French Third Republic

The French Third Republic governed France from September 1870 to July 1940, the longest regime the country had known since 1789, born in defeat and destroyed by defeat. When Napoleon III surrendered at Sedan in the Franco-Prussian War, republicans proclaimed the republic at Paris, fought on, ceded Alsace and part of Lorraine, and crushed the Paris Commune of 1871. Monarchists filled the early assemblies but could not agree on a king, so the provisional republic endured and took permanent form in the constitutional laws of 1875, with a chamber of deputies, a senate and a president. Restoration hopes died in the 1880s as republican presidents, free secular schools and the tricolour rooted the regime. Jules Ferry built the school system and a second colonial empire across Indochina, Madagascar, Polynesia and West Africa, making France the second colonial power on earth. The Dreyfus affair and the separation of church and state in 1905 tested its nerves. In 1914 France supplied the main land army of the Entente and bled for four years to victory. The 1920s brought reparations and fragile alliances, the 1930s depression and polarisation. In May 1940 German armour broke through at Sedan, Paris fell, and on 10 July the National Assembly voted full powers to Philippe Petain at Vichy, closing seventy years of parliamentary republic.