[martindelemotte]

It's interesting to note that since the revolution the French legislators have had an universalist view of things. The goal was to spread the enlightenment ideas to the world (who said the French weren't pretentious).

Of course in practice things haven't always followed the theory. For example in French colonies, although indigenous people were supposed to enjoy the same protections than the French colonists, it didn't happen that way. The excuse was that they needed to be put "up to speed" first.