In truth, France’s last monarch – he ruled from 1848 to 1870 – isn’t so much in London as in Hampshire. As Prince Charles Bonaparte has said in the past: “London is only two hours from Paris, so nothing is easier than to come to pay respects to the Imperial family.” They don’t want their ancestor’s remains moved. Tellingly, it is lead by the emperor’s own descendants. It goes without saying that opposition to the 150 th anniversary “bring-them-home” campaign is manifold. France never has so much dissension that it cannot add a little more on top. One might have thought that, what with strikes against pension reform, inflation, rocketing energy prices, an invasive Vladimir Putin and defeat by the Irish at Lansdowne Road over the weekend, the French had enough on their plates without exhuming decades-old imperial controversies.īut no. Returning the bodies would, Dimitri Casali has said, “be an elegant gesture of reconciliation between England and France …. Marine Le Pen agrees, as do some historians. Most recently, as reported in the Telegraph, Roger Karoutchi, deputy speaker of the French senate, has spearheaded a new campaign to have what’s left of the emperor – nephew of better-known Bonaparte – plus the remains of his wife and son, repatriated to France. It is 150 years since Napoleon III died and was buried in England – and now the French want their last emperor back.
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