Coup d'Etat et République

The Republic intends to be the reign of law, that is, the rejection of violence. While popular violence, to establish or defend law is accepted, violence of some, generally in a counter-revolutionary aim, is defined as a coup d'état and has a bad reputation. This theory slowly came into being at the beginning of the 19th century, but it became operational for one and a half centuries of French history. The Republic was established and lived with 18 Brumaire and December 2 as foils. However, this theory then was confronted with Gaullism as of 1958. De Gaulle cannot be caricatured as a putschist or bonapartist; nor can one refuse to accept that his empiricism, sometimes supported by the theory of legitimacy, contradicts the strict legalism of republican tradition. These discussions impact on the study of our last two centuries of history, and also on the redefinition of an indispensable civic education.