Will the storming of the US Capitol be seen by historians like the storming of the Bastille?

Few realised at the time that the Bastille riot would change France irrevocably. It’s time to consider whether the US, too, will be forever changed by what happened on 6 January, writes Phil Thomas

Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as they storm the US Capitol (AFP/Getty)

As France, and Francophiles around the world, mark Bastille Day this week, it’s a good opportunity to remember one of the great quotes about the French Revolution – one which may have ominous undertones for our own times.

On Richard Nixon’s trip to China to cement detente between Washington and Beijing in 1972, his host was Zhou Enlai, Mao’s right-hand man. A veteran of the bitter Chinese civil war, he had shared the hardships of the Long March and been at the heart of the seismic political upheavals that had torn his country apart, from the Great Leap Forward to the Cultural Revolution. Zhou was also an intellectual known for his interest in revolutionary history.

Asked over dinner what he thought the main consequences of the French Revolution had been, Zhou is said to have paused, peered into the distance, and finally replied: “It’s too soon to say.”