Is France on the brink of revolution? Is President François Hollande in danger of being dragged to the guillotine? These sound like silly questions. In fact, they are silly questions. Yet talk of a new revolution is surprisingly common in France these days. This week’s edition of Le Point, a leading news weekly, asks on its cover, “Are we in 1789?”, and illustrates the question with a picture of Mr Hollande, dressed up as Louis XVI, the hapless monarch executed by the revolutionaries. Even academics are making the comparison. Dominique Moïsi, a visiting professor at the University of London, has argued that the president “looks ever more like a modern Louis XVI” and that France is in the grip of a “regime crisis”.
法國正處在革命邊緣麼？法國總統法蘭索瓦•歐蘭德(François Hollande)會被送上斷頭臺麼？這些聽起來似乎是很愚蠢的問題。事實上，這些確實是很愚蠢的問題。然而最近在法國有關新革命的言論屢見不鮮，這一點非常令人震驚。法國著名新聞週刊《觀點》(Le Point)在本週出版的期刊封面上問道：「我們回到了1789年？」問題的旁邊是一張被打扮成路易十六(Louis XVI)模樣的歐蘭德照片，路易十六正是那位被革命者處決的倒楣君主。而現在連學術界也在把兩者相提並論。倫敦大學訪問學者多米尼克•莫伊西(Dominique Moïsi)聲稱，歐蘭德「看上去越來越像現代版的路易十六」，法國正陷於一場「政權危機」中。