The State and the citizens
The State and the citizens have been inextricably linked since the French Revolution. According to the doctrine of the revolutionaries in 1789, the State is the organised form of the people, the indivisible mass of citizens. The interface between the State and the people is expressed in the citizens’ participation in the government’s work by naming the people who will carry out its tasks.
Originally, the 1789 revolutionaries planned for direct elections to all positions, including judgeships and religious responsibilities, with the civil constitution of the clergy, but many exemptions were quickly introduced. These were originally based on the distinction between passive citizens and active citizens, which was a prelude to extending suffrage based on tax assessments to universal suffrage for men in 1848, followed by women in 1944. After that, the representative system was extended to cover the whole political sphere and the administration was staffed by career civil servants.
Very quickly, citizens found themselves in a hierarchical relationship with the State and its administration, dealing as administered subjects with a separate body that had its own rules and structures. The State’s administration soon resumed some of the characteristics of the royal administration under the Ancien Régime. It was marked by the changes made under the First Empire, which introduced centralisation and an independent judiciary. These changes created lasting characteristics of the ‘model’, which has withstood many of the changes seen in the twentieth century.
Print version
French nationality- Email us |
- What's new ? |
- Subscriptions |
- Site map |
- About