FRANCE'S GREAT FRAMERS : HISTORY PRECIS

TO a student of history growing up in the world, France's outsized role on the world stage often felt like an historical enigma.

Its permanent seat on the UN Security Council seemed a relic of post war politics, not modern reality.

The statue of Liberty raised another paradox : how could America's most potent symbol of identity be a foreign gift? With time, many learnt that the answer to both questions is the same.

France's enduring power is not just political; it is philosophical. Its authority comes not from the size of its empire or economy, but from its role as the crucible of modern republicanism and universal human rights.

Thinkers like Montesquieu and Rousseau did not just write for France; they wrote for the world.

The Statue of Liberty is not merely a gift ; it is America's acknowledgement of this intellectual debt.

It is this legacy of moral and philosophical leadership that gives France the unique standing to act, as it recently has in championing a renewed path for Palestinian statehood.

The World Students Society thanks Farrukh Khan Pitafi.