Knowra French nationalism French nationalism French nationalism is a political tradition that emphasizes the identity, sovereignty, and unity of the French nation. Its forms have ranged from republican civic patriotism to ethnic and monarchist visions of national belonging.
French Revolution : A period of political upheaval in France from 1789 to 1799 that ended the monarchy and transformed European politics. It declared the nation sovereign and made citizenship and shared political identity central to French nationhood.
French Third Republic : The French republican regime established in 1870 and ended in 1940. Its leaders made republican institutions and national loyalty mutually reinforcing.
Civic nationalism : A form of nationalism that defines national membership primarily through shared citizenship and political principles. It captures the republican ideal that belonging to France rests on citizenship rather than ancestry.
Franco-Prussian War : The 1870–1871 conflict between France and Prussia and its German allies, ending in French defeat. Defeat and the loss of Alsace-Lorraine intensified French revanchism and national remembrance.
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen : A 1789 French revolutionary document asserting liberty, legal equality, popular sovereignty, and individual rights. Its claim that sovereignty resides in the nation supplied a foundational statement of civic nationalism.
Jules Ferry laws : French laws of the 1880s that made primary education free, compulsory, and secular. Schools taught a common national history and standardized French to children across the country.
Ethnic nationalism : A form of nationalism that defines the nation chiefly through shared descent, ancestry, or inherited culture. It contrasts with civic accounts by tying French belonging more closely to origin and cultural inheritance.
Dreyfus affair : A political scandal from 1894 to 1906 over the wrongful conviction of Jewish French army officer Alfred Dreyfus for treason. It split France over antisemitism, the army, and whether national loyalty could include a persecuted minority.
Levée en masse : A 1793 French decree mobilizing the population and resources for revolutionary war. It joined mass military service to the idea that citizens collectively defended the nation.
French language : A Romance language originating in France and now spoken worldwide. National institutions promoted French as a shared language across a country of regional speech communities.
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