Like Fourier and most of his followers, Renaud regarded political forms as secondary to socio-economic organisation. Nevertheless, he welcomed the establishment of the Second Republic in 1848, seeing the republic as the political form most compatible with Fourierist principles. He did not play a prominent role in the political events of the revolutionary period of 1848-49, but he was a prominent publicist, promoting his doctrine of 'organic solidarity' in his journalism, books and speeches. The rise of Louis Bonaparte resulted in the imprisonment or exile of many of Renaud's fellow socialists. However, Renaud remained at liberty in France and even achieved distinction in his military career, perhaps because of his peripheral political involvement. He remained faithful to his reformist principles until the end, deploring both the revolutionary violence of the Paris Commune of 1871 and the violence with which the Communards were suppressed. Apparently he died at Epinal on 6 January 1874, though some sources say 1873.