Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was adopted by the National Constituent Assembly of France in August 1789, in the early weeks of the French Revolution. Influenced by Enlightenment ideas and by the American Declaration of Independence, to which the Marquis de Lafayette contributed in discussion with Thomas Jefferson, it set out principles of liberty, equality before the law, the sovereignty of the nation and the right to resist oppression. It also declared that all citizens should be free to speak and write, and that nobody should be arrested without legal process. The king accepted it only under pressure, and it was later placed at the start of the constitution of 1791. The Declaration of the Rights of Woman, written by Olympe de Gouges in 1791, criticised its omission of women. The text still has constitutional force in France.

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