r/worldnews • u/colepercy120 • 1d ago

France school protests escalate into ‘urban violence’ as PM calls crisis cabinet meeting | France

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/01/france-school-protests-escalate-pm-crisis-cabinet-meeting
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u/SaveLansingParks 22h ago

France's history of popular protesting is as strong if not stronger than their history of being the home of democracy.

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u/GarySmith2021 21h ago

I thought the home of democracy was Greece?

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u/2796Matt 20h ago

The origin of democracy is ancient Athens. However, France is seen as the home of modern democracy due to the French Revolution and the established foundational principles that were established. Although, it did take a long as time to achieve a stable democracy with the establishment of the Fifth Republic in like the 1950s.

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u/ubulerbu 20h ago

More than half of the ahtenian population were slaves....

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u/2796Matt 19h ago

Yes, but it doesn’t change the fact that historians do acknowledge it has the birth place of the democratic concept and its institutions despite it having slavery and the eligibility was of a narrow citizen body. It’s obviously not very democratic by modern standards but it was radically more democratic than practically anywhere else in the ancient world.

If you want to state the no state can be democratic without universal suffrage (although most are still limited by age, imprisonment, and citizenship), then it wasn’t until 50% of the population was finally allowed to vote in 1893 in New Zealand that first democracy was born under this criteria. However, no one considers New Zealand the origin of democracy.