It was very weird for me to watch the coronations of Charles and Camilla on French TV. There was the distance caused by the language and commentary. Also, it seemed like something from the past, which it is. But it seemed even more anachronistic.
Toss in that it is way more ostentatious than any of the other European monarchies, there are 12 of them, six of which are members of the EU (Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden). Things have changed quite a bit since at the start of the 20th century only France, Switzerland and San Marino were the only European nations to have a republican form of government.
Unfortunately for the people who want to say the US is a republic, not a democracy, the only real difference between those two systems of government are that democracy has the ability to be a monarchy. Euronews has an interesting article: Politics and popularity: Why are there still so many monarchies in Europe? It's not the only news source discussing European monarchies.
I'm not sure how I feel about monarchy these days. Although I do side with the comment that “There is no contradiction between a country being a monarchy and being an advanced democracy”. Also, “One of the roles for the royal family is to be a symbol for the nation as a whole and therefore the monarch as an institution has to strive to represent the whole of the nation.”
Monarchy unifies a nation as Clement Atlee said: “Far less danger under a constitutional monarchy of being carried away by a Hitler, a Mussolini or even a de Gaulle.” That's an interesting thought to ponder in light of US politics.
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