As always, the country known for its human rights (or so they advertise themselves as), is gonna get reprimanded by the european court for not respecting the human rights.
Good job France.
Good job France.
The Terror (1793-1794) really was more about political opponents than addressing past oppression. Approximately 2% of the population was arrested and about 1/8th of them where executed including many aristocrats but also a high percentage being clergy etc. Basically anyone labeled as counter-revolutionary was killed off, a classic culling of political opponents after a revolution.
The most oppressive is hairdresser I guess.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:French_people_execute...
Wikipedia is not the Truth. That list is incomplete and selective. Seriously, there are much better sources that paint a much better picture of the grandeur, glory, and absurdity of the French Revolution. I would start with the Revolution podcast, which is itself imperfect but still presents a lot of the nuance missing in this sort of discussions.
> seems a little disingenuous
No.
They were liberal in the sense that they supported individual freedoms, and they called themselves liberals. It makes no sense to call them otherwise. They were on the left because the original left-right divide was about individual rights, not socialism. Though the Overton window moved fast and radicals one day often ended up moderates the next week without having changed their ideas.
But they were not conservatives at all; even though their constitution kept a king, it had pretty much nothing to do with how the ancien régime worked. Nowadays they would be centre-right more or less like the UK’s Liberal Democrats or the French centrist parties.
What’s interesting is that the American use of “liberal” to mean “radical” is at odds with the historical meaning of the word, and how it is used in some other languages. That’s why some people are confused with neo-liberalism being a right-wing ideology.
But since you brought it up, do you think that the way the French behaved back then, is in any way still indicative of their behavior today? Is the same culture so to speak, still relevant, breathing and alive? What survives of the peoples zeitgeist through centuries? What is relevant to bring up, and what is just history?
As someone who wasn't aware of this association, I'm curious where do they advertise themselves for human rights?
Hence the idea that France is the home of the human rights, which is deeply rooted in the representation of many French of themselves as a country.
Obviously, there is a huge gap with reality - but that can be opposed to any idealistic set of principles.
I wouldn't say that, I've never experiences it that way, neither in school nor in day to day life, it's more of an historical factoid.
Kind of the same with America's "land of the free", sounds good on paper but not many people take it seriously.