Celebrating Bastille Day as France May Be Spiraling Closer to Another French Revolution

As France came closer to the annual Bastille Day celebration on July 14 of this year, it proved truly ironic that the nation seems to be on the brink of another French-styled revolution. This recent rioting and violence had been sparked by an incident at the end of June in which police shot a 17 year-old boy, Nahel M. when he refused to comply with an order to stop the vehicle he was driving. The protests and rioting broke out in the Paris suburb of Nanterre shortly after the botched traffic stop. The incident was filmed by civilians, and violence quickly spread to other poor suburbs (known as banlieues) and to other major cities such as Lyon and Marseille.

Rioting in France

Rioting in France, reminiscent of the violent rioting following George Floyd’s death in Minnesota, has subsided after weeks of setting cars and public buildings on fire, as well as stores being looted.

However on the occasion of Bastille Day on July 14, the French authorities will step up security measures. This past Wednesday, France’s Interior Minister, Gerald Darmanin, made this clear because of the severity of the violence. This recent rioting is reportedly the most serious violence since 2005. The incident that sparked those riots involved the accidental deaths of two teenagers while they were being chased by the police. They also were youths of ethnic minorities, like Nahel who was of Algerian and Moroccan descent. Apparently, the French do not want any interference in celebrating the violence their ancestors perpetrated against royal authorities in “the good old days.”

It is indeed an irony despite whether the recent violence can be justified or not because French ancestors were far more brutal in the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. Those brutal acts of violence in their time sparked the French Revolution. Perhaps the deeper irony however, is the historical illusion that the French Revolution brought true freedom to France. Although the French continue, even persistently, to maintain that this moment in their history is a significant demonstration of their struggle for freedom. It is indeed a display of their desire and struggle for freedom, but genuine Freedom for the French people did not come about as a direct result of the French Revolution. The Marxist-revisionists got away with spewing that narrative for quite a while, but it was the equivalent of applying lipstick on a pig and calling it something it wasn’t. The tactic persists today.

Contrary to the romanticized image

Not only in France, but also around much of the rest of Europe, Bastille Day, is viewed with a lot of respect--even reverence. In France, ”Le quatorze juillet” (14 July), and formally known as the “Fête de la Fédération” (Federation Holiday) is still special to the French, obviously, as they prepare their security measures to deal with those living in the disadvantaged and impoverished neighborhoods of Middle Eastern immigrants. It is possible those immigrants from the Middle East have their own views regarding such a holiday. Are ancient colonial transgressions coming to haunt contemporary France?

Truly, the shocking takeover of the Bastille, originally a medieval fortress-prison that had often been utilized by French kings to imprison their politically disagreeable or disloyal subjects, is considered one of the most dramatic events in human history. Nonetheless, many do not know the true history of the events apart from the ideologically-based, Marxist-revisionist narratives. The background of the true history is also an irony as what happened in France in 1789 has to be understood in light of the support the American colonists got from the French royalty during our War for Independence. The French monarchy provided money, munitions and uniforms for the straggling “Colonial Army” at the expense of the French people. And, in the fervor for Freedom, the French felt they deserved to be a free people too.

Yet, contrary to the romanticized image, the people that seized the prison to secure weapons to ostensibly protect themselves from the King’s Royal Troops, were not endowed with altruistic ideals and tempered by principled actions. They were motivated by fear rooted in ignorance. As they descended upon the Bastille the French Guard generally held their ground, but some mutinied and started to assist the attacking throng. The commander in charge of the prison, Governor Bernard-Rene de Launay, then halted his soldiers from firing at the crowd because by that time 98 people in the crowd and one defender were found to be slain in the struggle.

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Within four years of the storming of the Bastille, the movement toward “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity” sadly deteriorated into the Reign of Terror

De Launay surrendered the prison in order to avoid a bloodbath, but he was immediately seized by the crowd and beaten brutally. By this time, the frenzied mob had become uncontrollable with rage and dragged Launay through the streets toward the Hotel de Ville. Reports indicate that it is near there he demanded to be killed, and the mob obliged by stabbing him repeatedly. One may think that the murder was unnecessary because the crowd had seized their objective, but what came next was even more extreme because the mob then cut off his head and stuck the severed head upon a pike and paraded it through the streets. This brutal treatment of de Launay would prove to be a foreshadowing of the Reign of Terror.

Within four years of the storming of the Bastille, the movement toward “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity” sadly deteriorated into the Reign of Terror, a horrific bloodbath under the usurped authority and machinations of the notorious revolutionary, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre and his compatriots. Robespierre led the powerful people’s tribunal known as the Committee for Public Safety that arrested, tried, and executed (beheaded via the guillotine) over 17,000 people.

Eventually, the powerful Committee for Public Safety became even more tyrannical than King Louis XVI. Especially Robespierre, although only one of the absolutist committee, was the only member who had full support of the fanatical “Society of the Friends of the Constitution,” the political party eventually known as the Jacobins, who were among the more radical supporters of the French Revolution.

Robespierre was the individual most closely identified with the Reign of Terror

Robespierre was the individual most closely identified with the Reign of Terror. However, even he fell victim to the Committee for Public Safety. Robespierre was beheaded due to his opposition to the atheistic elements within the Jacobins.

While it is undeniably true that following the taking of the Bastille, a month later in August, the people abolished feudalism; and ultimately on August 26th, the people proudly proclaimed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, which had been crafted by the Marquis de La Fayette in writing an initial draft. Nevertheless, it is also undeniable that the illusive move toward Freedom during the French Revolution devolved into a display of some of the most inhumane atrocities against humanity known to man and a stolen revolution.

An objective reflection on the French Revolution, beginning with the storming of the Bastille through the Reign of Terror, does not yield a clear vision of a glorious fight for freedom--that is murky at best and becomes even more of an illusion the more one digs into the actual events. Indeed, the French Revolution was infused with noble ideals at the outset, supported by many good patriots; yet, despite initial noble intentions, it was transformed into mob action fueled by resentment and hatred, stimulated by those who were good at fueling hatred and fear. And, that hatred and resentment was not only aimed at the monarchy, or aristocracy, but also contempt towards the common people, towards the Roman Catholic Church, and contempt for God exploded in this time. Ultimately, the Revolution manifested a rejection of God, and it should not be viewed as a fight for Freedom, but as a struggle for dominion over the French people.

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