Chapter six of The ‘Death of the Subject’ Explained, by James Heartfield, Sheffield Hallam University, 2002. Marxists Internet Archive
The founding of the modern French state is unique in
history. The state is created in the name not just of the French
citizen, but of all mankind. The document adopted by the Constituent
Assembly in June 1789 is headed Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
The declaration is a sincere expression of the sentiments of the
revolutionaries who created the state. It was also a beacon to liberals
across Europe,[1]
and as far afield as Haiti in the West Indies, where the ‘black
Jacobin’ Toussaint L’Ouverture was inspired to lead a slave revolt.[2]
The most adamant of the French revolutionaries deplored slavery as they
deplored feudal privileges. ‘The moment you pronounce the word “slave”
you pronounce your own dishonour’, said Robespierre, who also defended
the civil and voting rights of free blacks in the West Indian colonies.[3]
Even after the restoration of a more centralised power under Napoleon
Bonaparte’s military leadership, France remained a beacon of the
universal rights of man to radicals and liberals across Europe.
Napoleon’s army swept through Europe welcomed by some as an army of
liberation. The Jewish ghettoes were emancipated. The Code Napoleon is,
to this day, the basis of many countries’ civil law. Revolutionary
France represented the hopes of the Enlightenment, of reason and of
humanism for progressive Europe.
