This is France we’re talking about.
They never have had a history where the government liked the idea of armed citizens.
There was a survey reported on another thread about Mexico. Three-fourths of the respondents said they did not want guns for self-defense. Enlightenment only seems to come when the bullet meets the bone.
***They never have had a history where the government liked the idea of armed citizens.****
In the 1400s, Britain invaded with an army of Knights and free men, archers which slaughtered the French at Agincourt.
The French then raised their own companies of archers but there was a problem.
It seemed that when a French Serf became an archer he considered himself to no longer be a Serf but a Free Man. When the wars were over, he was not willing to become a Serf again.
Result? the French refused to raise companies of more archers.