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FRENCH HISTORY

Marianne: 5 things to know about the symbol of France

Her face is everywhere from famous artworks to postage stamps, tax bills to public buildings - but who actually is France's 'Marianne'?

Marianne: 5 things to know about the symbol of France
Marianne, the national personification of the French Republic. Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP

On Tuesday President Emmanuel Macron travelled to Dordogne to unveil ‘the new face of Marianne’, which will appear on all French postage stamps for the next five years.

The ‘Marianne of the future’ represents a woman in profile, with her hair merging into a verdant green background.

The newest depiction of Marianne for the new postage stamp. Image: La Poste

Graphic designer Olivier Balez said he wanted to “share in the narrative about the climate emergency, without falling into stoking anxiety”. “It’s a Marianne of the green transition, with her long neck along the diagonal symbolising momentum towards the future,” he told AFP.

But who actually is Marianne? 

1. She’s very old 

The French symbol of ‘Marianne’ goes back to 1792 and the Revolution, but the figure of a woman wearing a Phrygian cap to represent freedom goes all the way back to ancient Rome.

The goddess Libertas symbolises freedom and her hat is the traditional cap given to freed slaves. A temple to Libertas was first proposed for Rome in 46BC, although it was never actually built. She’s usually described as a ‘matron’ or a mature woman.

She was adopted by the Revolutionaries in France who were casting around for a symbolic figure to represent the country as a replacement for the monarch, who had previously featured on coins and other symbols. 

No-one is quite sure where the name of Marianne came from, but the most frequently-offered explanation is that it is a combination of two of the most common women’s names of the period – Marie and Anne. 

2. She’s an official symbol of the republic 

If you’re taking part in a pub quiz – or your interview for French citizenship – and are asked to name the symbols of the French republic, you will definitely get a point for Marianne.

The others – according to the website of the Elysée – are; the French flag (tricolore), the national anthem (La Marseillaise), the national motto (liberté, egalité, fraternité), the Fête nationale (July 14th), the French cockerel, the crest known as Le Faisceau de Licteur or the seal (Le Sceau).

Marianne has had a few breaks as an official face of the state during the periods of the restoration of the monarchy, but she’s been a well-loved symbol for 231 years. 

Her most famous depiction is in Eugene Delacroix’s painting La Liberté guidant le peuple. Painted in 1830, well after the Revolution, it is the iconic image of France combining both Marianne and the tricolore flag. 

Eugene Delacroix’ painting the “Liberty Leading the People”, at the Louvre in Paris. Photo by THOMAS SAMSON / AFP

3. She wears a hat and sometimes an (insecurely-fastened) blouse

The classic depiction of Marianne shows her wearing a hat – specifically the red ‘phyrgian cap’.

As with Marianne herself, the cap goes all the way back to antiquity but in France it’s particularly associated with the Revolutionaries of the 1790s, cementing her status as a symbol of the French Republic. Most recently, the cap got a new lease of life as the mascot for the 2024 Paris Olympics – although it’s been suggested that the mascots also look like something else.

In Marianne’s official portraits such as on stamps only her head and shoulders are depicted.

But when she’s shown in full-length her depiction often copies Delacroix’s painting by showing her with her right breast bursting out of her blouse. After a 230-year shift as a symbol of the nation you’d think someone could find her a shirt with securely sewn-on buttons. 

4. She’s everywhere 

Once you start looking for Marianne you will realise that she is everywhere – receive any kind of official letter from the government – whether it’s a tax bill, information about your driving licence application or a criminal summons, and there Marianne will be in the top left corner. 

Got a tax bill? There’s Marianne in the corner. Photo: The Local

A sculpted bust of her stands in every mairie in France, from tiny villages to the grand town halls in France’s big cities, and in government offices like ministry buildings and the French parliament. 

There’s a massive statue of her in the Place de la République in Paris. The Monument de la République, to give the statue its official name, has been there since 1883 and she has become a focal point for the frequent protests and demos held in the square – she’s been regularly graffitied and draped in banners and colours symbolising thousands of different causes from equality for women, pension laws and solidarity with Ukraine. She never seems to mind. 

Marianne in Place de la République in Paris, declaring her solidarity with Ukraine. Photo: AFP

She’s also hidden in a few places, including the logo for the 2024 Paris Olympics, which is intended to combine images of the Olympic torch, a medal and Marianne. 

The Paris 2024 logo is intended to be an updated Marianne. Photo by BERTRAND GUAY / AFP

5. She changes all the time

She may be well over 200 years old, but that doesn’t mean that Marianne doesn’t have regular makeovers.

It’s traditional for modern French presidents to choose a new Marianne image for the postage stamps for each of their mandates – as Macron was re-elected in 2022 that means the Marianne unveiled on Tuesday is the second of his presidency.

His first Marianne, also unveiled in Dordogne, was created by the French-British street artist Yseult Digan, more widely known as YZ (pronounced ‘Eyes’), who painted her work across the entire wall of a public-housing estate in Perigueux, southwest France.

French President Emmanuel Macron unveils the previous Marianne postage stamp design in 2018. Photo by Nicolas TUCAT / AFP

“I wanted this Marianne to be strong, proud and determined, with an unflinching look to the future,” the artist told the roughly 150 officials and guests at the work’s presentation in 2018.

Macron praised YZ’s “committed Marianne,” saying: “You were able to marry the reference to the phrygian bonnet with the freedom of her hair.”

She represented a sharp break from the more girlish and dewy-eyed version commissioned by ex-president Francois Hollande, her mouth slightly opened and hand raised over bared shoulders.

The latest new stamps will be available from November 13th. 

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ELECTIONS

Will Macron resign in case of a French election disaster?

The polling is not looking good for president Emmanuel Macron's party in the snap elections that he called just two weeks ago. So will he resign if it all goes wrong?

Will Macron resign in case of a French election disaster?

On Sunday, June 9th, the French president stunned Europe when he called snap parliamentary elections in France, in the wake of humiliating results for his centrist group in the European elections.

The French president has the power to dissolve parliament and call fresh elections – but this power is rarely used and in recent decades French parliaments have run on fixed terms. Very few people predicted Macron’s move.

But polling for the fresh elections (held over two rounds on June 30th and July 7th) is looking very bad for the president’s centrist Renaissance party – currently trailing third behind Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National and the combined leftist group Nouveau Front Populaire.

Listen to the team from The Local discussing all the election latest in the new episode of the Talking France podcast. Download here or listen on the link below

The election was a gamble for Macron – but if his gamble fails will he resign?

What does the law and the constitution say?

Legally, Macron does not need to resign. In France the presidential and the parliamentary elections are separate – Macron himself was re-elected in 2022 with a five-year mandate (until May 2027).

His party failing to gain a parliamentary majority does not change that – in fact the centrists failed to gain a overall majority in the 2022 parliamentary elections too (although they remained the largest party). Since then, the government has limped on, managing to pass some legislation by using constitutional powers.

The constitution also offers no compulsion or even a suggestion that the president should resign if he fails to form a government.

In fact the current constitution (France has had five) gives a significant amount of power to the president at the expense of parliament – the president has the power to dissolve parliament (as Macron has demonstrated), to set policy on areas including defence and diplomacy and to bypass parliament entirely and force through legislation (through the tool known as Article 49.3). 

In fact there are only three reasons in the constitution that a president would finish their term of office early; resigning, dying in office or being the subject of impeachment proceedings.

Since 1958, only one president has resigned – Charles de Gaulle quit in 1969 after the failure of a referendum that he had backed. He died 18 months later, at the age of 79.  

OK, but is he likely to resign?

He says not. In an open letter to the French people published over the weekend, Macron wrote: “You can trust me to act until May 2027 as your president, protector at every moment of our republic, our values, respectful of pluralism and your choices, at your service and that of the nation.”

He insisted that the coming vote was “neither a presidential election, nor a vote of confidence in the president of the republic” but a response to “a single question: who should govern France?”

So it looks likely that Macron will stay put.

And he wouldn’t be the first French president to continue in office despite his party having failed to win a parliamentary majority – presidents François Mitterand and Jacques Chirac both served part of their term in office in a ‘cohabitation‘ – the term for when the president is forced to appoint an opposition politician as prime minister.

But should he resign?

The choice to call the snap elections was Macron’s decision, it seems he took the decision after discussing it just a few close advisers and it surprised and/or infuriated even senior people in his own party.

If the poll leads to political chaos then, many will blame Macron personally and there will be many people calling for his resignation (although that’s hardly new – Macron démission has been a regular cry from political opponents over the last seven years as he enacted policies that they didn’t like).

Regardless of the morality of dealing with the fallout of your own errors, there is also the practicality – if current polling is to be believed, none of the parties are set to achieve an overall majority and the likely result with be an extremely protracted and messy stalemate with unstable governments, fragile coalitions and caretaker prime ministers. It might make sense to have some stability at the top, even if that figure is extremely personally unpopular.

He may leave the country immediately after the result of the second round, however. Washington is hosting a NATO summit on July 9th-11th and a French president would normally attend that as a representative of a key NATO member. 

You can follow all the latest election news HERE or sign up to receive by email our bi-weekly election breakdown

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