Paris Commune in the context of Vendôme Column

Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or hierarchy, primarily targeting the state and capitalism. Anarchism advocates for the replacement of the state with stateless societies and voluntary free associations. A historically left-wing movement, anarchism is usually described as the libertarian wing of the socialist movement (libertarian socialism).

Although traces of anarchist ideas are found all throughout history, modern anarchism emerged from the Enlightenment. During the latter half of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century, the anarchist movement flourished in most parts of the world and had a significant role in workers' struggles for emancipation. Various anarchist schools of thought formed during this period. Anarchists have taken part in several revolutions, most notably in the Paris Commune, the Russian Civil War and the Spanish Civil War, whose conclusion marked the end of the classical era of anarchism. In the last decades of the 20th and into the 21st century, the anarchist movement has been resurgent once more, growing in popularity and influence within anti-capitalist, anti-war and anti-globalisation movements.

The French Republican calendar (French: calendrier républicain français), also commonly called the French Revolutionary calendar (calendrier révolutionnaire français), was a calendar created and implemented during the French Revolution and used by the French government for about 12 years from late 1793 to 1805, and for 18 days by the Paris Commune in 1871, meant to replace the Gregorian calendar. The calendar consisted of twelve 30-day months, each divided into three 10-day cycles similar to weeks, plus five or six intercalary days at the end to fill out the balance of a solar year. It was designed in part to remove all religious and royalist influences from the calendar, and it was part of a larger attempt at dechristianisation and decimalisation in France (which also included decimal time of day, decimalisation of currency, and metrication). It was used in government records in France and other areas under French rule, including Belgium, Luxembourg, and parts of the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Malta, and Italy.

The French Third Republic (French: Troisième République, sometimes written as La III République) was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War, until 10 July 1940, after the Fall of France during World War II led to the formation of the Vichy government. The French Third Republic was a parliamentary republic.

The early days of the French Third Republic were dominated by political disruption caused by the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, which the Third Republic continued to wage after the fall of Emperor Napoleon III in 1870. Social upheaval and the Paris Commune preceded the final defeat. The German Empire, proclaimed by the invaders in Palace of Versailles, annexed the French regions of Alsace (keeping the Territoire de Belfort) and Lorraine (the northeastern part, i.e. present-day department of Moselle). The early governments of the French Third Republic considered re-establishing the monarchy, but disagreement as to the nature of that monarchy and the rightful occupant of the throne could not be resolved. Consequently, the Third Republic, originally envisioned as a provisional government, instead became the permanent form of government of France.

The International Workingmen's Association (IWA), commonly known as the First International, was a political international which aimed to unite a variety of left-wing political groups and trade union organizations based on the working class and class struggle. It was founded on 28 September 1864 at a workers' meeting in St Martin's Hall, London, and its first congress was held in 1866 in Geneva.

The IWA's history was characterized by internal conflicts between different socialist and anarchist factions. The initial ideological struggle was between the communists or Marxists, centred around Karl Marx on the General Council, and the mutualists or followers of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. The communists successfully displaced the mutualists as the dominant ideological trend at the Brussels Congress in 1868. The rise of Mikhail Bakunin's collectivist anarchist faction in the late 1860s led to a more intense conflict over the role of the state and political action in achieving socialism. The organization reached its peak following the Paris Commune of 1871, which was celebrated and defended by the International in Marx's influential address, The Civil War in France. The bloody suppression of the Commune, however, led to a period of harsh government repression against the IWA.

Jacques Joseph Tissot (French: [ʒɑk ʒozɛf tiso]; 15 October 1836 – 8 August 1902), better known as James Tissot (UK: /ˈtɪsoʊ/ TISS-oh, US: /tiːˈsoʊ/ tee-SOH), was a French painter, illustrator, and caricaturist. He was born to a drapery merchant and a milliner and decided to pursue a career in art at a young age, coming to incorporate elements of realism, early Impressionism, and academic art into his work. He is best known for a variety of genre paintings of contemporary European high society produced during the peak of his career, which focused on the people and women's fashion of the Belle Époque and Victorian England, but he would also explore many medieval, biblical, and Japoniste subjects throughout his life. His career included work as a caricaturist for Vanity Fair under the pseudonym of Coïdé.

Tissot served in the Franco-Prussian War on the side of France and later the Paris Commune. In 1871 he moved to London, where he found further success as an artist and began a relationship with Irishwoman Kathleen Newton, who lived with him as a close companion and muse until her death in 1882. Tissot maintained close relations with the Impressionist movement for much of his life, including James Abbott Whistler and friend and protégé Edgar Degas. He was awarded the French Legion of Honor in 1894.

The project of a Third Restoration arose in the early 1870s to reestablish the monarchy in France. The project was conceived and prepared following the fall of the Second Empire in 1870, the Paris Commune, and the 1871 legislative elections, giving the National Assembly a royalist majority.

Henri d'Artois, Count of Chambord and grandson of King Charles X, was the leading candidate for the throne. His legitimacy became indisputable among the royalists after his cousin, Philippe, Count of Paris and leader of the Orléanists, agreed to recognize him as the sole claimant. Called "Henri V" by his supporters, the Count of Chambord prepared to enter Paris.

Émile Boutmy (13 April 1835 – 25 January 1906) was a French political scientist and sociologist who was a native of Paris.

He studied law in Paris, and from 1867 to 1870 gave lectures on the history and culture of civilizations as it pertained to architecture at the École Spéciale d'Architecture. Being shocked by the ignorance and disinterest in regards to political issues that he observed during the Paris Commune, he founded in 1872 the Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques with important industrialists and academics that included Hippolyte Taine, Ernest Renan, Albert Sorel and Pierre Paul Leroy-Beaulieu.

Feminism in France is the history of feminist thought and movements in France. Feminism in France can be roughly divided into three waves: First-wave feminism from the French Revolution through the Third Republic which was concerned chiefly with suffrage and civic rights for women. Significant contributions came from revolutionary movements of the French Revolution of 1848 and Paris Commune, culminating in 1944 when women gained the right to vote.

Second-wave feminism began in the 1940s as a reevaluation of women's role in society, reconciling the inferior treatment of women in society despite their ostensibly equal political status to men. Pioneered by theorists such as Simone de Beauvoir, second wave feminism was an important current within the social turmoil leading up to and following the May 1968 events in France. Political goals included the guarantee of increased bodily autonomy for women via increased access to abortion and birth control.

"The Civil War in France" (German: Der Bürgerkrieg in Frankreich) is a pamphlet written and first published in 1871 by Karl Marx as an official statement of the General Council of the First International on the Franco-Prussian War and on the character and significance of the struggle of the Communards in the Paris Commune.

The Haitian independence debt (French: Dette d'Indépendance Haïtienne) involves an 1825 agreement between Haiti and France that included France demanding an indemnity of 150 million francs in five annual payments of 30 million to be paid by Haiti in claims over property, not including Haitian slaves, that was lost through the Haitian Revolution in return for diplomatic recognition. Haiti was forced to take a loan for the first 30 million, and in 1838 France agreed to reduce the remaining debt to 60 million to be paid over 30 years, with the final payment paid in 1883. However, according to a 2022 The New York Times analysis, because of other loans taken to pay off this loan, the final payment to debtors was actually made in 1947. They approximated that 112 million francs was actually paid in indemnity, which is equivalent to $560 million in 2022 after adjusting for inflation.

Restoration France's demand of payments in exchange for recognizing Haiti's independence was delivered to the country by several French warships in 1825, twenty-one years after Haiti's declaration of independence in 1804. Despite several revolutions in France after that date (July Revolution, French Revolution of 1848, Paris Commune), successive governments, be they imperial, monarchist or republican, continued enforcing the debt and coercing Haiti to pay. Haiti had to take a loan in 1875 to pay back the final portion of the original loan, and the bank that benefited most from this was Crédit Industriel et Commercial. Even after the indemnity was paid, Haiti had to continue paying the other loans, and the government of the United States funded the acquisition of Haiti's treasury in 1911, and in 1922, the rest of Haiti's debt was moved to be paid to American investors.

The Tuileries Palace (French: palais des Tuileries, [palɛ de tɥilʁi]) was a palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the Seine, directly in the west-front of the Louvre Palace. It was the Parisian residence of most French monarchs, from Henri IV to Napoleon III, until it was burned by the Paris Commune in 1871 and demolished in 1883.

Construction began in 1564, originally to serve as a home for Queen Catherine de' Medici, and was gradually extended until it closed off the western end of the courtyard and displayed an immense façade of 266 metres. Since the destruction of the Tuileries, the courtyard has remained open to the west, and the site now overlooks the eastern end of the Tuileries Garden, forming an elevated terrace between the Place du Carrousel and the gardens proper.

The Place Vendôme (French: [plas vɑ̃dom]; lit. 'Vendôme Square'), originally the Place Louis-le-Grand ('Louis the Great Square'), and later the Place Internationale ('International Square'), is a public square in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, located to the north of the Tuileries Gardens and east of the Église de la Madeleine. It is the starting point of the Rue de la Paix. Its regular architecture by Jules Hardouin-Mansart and pedimented screens canted across the corners give the rectangular Place Vendôme the aspect of an octagon. The original Vendôme Column at the centre of the square was erected by Napoleon I to commemorate the Battle of Austerlitz; it was torn down on 16 May 1871, by decree of the Paris Commune, but subsequently re-erected and remains a prominent feature on the square today.

The Communards (French: [kɔmynaʁ]) were members and supporters of the short-lived 1871 Communes in France formed in the wake of the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War.

After the suppression of the Paris Commune by the French Army in May 1871, 43,000 Communards were taken prisoner, and 6,500 to 7,500 fled abroad. The number of Communard soldiers killed in combat or executed afterwards during the week has long been disputed—Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray put the number at 20,000, while estimates by more recent historians put the probable number between 10,000 and 15,000. 7,500 were jailed or deported under arrangements which continued until a general amnesty during the 1880s; this action by Adolphe Thiers forestalled the proto-communist movement in the French Third Republic (1871–1940).

In politics, a red flag is predominantly a symbol of left-wing ideologies, including socialism, communism, anarchism, and the labour movement. The originally empty or plain red flag has been associated with left-wing politics since the French Revolution (1789–1799). The red flag and red as a political colour are the oldest symbols of communism and socialism.

Socialists adopted the symbol during the Revolutions of 1848. It was first used as the flag of a new authority by the Lyon Commune and Paris Commune in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871). The flag of the Soviet Union, introduced during the Russian Revolution, as well as the flags of many subsequent communist states, were explicitly inspired by the plain red flag. Many socialist and socialist-adjacent political parties, including those of democratic socialists and social democrats, have adapted and adopted a red flag as their symbol. The plain red flag was an official symbol of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom until the late 1980s. It was the inspiration for the socialist songs "The Red Flag" and "Bandiera Rossa".