{"id":210668,"date":"2022-05-02T12:00:28","date_gmt":"2022-05-02T11:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=210668"},"modified":"2022-05-02T04:02:33","modified_gmt":"2022-05-02T03:02:33","slug":"democracy-in-france-2022-conversation-with-sorbonne-constitutional-scholar-and-leftist-intellectual-marie-gren","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/05\/democracy-in-france-2022-conversation-with-sorbonne-constitutional-scholar-and-leftist-intellectual-marie-gren\/","title":{"rendered":"Democracy in France 2022: Conversation with Sorbonne Constitutional Scholar and Leftist Intellectual Marie Gren"},"content":{"rendered":"

29 Apr 2022 – In the fascinating 60-minutes discussion, Professor Gren touched on various aspects of contemporary democracy in France, ranging from the sordid state of the Left and its \u201ccaviar socialists\u201d and the increasing acceptability and mainstreaming of Far Right ideologies which Le Pen personifies, to the economic hardships that inflict immense pains on the great majority of the French public.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Professor Noam Chomsky, the renowned linguist and public intellectual, in his 20-minutes of remarks at the launch of FORSEA in Kuala Lumpur three years ago, offered a sobering overview of the history of what we call democratic struggles.<\/p>\n

In his words:<\/a><\/p>\n

It is also useful to remember that democracy has always been a highly contested concept. It\u2019s been feared and disdained among elites throughout the period of democratic revival in the world.\u00a0 That\u2019s been true, strikingly, in the great democratic revolutions.\u00a0 The first of these was in England in the mid-17th century, leading finally to what\u2019s called the Glorious Revolution of 1688
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The basic principles that the French Republic must respect are found in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
Wikipedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Building on that critical take on the struggles for democracy from below, this week\u2019s distinguished guest on our Dialogue on Democratic Struggles Series, Professor Marie Gren<\/strong> of the Pantheon-Sorbonne University in Paris, offered a feminist critique of the great democratic uprisings of 1789 \u2013 the French Revolution \u2013 which smashed the ancient feudal regime\u2019s stranglehold of power and wealth.<\/p>\n

She held up the example of Marie Gouze (1748-93) who dared to offered \u201cOlympe de Gouges, The Declaration of the Rights of Woman<\/a>\u201c<\/em> (September 1791), in addition to or in place of the Declaration of the Right of Man.\u00a0 For her courageous display of gender equality she was condemned as a counterrevolutionary, denounced as an \u201cunnatural\u201d woman and was beheaded under the guillotine in 1793.<\/p>\n

So much for the Legacy of the (French) Enlightenment \u2013 and its revolutionary slogans of \u201cLibert\u00e9, Egalit\u00e9, Fraternit\u00e9\u201d.<\/p>\n

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https:\/\/www.diplomatie.gouv.fr\/en\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Professor Marie Gren, public and constitutional law scholar at the Pantheon-Sorbonne, focused her analysis of France\u2019s democratic struggle in the post-World War II period. She used the 7 important years as signifiers of important changes to the French democratic system, particularly state organs:<\/p>\n