Recently, students in France have risen up in protest against France’s lycee (High School) system, complaining of deteriorating schools, long study schedules, and a lack of qualified teachers. It’s the sixth time students have conducted massive street protests (the others occurred in 1968, 1986, 1995, 2006, & 2018).
Now France isn’t exactly a stranger to civil unrest: At least 8,516 rebellions took place in France between 1661 and 1789 alone.
If you want skip over the intro to compare “insurrections” just Click here
The most notable took place in 1763, when France lost the Seven Year War against Great Britain and signed the
Treaty of Paris, surrendering Canada and all land East of the Mississippi River. When America’s colonies declared their independence from Britain in 1776 France’s King Louis XVI saw a chance to weaken Britain’s control of North America and so supported America’s War of Independence against Britain.
Unfortunately for King Louis, once a group of Parisians upset at higher taxes, rising food prices, and a repressive monarchy – and perhaps motivated by the American Revolution’s success – decided to attack Paris’s Bastille fortress in 1789 to seize weapons & ammunition the King’s days were numbered.
King Louis XVI: “Is it a revolt?”
Duke of Rochefoucauld-Liancourt: “No, Your Majesty, it’s a revolution.”
Despite most historians agreeing that the Coup of 18 Brumaire on November 9th, 1799 represented the end of the French Revolution, France continued to have a number of uprisings, rebellions, and insurrections as various factions sought to define – and, control – the French Republic.
Speaking of control, Radical left-wing groups (Communists, Socialists, Anarchists), along with anti-Semitic Muslims, have co-opted France’s current Students protests to spread vandalism, looting, violence, and destruction throughout Paris, and generally throughout France in an effort to destabilize the government and advance their Communist agenda.
Hijacking well-intentioned, peaceful demonstrations for their own purposes seems to be a habit of Leftist groups (for example, the George Floyd Protests, Anti-Racist Protests of 2020, Anti-ICE Protests, “Pro-Palestinian” Protests, and even perhaps the 2021 Nation’s Capitol Protest in the USA), with their hijacking evident by the vandalism, looting, violence, destruction, and more which almost inevitably results.
Back in January 2022 I compared the historically destructive George Floyd Riots of 2020 to the Nation’s Capitol Protest of January 2021, and thought it might be nice to make another comparison:
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