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Prologue: The World (XXI)

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"In Paris, the city is alive once more. It is the 50th celebration - and 51st anniversary of the event - of Le Jour de la Révolution, or The Day of the Revolution. From now to the Bastille Day, the whole of France will celebrate revolution and a strong commitment to their ideals of liberté, égalité, and fraternité. On May 29th, 1968, amidst intense social unrest and revolutionary uprisings, rightist President de Gaulle vanished, never to be seen again. His disappearance would change the world in so many ways, leading to, of course, the New French Revolution and the ushering in of the Second Commune of France, among other things. Leftists around the world are participating in rallies of their own, in solidarity with the French. A massive fireworks display is planned over the Eiffel Tower at 5 PM Paris time, and will be viewable online [here]."
-France Celebrates 51st Anniversary of the New French Revolution, Ryan Morris, Washington Post.

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"To say the Revolution influenced me would be a massive, truly massive understatement. The Revolution built who I was, shaped me to my very core. I was only 17 at the time, but I participated just like everybody else when things came to my city. What I'm trying to do with this book is capture the, the sort of radical social atmosphere of the event, the sense that truly anything was possible, that society could be remade from the ground up. I mean, the perspective of the average man on the street on the same day in 67 and 69 would be completely, totally different. I'm trying to analyze how that happened, through a series of interviews and looking at footage and reading accounts and all that sort of research legwork."
-Jean-Luc Mélenchon, French politician and author, in an interview on tour for his latest book How Beautiful It Was: The Revolution and The People

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"I'll tell you this with one-hundred percent honesty, it was our fault. We lost. Without de Gaulle, we didn't have a government. We had an incoherent group of confabulators playing at governing. They managed to blunder and blunder into a win, and we managed to shoot ourselves in the foot enough times that we fell into the grave without any effort on their part."
-Édouard Balladur, former aide to Prime Minister Pompidou, reflecting on the Revolution in an interview with L'Humanité.


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I was inspired by the (then impending, now it's today) 51st Anniversary of de Gaulle's 6 hour fleeing of France to begin this TL. I've lurked here for a while, but I just made my account now to post this. I already have a good amount of stuff written, so expect more coming soon as I polish it and write more.
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