to internal turmoil between the House of Burgundy (allied with the English) and the French. By 1429, a 17 year-old peasant girl, convinced that she was under a divine mission to expel the English from French land, rallied the French troops against the might of the English empire. Alas, she failed, was captured by the Burgundians and sold to the English who convicted her of witchcraft and burnt her at the stake. We know this peasant girl as the famous Joan of Arc. The English were finally driven out in 1453. Under the reign of Louis XI, Churches were restored and the flamboyant Gothic style in architecture became popular.
The Italian Renaissance hit France with the full force of its cultural revival by the early 16th century. Initially, the Renaissance was able to buttress the power and splendour of the Catholic monarchy, but it eventually gave way to the Protestant Reformation. In 1562, John Calvin nailed his famous Edict of January to the door of the Catholic Church and inaugurated the Wars of Religion that lasted until 1598. The next sovereign, Henri IV was the first of the Bourbon kings. His Protestant sympathies meant that his reign was nearly brought to its knees by the refusal of the Catholic aristocrats of Paris to recognize their new king for five long years. Henri IV relented, and accepted communion at the Saint Denis basilica in Paris, but this did not prevent him from being assassinated by a Catholic fanatic in 1610. A brief period of rule by a queen – Marie de Medecis, and of the ineffectual Louis XIII under the thumb of his power-hungry chief minister Cardinal Richelieu gave way to the absolute reign of the Sun King Louis XIV, who is credited with the fantastically megalomaniac statement “I am the State”. Louis XIV consolidated the absolute power of the monarchy, both at home and abroad, through a series of dictats and expensive military operations. He also persecuted the Protestant minority and revoked the 1598 Edict of Nantes, which had guaranteed the Huguenots freedom of conscience. To his credit, Louis XIV commissioned such architectural wonders as the Place Vendome, the Place des Victoires, the Invalides and the magnificent palace at Versailles, his capital.
By the time Louis XIV’s grandson Louis XV assumed the throne and moved the capital back to Paris, that city had become the center of Europe during the Age of Enlightenment. Enlightenment values combined with sweeping social and economic change through out Europe in the 18th century to threaten the French ancien regime (old order) to its roots. The costly Seven Years’ War (1756-63) undertaken by Louis XV led to the loss of French colonies in Canada, the West Indies and India and ultimately, to the monarchy’s legitimacy. The War also introduced the radical democratic ideas of the American Revolution to the French people and further eroded this legitimacy. The final nail in the coffin of the ancien regime was hammered in by the callous reign of the spineless Louis XVI and his dominating queen Marie Antoinette – their absolute disregard for the plight of their subjects led the later to revolt on the 14th of July 1789 by the historic storming of the royal prison at Bastille – this was the start of the French Revolution.
The Revolution, initially in the hands of the moderate Girondins, eventually came under the control of the radical Jacobins (including heroes such as Robespierre, Danton and Marat) who declared France a Republic in September 1792; the unlucky ‘constitutional monarch’ Louis XVI was guillotined soon afterwards. The notorious Committee for Public Safety set up by the Jacobins had a central role in perpetuating the Reign of Terror that lasted for nearly one year, and was responsible for thousands of summary executions in Paris, the desecration of churches and the revoking of religious freedoms. Eventually, the Revolution ended in the deaths of the Jacobins themselves, who turned on each other in the prevailing atmosphere of frenzied distrust.
The post-revolutionary government was unstable, and soon came under the control of none other than the dashing Napoleon Bonaparte. By 1804, the Pope crowned Napoleon ‘Emperor of the French’ at Notre Dame. Napoleon quickly set about doing what he is best remembered for – invading and annexing a vast amount of territory in Europe. What is less well known is that Napoleon also brought about a whole set of innovative changes in the legal and educational systems that have lasted until this day. Napoleon finally ‘met his Waterloo’ against the armies of the English general Wellington in 1815. The English helped to re-instate the House of Bourbons in power but they were unable to manage a deeply divided French public – while some wanted a return to absolutism, the working classes yearned for the gifts of the Revolution. A Second Republic led by Napoleon III lasted from 1852 to 1870, during which time, Paris under Baron Haussman became what it is now – wide boulevards, public parks and buildings and a modern sewerage system.
The utterly foolish decision by Napoleon III to fight the Crimean War with the dynamic Prussian general Bismarck led to resounding French defeat and the capture of the Emperor. In the ensuing confusion over who was to resolve the situation and negotiate peace with the Prussians, the monarchists won. The terms of peace were harsh enough to provoke another revolt, after which the famous Paris Commune was set up. In May 1871, the ‘Communards’, mainly working class rebels were brutally repressed during what came to be known as ‘Bloody Week’ and termed by Karl Marx as the first uprising of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. The Third Republic was thus inaugurated. Despite this violent start, this period came to be known as belle époque (beautiful period) for its contribution to the arts, the sciences, engineering and architecture – Impressionism and the Eiffel Tower are only two examples.
The Dreyfuss Affair of 1894 created a political crisis in France that led to the strengthening of civilian control over the military and a separation of church and state in 1905. The beginning of the 20th century saw storm clouds brewing over Europe as it prepared itself for the First World War in a frenzy of jingoism and militarism. For France, the main motivation behind entering the War came from a desire to regain the territories of Alsace and Lorraine from Germany. The unprecedented death and destruction in Europe during the War are only too well known. In France, two of every 10 Frenchmen aged between 20 and 45 years of age were killed in WWI.
The 1920s and 1930s confirmed Paris as the watering hole of the avant garde, with art movements such as surrealism and cubism gaining ground. The interwar period of artistic renewal gave way to another round of misery and destruction in the Second World War. After the fall of Paris to the Nazi armies of Hitler, the then French under-secretary General Charles de Gaulle appealed to the French patriots to continue to resist the Occupation. Paris became the center of the underground Resistance movement. The historic D-day landings on the 6th of June 1944 by the Allied forces finally sealed the fate of Hitler’s armies.
At the end of the war, the Fourth Republic was established – a period of incredible political instability and equally amazing economic recovery (helped along by American aid, of course). French right-wingers went up in arms in 1958 over what they perceived as the government’s inability to effectively repress the Algerian Crisis. The Fifth Republic came in to being under General de Gaulle in this atmosphere, and has continued to this day. While there were several achievements under de Gaulle’s regime (like the restoration of the Marais area in Paris and the resolution of the Algerian issue), growing economic problems and student radicalism continued to be thorns in the side of the government. The May Uprising of 1968 was one such alliance between workers and students that also generated much revolutionary creativity among the intelligentsia – it was during this period that slogans such as “Put Imagination in Power” were coined. This was the heyday of intellectuals such as Sartre, de Beauvoir, Camus and Foucault. The Gaulle administration responded with effective and swift reforms that broke the fragile student-worker unity.
De Gaulle was succeeded by a Presidents Pompidou and d’ Estaing, after which the socialist Mitterand came to power and set about nationalizing private enterprises, much to the disgust of the business community. Interestingly, despite his socialist leanings, Mitterand succumbed to a desire for immortality, as reflected in his undertaking of architectural grandes projets (grand works) like the Grande Arche de La Defense and the striking but controversial glass pyramid in front of the Louvre. The right-wing Jacques Chirac who earned praise for his proactive role in EU negotiations and the war in Bosnia succeeded Mitterand in 1995. The most unpopular move by the Chirac administration was the testing of nuclear missiles in the Polynesian island of Mururoa in 1966. In 1997, Chirac was toppled by the present President Lionel Jospin, who has proved himself more popular than his dynamic predecessor, mainly due to his accessibility and perceived political skills.
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