One of the great stereotypes of France is their constant love of revolution- and with current events I was curious- it appears from a cursory glance at history that France has had a remarkably tumultuous history for the past 200 years or so, starting with the first French Revolution they have gone through many different revolutions, republics and monarchs, all while still remaining a major power in world affairs. Even after winning two world wars, when one would think the government would be at the height of their prestige, the Algerian Crisis ended the 4th Republic and rung in the 5th.
But is this a historic oddity from the past 200 years, or only magnified thanks to stereotype and memories of Napoleon? And if it is somewhat unique to France, are there any reasons why?
I wrote about this a little bit earlier this this year. The general answer is that the degree to which France has had unstable government depends on your standards for comparison — it's had periods that have seen frequent turnover of governments (1814-1852) and ones with relatively little turnover (the Third Republic lasted more or less from 1871 to 1940). Certainly it's more chaotic than Great Britain over that time; whether it's more chaotic than Italy or Germany depends on where you start things — neither country existed until the middle of the 19th Century, by which time France had concluded its most chaotic period.
But it's probably fair to say France has been reasonably unstable. Some of that reflects France's relatively vulnerable geopolitical position — its governmental changes in 1815, 1871 and 1940 were precipitated by military defeat and invasion, something Britain has never had to endure over this time period. (Germany, similarly, had two government changes over this time brought on it by military defeat.) It also reflects a political culture that took a long time to develop a sort of universal legitimacy; for most of the 19th Century, significant portions of the French populace thought the ideal form of government was a constitutional monarchy, a Bonapartist military dictatorship, a liberal republic or a socialist republic. These were not simply disagreements about what policies governments should enact, but what type of government should exist at all. Historian Robert Tombs notes that France often lacked what is often termed a "loyal opposition" who wants to change the country's policy direction without overthrowing its general order:
Under every (19th Century) regime, there existed a ‘disloyal opposition’ which was excluded, and expected to be excluded, from any share in power and patronage, such as legitimists after 1830 or republicans before 1870. Their function was to express root and branch rejection of the regime (including on behalf of those whose repugnance was so great as to refuse to take any part in its political life at all) and also to constitute a government-in-waiting ready to take power in case of revolution, as happened in 1830, 1848 and 1870.
The reasons why that happened are extremely complicated, but to massively oversimplify, can be traced back to the French Revolution and the fact that that France saw major sociopolitical changes in a very short period of time, followed by a series of see-saw reactions and revolutions, rather than a more gradual evolution as happened in Britain and (Civil War excluded) the U.S. Americans assume that democracy is the best way to lead a country, even if the precise nature of that democracy is up for debate; France in the 19th Century had no such consensus.