Bastille Day is a French national holiday celebrating the storming of the Bastille - a notorious French prison where people were arbitrarily interred. The mechanism was the lettres de cachet which were executive orders from the King that had no legislative or judicial oversight. An individual served under a lettres de cachet had no right of appeal either.
This was the basis for French absolutism which existed since Phillipe II. It was a despotic, tyrannous and arbitrary form of executive power. Consequently the storming of the Bastille carried emotional and symbolic appeal as the overthrow of tyranny by the people. (more)
It is my contention that the Royal Navy and the French Army won World War I. The Royal Navy were past masters at blockading, it is how they dealt with all continental wars in the centuries past and only the American Revolutionary War slipped past their grasp using this strategy. The British sea blockade and their halting of the German ability to source materials through neutral nations placed direct pressure on German ability to expand their war economy.
The French Army was important as it bore the brunt of the fighting and the largest amount of the front. The French ability to absorb the German offensive in March of 1918 and stop it from reaching Paris or the coast is what saved the allied cause. After that the German back was broken and the pressures of lack of manpower, materials and food all came together to collapse Germany's ability to conduct war.
William H. McNeil writes in The Pursuit of Power that France was also the arsenal of democracy in World War I. (more)
Segolene Royal's website has a section on participative democracy which a French friend of mine was kind enough to translate into English.
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The French adopted a US style closed primary system for their recent choice of candidates for the Presidential election. The Socialists have chosen Segolene Royal as their candidate. One of the her ideas that was floated was for Citizen Juries to monitor Parliament.
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