France is home to a very proud national culture that celebrates the country's victories throughout history and, more often than not, conveniently avoids discussing its failures as a nation. In AP European History, you learn about France’s revolutionary past, its despotic leaders and eventually the tragedies it faced at home during WWII as well as its colonial workings during the age of empire. Yet the way these events are discussed in your classroom in Buda is vastly different from how they are discussed in France. The French are taboo about nearly every event relevant to the formation of their country, celebrating things such as Bastille Day (the English name for what the French call Quatorze Juillet) means something different to the right and left-leaning political groups across the country. For the right, it is representative of the anniversary of the Fête de la Fédération on July 14, 1790, which gave birth to a constitutional monarchy in France. But for the left, the English name holds more resonance as July 14th represents the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, an event critical to the escalation of the French Revolution. This holiday is one example of a slightly distorted history across France.
