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Comment by vmorgulis | Hacker News Reader

When people talk about Napoleon plublicly (on TV for example), it is still very political. There was another emperor nammed Napoleon III until 1871. France lost a region called "l'Alsace et la Loraine" and it leads to WWI.

British tends to compare him to Hitler but he is more in the bag with Alexander the Great or Caesar. Warlords.

Hitler is with Pol Pot and Staline.

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"When people talk about Napoleon plublicly (on TV for example), it is still very political"

There is a short piece on the BBC News website about how France views Napoleon. Do you feel it's an accurate description?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-eu-33169050

I'd say it's not wrong, though the "providential man" idea is more closely linked to De Gaule than Napoleon. I think there is still some pride at the brilliant military successes he gave France, and his important reforms (like the Civil Code) but at the same time imperialism has really gotten out of fashion. So a mix of embarrassment and pride.

Paris still has a lot of Napoleonic traces (eg, the Arch of Triumph, the Vendome column, the Invalides, the ring of boulevards named after his marshals...).

Personally, I don't give a damn about nationalism. People taking pride from the actions of long-dead folks happening to be born roughly at the right location, or holding grudges because their country lost territory decades ago leave me cold.

Gare d'Austerlitz.

I've read recently that Rome was the 131th french district at that time.

I've also seen on Arte a documentary with a positive point of view about the french administration in Germany during that time (maybe in Munich).

I don't think Spain has kept such a positive image of the French occupation, though.

But Spain occupation set in motion all the revolutionary movements in (latin) America. From 1808-1810 most spanish colonies claimed their independence.

The current president is from the socialist party. This party takes its roots in the III Republic. The first republic is the French Revolution. Their thinkings always refer to the Age of Enlightenment, the III Republic and a little bit to marxism. They are not comfortable with kings and emperors.

A lot of french people carry a kind of collective inconscious shame around the history of the country. It can be about the Kings, Napoleon, the colonization of Africa, or the collaboration of the french governement with the nazis.

It can also come from the failure against the Great-Britain during the carribean wars in the 16th century. France lost the battle, lost Haiti and Napoleon sold La Louisiane...

English is the new latin not french. France is an outsider.

The only comparisons I have seen of Napoleon to Hitler have reference to his desire to dominate the continent, and his attempt to defeat Britain by defeating Russia. They do not compare him on any sort of moral scale.

> France lost a region called "l'Alsace et la Loraine" and it leads to WWI.

I know quite a bit about the events that led up to WWI and I'd never really heard of this before. The events that led to WWI are very complex.

"Memories of the Napoleonic Wars were still quite fresh in the 1870s. Right up until the Franco-Prussian War, the French had maintained a long-standing desire to establish their entire eastern frontier on the Rhine, and thus they were viewed by most 19th century Germans as an aggressive people."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alsace-Lorraine#From_annexatio...

When you read popular French literature from around this time, you find extremely strong anti-German sentiment. This may have played on the reaction of the government, but what I think it influenced the most was the treaty of Versailles after the war. The treaty was a "revenge" of sorts for the harsh conditions imposed by Germany after the war of 1870 (and, of course, for the massive loss of life and material destruction of WWI).

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