150th anniversary of the Commune de Paris

A packed programme of events is on the cards to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Commune de Paris.

Release time : 2021-04-22 13:17:56

source : Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau

In 2021, the French capital is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Commune de Paris, an unprecedented uprising on the part of Paris’s people. This historic and ground-breaking event took place in the capital over a period of a little over 2 months, from 18 March to 28 May 1871, in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War.

Following a four-month siege inflicted by Prussian troops, a severe famine and a rising cost of living, working-class Parisians, who had been bundled together in the eastern part of Paris after Haussmann’s urban renovation, were exhausted, and the new government in Versailles - pacifist, royalist and, in the eyes of the Communard rebels, collaborationist - was attempting to quell the growing discontent of the workers by force, by using its army. People in eastern Paris got organized and 30,000 of them took up arms in rebellion. From 18 March onwards, men and women - builders, stonecutters, woodworkers, shopkeepers - joined forces to protect the cannons of the National Guard, which had been installed during the war in Montmartre and Belleville, against attempts by 10,000 soldiers of the new government to remove them.

That was the beginning of the Commune, which would see the death of thousands of people from either side and the expression of revolutionary social ideals in the actions, words and writings of Louise Michel, Gustave Courbet, Jules Vallès, Charles Delescluze and many others.

The demolition of the Vendôme Column, considered a symbol of imperial despotism, the barricades on either side of the centre and east of the capital, and the semaine sanglante or ‘bloody week’ during which the Hôtel de Ville, the Paris Archives, the Préfecture de Police, the Palais de Justice and the Palais des Tuileries were set on fire were some of the noteworthy events marking the confrontation between the rebels and the supporters of the government of Adolphe Thiers. The killing of 147