French Second Republic instance of republic regime in France
Revolution of 1848
The French Revolution of 1848, also known as the February Revolution, was the first of the Revolutions of 1848. The events of the revolution led to the end of the 1830-1848 Orleans Monarchy and led to the creation of the Second Republic.
The Revolution of 1830, part of a wave of similar regime changes across Europe, had put an end to the monarchy of the Bourbon Restoration and installed a more liberal constitutional monarchy under the Orleans dynasty and governed predominantly by Guizot's conservative-liberal centre-right and Thiers' progressive-liberal centre-left.
But to the left of the dynastic parties, the monarchy was criticised by Republicans (a mixture of Radicals and socialists) for being insufficiently democratic: its electoral system was based on a narrow, privileged electorate of property-owners and therefore excluded workers. During the 1840s several petitions requesting electoral reform (universal manhood suffrage) had been issued by the National Guard but had been rejected by both of the main dynastic parties. Political meetings dedicated to this issue were banned by the government, and electoral reformers' therefore bypassed the ban by holding a series of 'banquets' (1847–1848), events where the political debate was disguised as dinner speeches. This movement began overseen by Odilon Barrot's moderate centre-left liberal critics of Guizot's conservative government but took on a life of its own after 1846 when economic crisis encouraged ordinary workers to demand a say over the government.
On 14 February 1848 Guizot's government decided to put an end to the banquets, on the grounds of constituting illegal political assembly. On 22 February, striking workers and republican students took to the streets, demanding an end to Guizot's government, and erected barricades. Odilon Barrot called a motion of no confidence in Guizot, hoping that this might satisfy the rioters, but the Chamber of Deputies sided with the premier. The government called a state of emergency, thinking it could rely on the troops of the National Guard, but instead on the morning of 23 February the Guardsmen sided with the revolutionaries, protecting them from the regular soldiers who by now had been called in.
The industrial population of the faubourgs was welcomed by the National Guard on their way towards the centre of Paris. Barricades were raised after the shooting of protestors outside the Guizot manor by soldiers.On 23 February 1848 Premier François Guizot's cabinet resigned, abandoned by the petite bourgeoisie, on whose support they thought they could depend. The heads of the more left-leaning conservative-liberal monarchist parties, Louis-Mathieu Molé and Adolphe Thiers, declined to form a government. Odilon Barrot accepted, and Thomas Robert Bugeaud, commander-in-chief of the first military division, who had begun to attack the barricades, was recalled. In the face of the insurrection that had now taken possession of the whole capital, King Louis-Philippe abdicated in favour of his nine-year-old grandson, Prince Philippe, Count of Paris, but under pressure of insurgents who invaded the chamber of the Chamber of Deputies, leaders leaned in favour of the insurrection and prepared a provisional government; a (second) republic was then proclaimed by Alphonse de Lamartine.This provisional government, with Dupont de l'Eure as its president, consisted of Lamartine for foreign affairs, Crémieux for justice, Ledru-Rollin for the interior, Carnot for public instruction, Goudchaux for finance, Arago for the navy, and Burdeau for war. Garnier-Pagès was mayor of Paris.But, as in 1830, the republican-socialist party set up a rival government at the Hôtel de Ville (city hall), including Louis Blanc, Armand Marrast, Ferdinand Flocon, and Alexandre Martin, known as Albert L'Ouvrier ("Albert the Worker"), which bid fair to involve discord and civil war. But this time the Palais Bourbon was not victorious over the Hôtel de Ville. It had to consent to a fusion of the two bodies, in which, however, the predominating elements were the moderate republicans. It was uncertain what the policy of the new government would be.One party seeing that in spite of the changes in the last sixty years of all political institutions the position of the people had not been improved, demanded a reform of society itself, the abolition of the privileged position of property, which they viewed as the only obstacle to equality, and as an emblem hoisted the red flag (the 1791 red flag was, however, the symbol not merely of the French Revolution, but rather of martial law and of order). The other party wished to maintain society on the basis of its traditional institutions, and rallied round the tricolore. As a concession made by Lamartine to popular aspirations, and in exchange of the maintaining of the tricolour flag, he conceded the Republican triptych of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, written on the flag, on which a red rosette was also to be added.The first collision took place as to the form which the 1848 Revolution was to take. Lamartine wished for them to maintain their original principles, with the whole country as supreme, whereas the revolutionaries under Ledru-Rollin wished for the republic of Paris to hold a monopoly on political power. On 5 March the government, under the pressure of the Parisian clubs, decided in favour of an immediate reference to the people, and direct universal suffrage, and adjourned it until 26 April. This added the uneducated masses to the electorate and led to the election of the Constituent Assembly of 4 May 1848. The provisional government having resigned, the republican and anti-socialist majority on 9 May entrusted the supreme power to an Executive Commission consisting of five members: Arago, Pierre Marie de Saint-Georges, Garnier-Pagès, Lamartine and Ledru-Rollin.The result of the general election, the return of a constituent assembly, predominantly moderate, if not monarchical, dashed the hopes of those who had looked for the establishment, by a peaceful revolution, of their ideal socialist state; but they were not prepared to yield without a struggle, and in Paris itself they commanded a formidable force. In spite of the preponderance of the "tri-colour" party in the provisional government, so long as the voice of France had not spoken, the socialists, supported by the Parisian proletariat, had exercised an influence on policy disproportionate to their relative numbers. By the decree of 24 February, the provisional government had solemnly accepted the principle of the "right to work," and decided to establish "National Workshops" for the unemployed; at the same time, a sort of industrial parliament was established at the Luxembourg Palace, under the presidency of Louis Blanc, with the object of preparing a scheme for the organization of labour; and, lastly, by the decree of 8 March, the property qualification for enrolment in the National Guard had been abolished and the workmen were supplied with arms. The socialists thus formed a sort of state-within-a-state, complete with a government and an armed force.
type of example of manifestation of representation of