That is a shorthand way of asking how deeply rebellion is embedded in the country’s character. But the question is worth exploring as dramatic images emerge from Paris and other parts of France of protesters being detained at the Place de la Bastille and storming Marseille’s city hall, and placards bearing defiant messages such as Si nous brûlons, vous brûlerez avec nous — “If we burn, you will burn with us”. What began as student protests demanding better schooling conditions has broadened into a wider expression of public discontent fuelled by the rising cost of living, inflation and austerity measures by a centralised state.AdvertisementAlso Read | What we lose when we stop seeing migrants as peopleFrom the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, to the upheavals of May 1968 and the more recent Yellow Vests movement (mouvement des gilets jaunes), France has acquired a reputation as a land of protest. The French Revolution — a legacy tarnished by the Reign of Terror that followed — transformed the meaning of protest, elevating it from an expression of local grievance (prior to it, the most common riots were related to grain and its prices) to a means of asserting political rights. The Revolution’s defining document, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, identifies “liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression” as the “natural and imprescriptible rights of man”. The fourth right enshrines a principle that has been preserved for more than two centuries: Authority is not beyond question, and the people could claim a legitimate role in resisting its abuse.By their very nature, governments do not readily welcome an open challenge to their power. In the decades following the French Revolution, successive regimes — the Napoleonic Empire and the Bourbon Restoration — sought to reverse or contain some of its gains. An attempt at course correction came with the July Revolution of 1830, often described as the Second French Revolution, which overthrew Charles X after he issued ordinances restricting the press and dissolving the elected Chamber. Still, the workers who had fought on the barricades during les Trois Glorieuses (the “Three Glorious Days” of July 1830) gained little from the July Monarchy that followed.Economic hardship and curtailed political rights, even under a regime that shifted the basis of its legitimacy from divine right to constitutional monarchy, culminated in another revolution less than two decades later. Public anger exploded in 1848, when King Louis-Philippe’s government banned the “banquets” that reformers had used to get around restrictions on public meetings. Within days, the king had abdicated. Émile Zola’s open letter J’accuse…! during the Dreyfus Affair (1894-1906) and the upheavals of May 1968, which brought students and workers into a collective movement, further revealed a recurring belief in French political life: Political authority can, and sometimes must, be challenged by its citizens. The legacy of 1789 provided later movements with a language of resistance, even as each generation reinterpreted its principles in response to its own grievances.AdvertisementThis is not to suggest that protest is the exclusive preserve of the Left, even if the history of socialist movements and trade unions may create that impression. The French Right, too, has repeatedly mobilised large crowds around its political and social causes. In May 2013, for instance, hundreds of thousands took to the streets in demonstrations organised by La Manif pour tous to oppose the legalisation of same-sex marriage. The street, therefore, is also where competing visions of French society seek to assert themselves.you may likeNor is protest unique to France. To suggest otherwise would be to perpetuate a stereotype that does a disservice not only to France but also to other countries, particularly India, where mass mobilisation has long been a feature of political life and continues to be so today. Across Europe, too, protests have erupted in Spain, Portugal, Albania, Italy and Belgium, driven by grievances similar to those seen in France. Part of what sets the latter apart is that it is one of Europe’s most centralised states: Pensions, schools, labour law and taxes are largely decided in Paris, so a grievance anywhere becomes a national question. Add to this a system in which governments can push reforms through with narrow majorities, like the 2023 pension reform. Talks between the state and the people are often thin, and so the street becomes a place to protest and bargain. It is this phenomenon that is worth examining — and appreciating.The writer is copy editor at The Indian Express, saptarishi.basak@expressindia.com