Bastille Day, What are the French Really Celebrating? Insurrection

Bastille Day, what are the French really celebrating? Bloody insurrection? A “shameful episode” and a massacre by a “drunken mob” leading to France’s decline – or a milestone moment of national pride marking freedom and liberty for all? It depends on who you ask.

As I hear fighter jets swooping overhead during the Bastille Day celebrations, again I wonder about the significance of all the fanfare for la Fête nationale. The national holiday.

In over two decades in France, one of them in Paris, I have participated in the ceremonies and festivities only a couple of times. A few years back, I braved the crowds of thousands on the Champ de Mars to watch the fireworks … Actually, starting out hours earlier, watching the military parade along the Avenue des Champs-Élysées.

The flyover by military aircraft trailing the revolutionary tricolore red, white, and blue smoke is spectacular … And they’ve been training for it for days. All this in honor of … Of what?

The Pomp and the Party

What strikes me immediately, putting that question to Google, is the number of French news sources interrogating themselves on that question (… on behalf of the public). As though they weren’t very sure, after all these years. 235 years ago, to be precise, since the decade-long ordeal began.

Even the Elysée Palace asks rhetorically: “Every year since 1880, the Republic (la République, the French government since the monarchy ended), has celebrated the Nation in the middle of July. What exactly is it celebrating? How was the day chosen?”

Now, that might seem like the kind of elementary questions you would ask a kindergarten student. So why are French people, still, as adults, and after years and years of celebrations, being asked that by the Presidential palace? (Sorry, the presidential residential palace!)

For the French Government, “the emblematic day”, July 14, refers to two key events on that date in French history. The storming of the Bastille in 1789 and Federation Day in 1790. In their opposition to the monarchy, in 1789, the Parisian mob seized the royal prison, it says. All that amid soaring bread prices and famine.

“The capture of the Bastille, where powder and bullets are stored, and the looting of the Invalides, who keep the weapons, mark the end of an absolutist regime and the hope of a new social contract based on freedom and equality.”

So, the reasons it’s a holiday “should be obvious”, it concludes.

Bastille Day Shame: Pourquoi?

Not according to the highbrow French weekly, Le Courrier International. Possibly the publisher of the most scathing but fascinating report about Bastille Day … in 2003. In fact, it was republished from the Wall Street Journal Europe. Under the title, “France. Celebrating July 14th? What a strange idea!”

For the author, Russell Lewis, the storming of the Bastille was “a shameful episode”. Quelle honte!

“A drunken mob, which had seized the weapons stored in the arsenal of Les Invalides, attacked and massacred the guards and the governor, who offered no resistance.”

Despite being considered “a good thing” today, he goes on, as “feudal tyranny was overthrown, and it was the beginning of modern democracy” … that’s not so.

” .. this is not what the facts say. The Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars that followed weakened France to such an extent that the country never regained the predominance it had enjoyed in Europe under the monarchy.”

OK, so France fell down a few rungs in global domination. But, eh, so did thousands of people get freedom from oppression and domination! (Unsurprisingly, Mr Lewis was a conservative intellectual, according to The Telegraph, who wrote a biography of Margaret Thatcher, and probably wanted the French monarchy back.)

“The economic damage France suffered during the Revolution and the period that followed was irreparable,” the author writes. “One might think that the acquisition of land by peasants was a good thing, but since they lacked the tools or capital to expand, French agriculture did not evolve.” (Sorry, that is not what the food on my plate tonight is telling me! Nor, for that matter, French cuisine and produce in general.)

From Bastille Freedoms to Bonapartisme

Anyway, it’s all very thought-provoking.

We know that the bloodshed of the Revolution was awful – and that the upshot, according to some socialists like Marx, was merely to oust the royals for a new elitist, capitalist era ruled over by the bourgeoisie. Who then ceded to Napoleon and another form of autocracy. And so it goes on … Through to today’s French society, where there is more than a soupçon of the old monarchial system of elitism and privileges. But let me not get bogged down in dreary, depressing detail, as it’s time to party.

Lights, Crowds, Fireworks, Action

As over 60,000 people start piling onto the Champ-de-Mars, ready for the big fireworks party, I am watching from afar (well, from a few miles away) … Even as the “pourquoi’s do we celebrate this” continue incessantly (the French are a philosophical bunch after all) …

But I am celebrating either way. Cos’ that’s what you do in France. You feel it was the beginning of a landmark battle hard fought … and a victory well earned. Whatever the outcome, and however bloody. That justice did come, a decade later, in the tumbling of the monarchy and royal privileges.

That the France I love and enjoy today is a result of that … And I do not want to take their battles lightly. I feel pride, not shame!

Vive la Revolution alors! Vive la France. And Vive la liberté, égalité, fraternité. Peace and love to all friends and France-loving strangers. Joyeuse fête nationale à la France ! I would love to hear from you on this joyous occasion. And about what it might mean to you!