A good Paris weekend usually features a few essentials: baguette, morning paper and a protest, or manifestation, taking place somewhere between Place de la République and Nation. Regardless of whether you plan on participating, you will soon be aware that it is happening. Growing up in Paris, my childhood was punctuated by the ritual preparations of the Boulevard Beaumarchais for a Sunday protest. This would usually entail boarding up the windows to prevent protesters from breaking the glass because, notoriously, Parisians do not mess around when it comes to complaining. The garbage collectors’ strike in 2023 left the streets of Paris brimming with odorous bags of waste. That same year, Emmanuel Macron’s controversial raising of the retirement age triggered protests that lasted six months. And who could forget the infamous gilets jaunes, a movement born out of outrage at the rise in petrol taxes?

I have a theory that the French infatuation with taking their concerns, vociferously, to the Haussmannian boulevards is simply a contemporary chapter in our long history of revolution, the most notable being, of course, the 1789 revolution that overthrew Louis XVI. No event has had more influence on France today, leading as it did to the implementation of universal suffrage, the separation between church and state and the creation of the Assemblée Nationale. No wonder Parisians feel a desire to carry on the legacy of organised protest: it’s ingrained in the modern state (and our state of mind).

Today, French schoolchildren are taught these stories of revolt to foster an early love of the République. But could there be a side effect? Are students being trained to chase a similarly thrilling lifestyle? When I was a schoolgirl, students would often get together to create a makeshift blockade in front of the school gates using bins to protest against reforms to the baccalaureate exams. As always, there was a frisson to cutting classes, a definite taking-of-the-Bastille hopefulness in these moments of lycée revolt. Student protests are almost a rite of passage in a country that still regularly recalls the events of 1968. The movement that year featured more than 500 Parisian students co-ordinating a hostile takeover of the Sorbonne, brandishing the now famous slogan “Il est interdit d’interdire” (it is forbidden to forbid). That year also saw the baccalaureate’s written exams being cancelled for the first time in French academic history. It defined a generation of youngsters, who would later tell their own children of their exploits with a twinkle in their eye.

Ultimately, at the core of these historical precedents there is a lasting national culture of complaining. There’s a love of thinking that you have it worse than everyone else and even if you don’t, you could still have it better. And I would argue that all this protesting has served French people well. Just look at Parisian healthcare, organic food served in school cafeterias and the five weeks (minimum) of paid holiday for all workers. So I can’t help but feel a twinge of affection for this national revolutionary spirit, tear gas and burned bins notwithstanding.