'Allons Enfants de la Patrie.......' Today is Quatorze Juillet aka Bastille Day in France, to be celebrated with all of the pomp and circumstance that the French nation can offer - with parades, military show off, and fireworks. And naturally, the playing, singing, and eventually roaring of the French national anthem of La Marseillaise.An ever present image of this Fête Nationale is the figure of Marianne or Liberty Leading the People in the 1830 painting by Eugène Delacroix - a depiction of the French Revolution and the storming of the Bastille 14th July 1789.
The storming of the Bastille prison was to mark the end of the royal rule of Louis XVI and the establishment of the First Republique in France. Ever since it has been a tradition of the French President to pardon petty criminals on this very day - as per Article 17 in the French Constitution - although in 2007 Nicolas Sarkozy declined to continue the practice.
On 13th July 1989 - to mark the bicentenary of the French Revolution - the inauguration of the Bastille Opera took place. It was conceived by Canadian-Uruguayan architect Carlos Ott who won an international architect competition in 1983. And the Bastille Opera is one of former French President Francois Mitterand's so-called Grands Traveaux, which also include La Grande Arche in La Défense by Danish arcitect Johann Otto von Spreckelsen, Musée d'Orsay, and the Louvre Pyramid.
These 'Great Works' were initiated by Mittérand's Minister of Culture, Jack Lang - building on a French cultural and humanist tradition of former President De Gaulle's Minister of Culture from 1959, writer André Malreaux, who expanded the cultural ties between nations - in particular through the cultural institutes and centres of app. 30 nations in Paris. So there you have it, 200 hundred years of political and cultural history of France up to present day in one PN segment!
Today Paradoxical News sends all its best wishes for France - and for The Children of The Revolution!