1795 The song, destined (after many vicissitudes) to become France’s national anthem was originally written and composed in 1792, by the royalist Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in Strasbourg, under the title ‘War Song for the Army of the Rhine’. It was adopted as a call to arms by regicidal street revolutionaries, particularly those fiery provincials who poured into Paris from Marseilles. Hence the second name by which it became generally known. Largely at the urging of François Mireur (later a general under Napoleon) it was adopted, by decree, as the country’s national anthem on 14 July 1795. Thereafter it was banned under the regimes of Napoleon I, Louis XVIII, and Napoleon III. It became the country’s permanent anthem after 1879.
In the late 20th century, however – with France now a central member of the EU – there was growing uneasiness at the ‘sanguinary’ nature of the lyrics, e.g.:
Allons enfants de la Patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé!
Contre nous de la tyrannie,
L’étendard sanglant est levé,
Entendez-vous dans les campagnes
Mugir ces féroces soldats?
Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras
Égorger vos fils, vos compagnes!1
The uneasiness was focused by the bicentenary celebrations in 1992, when a ten-year-old girl, Severine Dupelloux, clad in white, was chosen to warble the anthem, as virtually the whole country watched on TV.
A subsequent poll revealed that 40 per cent of the population thought the Marseillaise ‘too bloodthirsty’, and that it should be toned down. The protest was resisted by traditionalists. The no-change camp strengthened itself further on 12 September 2005 when it was legislated that La Marseillaise should be compulsory learning for young children – this was to be particularly enforced in areas of high immigrant population, in the interest of promoting assimilation.
1 Come, children of the Fatherland, / The day of glory has arrived! / Against us, tyranny’s / Bloody banner is raised, / Do you hear in the countryside / Those ferocious soldiers roaring? / They come up to your arms / To slit the throats of your sons and wives!