Essay : How the French Republic has evolved since 1870/1875 ?

History Essay : How the French Republic has evolved since 1870/1875 ?

« Created by people for people […] one and indivisible » were announced when the Republic arose in 1792 after creating the Declaration of Man and Citizen in 1789. This new Republic promoted a national sovereignty which people united by a common history, culture and language and a popular sovereignty which is the essence of democracy: power is proceeded by people. A republic is a form of government in which the country is a public matter and can not be the property of the rulers. Thus a monarch can not be the head of a Republican state. It is governed by three major ideas. Separation of powers is a model for the governance of a state. Under this model, a state's government is divided into branches, each with separate and independent powers.

Federalism is the mixed or compound mode of government, combining a general government with regional governments  in a single political system. Finally, integration which is to integrated in the Republic and to participate to it. The French Republic evolved to a more idealistic democracy inspired by the ideals of 1789 since 1870.

Created on the 4th of September 1870 under a very conservative parliamentary majority composed of monarchists and bonapartists, the Third Republic was heavily inspired by the idealistic values of the Declaration of Man and Citizen in 1789. It took 9 years to create this Republic because it was hard for the country to renounce to royalty and to propose a 3rd constitution after living under two Republics (one of 12 years and another of 4 years) and 2 empires under the Bonapartes. The Assemblée Nationale which was composed of 30 bonapartistes, 200 republicans and 400 monarchistes finally accepted the constitution after two attempts. This new government promoted the liberty of expression and the liberty of opinions which permeated to Leon Blum from the Front Populaire to be elected as president in 1936. School was even more consired as a “pillar” of this Republic as Jules Ferry decided to make school obligatory, free and secular. It was considered to be an effective way to teach the Republican values to the future generation. The Third Republic is the longest that France knew, it was 65 years long and it is obligatory that it faced some social scandals. For example, the Dreyfus Affair where a Jewish captain was accused of collaboration with the German Empire with no real proof. It is now know that he was accused because of his religion even under the belief of secularity and liberty.

Finally, France ended those political crises : it seemed to be reconsilided with its population and out of political isolation. Until, its defeat against his long-time enemy Germany in May 1940 during World War II. This defeat was considered as the end of the Third Republic.

→ France was now occupied by the German army : 55% of the North territory and the South was called the “Free Zone”. It was decided in Rethondes where the armistice was signed after the bombing of many French civil by the German army. The Marechal Petain was the head of this new government called the “Regime of Vichy” or “L'Etat Français”. In this government, he had all the powers. He wanted to restore the authority of the State and to put France back to work : “C'est à un redressement intellectuel et moral que d'abord je vous convie. Français, vous l'accomplierez, et vous verrez, je vous le jure, une France nouvelle surgira de notre faveur.”. The Marechal Petain believed that it was the previous government who was guilty of the defeat because the army was desorganised, hence the Third Republic's leaders were arrested and judged for their incompetence.

To accomplish this reconstruction of France, Petain suppressed diverse institutions which was considered by him as useless for his government. First of all, he rejected democracy and the motto “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” and replaced it by “Travail, Famille, Patrie”. He also decided to suppress most of the social rights such as the right to have a political party, the universal suffrage which was considered to be the symbol of liberty between the citizens during the Third Republic, the liberty of the press (the Maréchal Petain believed that France needed unity), the strikes rights and syndical parties. The catholic religion was imposed all around the country and it permitted the collaboration of France with Germany in the anti-Semitic laws which forbidden Jews to work in certain domains in October 1940, in 1941 they had to resentment themselves as Jews and in 1942, Jews had to wear the Davis stars.  The Maréchal Pétain promoted the importance of the woman in families by creating “Mother's Day” while reducing heavily their rights, women were supposed to stay at home to educate children. Likely in totalitarian regimes, in the Vichy Regime, there was a gigantic presence of cult of personality. The head of the country was considered like a hero, he had songs such as “Maréchal nous voilà” and had pictures of him in schools for example. However, the Vichy Regime had no real autonomy. For instance, France collaborated with Germany with its politics of percussion of Jews, francs-masons or foreigners as it can be seen during the Rafle du Vel d'Hiver which was a Nazi-directed raid and mass arrest of Jews in Paris by the French police. Pierre Laval, who was  first the vice-president of the Council of Ministers from 11 July 1940 to 13 December 1940, and later  the head of government from 18 April 1942 to 20 August 1944, wanted to please the Fuhrer by creating the STO which is an obligatory service for French workers in Germany and  militias which fought against the French resistance with Germans (certain members of those militias even fought under the German uniforms). After the Normandy landing, the German occupation is even harder.  Especially for civil, food ration were becoming very strict and the SS were killing civil. Markedly in Oradour-sur-Glane on the 10th June 1944, 642 innocent men, women and children were brutally murdered for no reason at all and the whole town was destroyed by Waffen-SS soldiers in Hitler's elite army. After all, on 22nd June 1944, a temporary government is created, as the head of it : Charles de Gaulle who was the leader of the French resistance.

...