The French were fighting because they were starving...or at least that was the pretext

Yep. The pretext was a little thin, but people bought it. What was actually happening was an insurrection to bring down the authority of the monarchy and the Church in one fell swoop. It was pressed for in secret boys clubs like the Illuminati and the Freemasons all over Europe and is documented extensively by several contemporary texts such as "Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism" by Augustin Barruel, a French exile living in England at the time and close cohort of the famous Edmund Burke, founder of modern conservatism.

Same shit happened to the Tsar in Russia to kick of the Bolshevik takeover.