Can one be French if one is not a Republican?

I watched the TV debate featuring the 5 principle candidates in the upcoming elections for about an hour and a half before deciding my beauty sleep came before the fate of the French nation.

Well, I can’t vote anyway.

It was moderately interesting although none of them said anything that would have made me vote for any of them. That the 5^th Republic has run its course must be evident to everyone except a few die hard followers of some Gaullist vision of France. Hamon did mention a 7 year non renewable term for the President which to me is common sense. No one followed up on the idea of course.

Mélenchon is always amusing but then so was Marchais the old line communist leader. Fillon didn’t shine. Maybe he has things on his mind. I can understand a wife buying her husband a new suit, so long as it’s not with tax payer’s money  but whoever heard of a man buying another man a suit. Most odd to me.

Macron reminds me of an old song from the war:

Yankee doodle came to town riding on a pony,

Stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni.

In political terms he’s still wet behind the ears.

If I had a question for any of them it would be:

Can one be French if one is not Republican?

I’m British and I like the old Queen. I spent all night at her Coronation sleeping in the street to get a good view. I wouldn’t refer to myself as a Monarchist though. It’s just a much better system than having the country led by the likes of Thatcher, Blair or Corbyn etc. I imagine there’s a number of British who are Republicans but that wouldn’t  make them any less British, just a little eccentric perhaps but that’s quite acceptable in the UK.

In France a politician must refer to the Republic or republican values at least once every 2 or 3 minutes when he’s speaking. Do the French have a monopoly of republican values whatever they are? Imagine being born in France and not feeling at all Republican. Would one be put down or put away? Is it in French genes? Can one get cured of it? Not being Republican that is. The English tried it for ten years in the 1640’s but luckily chose the Puritan Brand. That cured them of republicanism for centuries. Since the French Revolution, the one in 1789, they’ve tried 5 brands of Republicanism a couple of Empire, gone back to a monarchy twice and diddled with other obscure forms of government.