Question

Mention two economic causes for the French Revolution.

Answer 1

The two economic causes for the French revolution are as follows.

• The French government was facing a long-running fiscal crisis as the country had helped American colonies to gain independence. war added more than a billion livres to a debt that had already risen to more than 2 billion livres. The crisis were of such severity that on the eve of the Revolution in 1789, the French government was effectively bankrupt.

• The deregulation of the grain market, advocated by liberal economists, resulted in an increase in bread prices. In periods of bad harvests it would lead to food scarcity which would prompt the masses to revolt.