The demonization of the left and socialism spawns monsters of opinion

A century and a half ago, the Second French Empire, headed by Napoleon Bonaparte’s nephew, thoughtlessly entered a war against Prussia. It was the end of the French Empire and the beginning of the German Empire when the Prussian King Wilhelm I received the imperial crown in the Palace of Versailles. The Germans stayed in Alsace and Lorraine and all of France was defeated. All? No. In Paris yesterday, exactly 150 years ago, an uprising refused to surrender and founded a government of a “social republic” to be known as the Paris Commune, the first measure of which was the universal primary school for both sexes, separation of state and church. It took seventy-one days. The following May, when the troops of Versailles, dominated by a national assembly with a monarchical majority, surrounded Paris and bombarded it with incendiary bullets, a brief, bloody civil war broke out: the Communards executed 64 hostages; The repression of the Versailles troops was disproportionately large, resulting in at least ten thousand deaths, many of which were shot unceremoniously, and thousands of prisoners and exiles to New Caledonia, including the anarchist and feminist Louise Michel, perhaps the most famous leader of the community.

Back to top button