A year after his coup d’état, on December 2, 1852, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was proclaimed Emperor of the French under the name of Napoleon III. It governs in an authoritarian manner with a very ubiquitous police force that controls the press, meetings and opponents. This is how many republicans are either arrested, imprisoned or exiled abroad, such as, for example, Victor Hugo.
After 1859, in order to gain more popularity, Napoleon III relaxed his regime for a liberal empire. In 1864, the right to strike was granted to workers. Secular (non-religious) primary schools are expanding. Members of Parliament are given the power to propose legislation.
From 1852, the industrial revolution accelerated: the countryside was depopulated and cities doubled their population. Large banks, such as Société Générale (1864) or Crédit Lyonnais (1863) were created and opened to public savings, making it possible to finance major projects. Roads and railway networks were built from Paris throughout the France.
In 1870, in order to reunify the German states with Prussia, Chancellor Bismarck, minister of King William 1st of Prussia, circulated false news in the Ems Dispatch, hoping for a war against France. Napoleon III allowed himself to be influenced by the supporters of the war and on September 1, 1870, he declared war on Prussia.
The French army is defeated at Sedan; Napoleon III was taken prisoner, this failure leading to the formation of the Second Reich. In Paris, on September 4, 1870, the deputy Léon Gambetta proclaimed the Republic, while the Prussians and their allies occupied the north of the France. Succeeding the Empire, the government of National Defence wished to continue the war against Prussia. General Louis-Jules Trochu le (1815 – 1896), Governor of Paris, resigned on January 22, but he made a statement in which he actually advocated the capitulation of the France.
The elections of February 17, 1871, favorable to the monarchists, elect Adolphe Thiers, refugee in Bordeaux, head of the executive power, while the King of Prussia proclaims the German Empire in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles. The government of Thiers, installed in Versailles, decided to besiege Paris and recover weapons and cannons stored in Montmartre and Belleville. The Parisians are furious because they themselves paid for these 227 cannons. The Germans still occupy Paris. Fearing a new return of the monarchy, the “communard” workers rose up on March 18, 1871 against the Versailles soldiers of the Thiers government: it was the beginning of the “Paris Commune“, an insurrection that lasted 2 months, until the bloody week of May 21 to 28, 1871, when Versailles soldiers crushed the Communards after an atrocious and terrible violence without precedent.
On 10 May 1871, Thiers signed with Bismarck the Treaty of Frankfurt, providing for the capitulation of Paris, which had been besieged by the Germans for several months. The France loses Alsace and Lorraine and owes compensation of 5 billion gold francs.