‘The people, too, can be consumers’: debating French consumer citizenship in the ‘Age of Revolution’ (c. 1830–c. 1848)

ABSTRACT This paper presents an investigation into parliamentary debates on consumer citizenship in early nineteenth-century France. This contribution aims to chart the competing political visions that emerged during the Age of Revolution negotiating the coming-of-age of (urban) France as a consumerist society with notions of citizenship, the common good and patriotic sentiments. By looking at two distinct moments of regime change i.e. 1830 and 1848, this paper features a comparison of how MPs and political elites perceived consumer behaviour, its social, economic and cultural effects and its desirability in different political constellations ranging from monarchical to republican. By consulting digital newspaper archives and critically using search terms on this large body of text, a historical discourse analysis of parliamentary speeches on how to align citizenship and consumption was effected that carefully reconstructs the ideological rifts and social dynamics characterizing the political life of the era.