But these are not 18th-century sans-culottes, run out of bread.

WSJ: Review & Outlook: London Is Burning

During the French Revolution, Parisian women had requested the right to wear trousers and working-class revolutionaries became known as "sans-culottes" for wearing trousers instead of the silk-knee breeches preferred by the bourgeoisie.

BBC: Paris women finally allowed to wear trousers

It is not for nothing that Leila Trabelsi has come to symbolize for the Tunisian protesters everything that Marie-Antoinette did for the sans-culottes, and that it is sympathy for her and her family that colors the lament from French allies of the regime.

FORBES: Ben Ali's Rhetorical Alchemy, or How the West was Duped

Our contemporary art scene here is reminiscent of pre-revolutionary France when the nobility indulged intensively in equestrian disciplines while the sans culottes rioted in Paris over the price escalations in bread.

FORBES: Magazine Article