While Napoléon may have had merits: in essence he was an army general whom commited a coup d'état, blew up the Republic to establish a brand new Empire, raged war against dozens of countries, occupied or even annexed these and replaced royal families with Bonapartes. A man who has enforced millions to conscript into obligatory military service and led them in hellish military campaigns with millions of deaths on battlefields in Europe, in deep Russia and the Orient as well at sea. A man whose policy inflicted a continental wide boycott with as result the Continent being in deep recession and crisis, with starving people, malnutrition, diseases and misery. A man who looted in occupied countries to fill France's museums, public buildings and spaces with stolen art.
Also that is Napoléon. So I would be careful with the claim that his legacy "demands respect".
