June Days Uprising
Painting of a barricade on Rue Soufflot (with the Panthéon behind), Paris, June 1848. By Horace Vernet.
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| Date | 23 June 1848 – 26 June 1848 |
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| Location | France |
| Participants | Urban Unemployed |
| Outcome | Uprising is a failure, however the provisional government puts forward a new constitution and elections are called in which Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte is elected. |
The June Days uprising (French: les journées de Juin) was an uprising staged by the workers of France from 23 June to 26 June 1848. It was in response to plans to close the National Workshops, created by the Second Republic in order to provide work and a source of income for the unemployed; however, only low pay, dead-end jobs were provided, which barely provided enough money to survive. The National Guard, led by General Louis Eugène Cavaignac, was called out to quell the protests. Things did not go peacefully and over 10,000 people were either killed or injured, while 4,000 insurgents were deported to Algeria. This marked the end of the hopes of a "Democratic and Social Republic" (République démocratique et sociale) and the victory of the liberals over the Radical Republicans.
During this time, France was in a period of internal turmoil and had gone through many revolutions, such as the 1830 Revolution and the 1848 Revolution. A provisional government, called the Second Republic, was declared after the abdication of Louis Philippe in February 1848. This was a democratic republic and immediately democratic reforms were being enacted, including universal male suffrage. To combat unemployment, the National Workshops were created which provided jobs and wages. These Workshops were a tremendous success attracting many unemployed persons, however, to fund these Workshops new taxes were applied to lands. This alienated land owners, among them peasants, from the provisional government as they did not like the idea of paying money so that the unemployed could have the "right to work". As a result, these land taxes were not adhered to, causing a financial problem for the Second Republic.
On 23 April the French people elected a mainly moderate and conservative constituent assembly; this angered radicals in Paris, who saw this as contrary to their vision. The radicals invaded the assembly, as they believed that their democratic republic was being eroded away. This action was quickly thwarted; however, it sparked fear in conservatives, who were becoming a parliamentary majority. Soon, the conservative majority closed down the National Workshops, which sparked three days of bloody unrest.
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