Essential debate of the French Revolution 🇫🇷

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]What is the most important thing?

[00:00:01]Property or human life?

[00:00:03]>> [music] >> The answer might surprise you. This was a debate that took place in 1792 during the French Revolution. Les Girondins believed that the right of property was the most quintessential [music] right.

[00:00:13]They believed that because your body belongs to yourself, then your work belongs to yourself, and then the land that you work on belongs to yourself.

[00:00:20]And so that property was the one thing that the king could not take away from you. But on the other side, you had Robespierre that believed that the right to exist was the most important thing.

[00:00:29]And that in some cases you have to take somebody's property in order to survive.

[00:00:34]This was famously debated around should you steal bread if you are starving? To this day, this philosophical question explains the difference between the left who defends the right to exist >> [music] >> and the right who defends the right of property.