Hi there. New to the board. I'm actually going to Paris in a few days, so this thread caught my attention.
My main question is: What would France do if they had a King? Every French King/Emperor has been an absolute monarch with minimal representation by the people. I can't see France accepting that in the XXI century. So all you'd be getting would be a French Monarch who was like the British Constitutional Royal, but without the tradition and stability this implies. Basically you'd have to rework the whole French state - it's more than just replacing President with King.
As for whether the French actually want one, I'm not French, but I can point out a few important points. Firstly: Demographics have changed over the years; France now has only 51% Catholics. Since the French monarch was often (especially in the pre-Napoleon times) very much a champion of Catholicism, this is a significant barrier.
This is also combined with several million non-French such as North Africans, Turks, Cambodians, etc, and what you have is people who would be less inclined to support a monarch.
Besides, let's face it, 139 years since the fall of Napoleon III is a long time, and even longer for the traditional monarchy. While I support existing monarchs, one has to ask whether the French would gain anything from the considerable changes it would mean. After all, the previous monarchs were hardly great and caused lasting change. One has to go back to Louis XIV to find a monarch who left substantial, long lived, positive changes. Napoleon, after all, lost more men than Louis and gained nothing from it.
So yeah, that's my 2 cents.
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