Editing Napoleon III (section)

==Social and economic policies==
===Social policy and reforms===
From the beginning of his reign, Napoleon III launched a series of social reforms aimed at improving the life of the working class. He began with small projects, such as opening up two clinics in Paris for sick and injured workers, a programme of legal assistance to those unable to afford it, as well as subsidies to companies that built low-cost housing for their workers. He outlawed the practice of employers taking possession of or making comments in the work document that every employee was required to carry; negative comments meant that workers were unable to get other jobs. In 1866, he encouraged the creation of a state insurance fund to help workers or peasants who became disabled and help their widows and families.{{Sfn|Séguin|1990|p=314}}

To help the working class, Napoleon III offered a prize to anyone who could develop an inexpensive substitute for butter; the prize was won by the French chemist [[Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès]], who in 1869 patented a product he named oleomargarine, later shortened simply to [[margarine]].{{Sfn|Séguin|1990|p=313}}

Napoleon III and his administration enacted significant [[censorship]] of the media, targeting [[political caricature]]s like those of [[Honoré Daumier]].<ref name=Daumier>Wechsler, Judith. “Daumier and Censorship, 1866–1872.” ''Yale French Studies'', no. 122, 2012, pp. 53–78. {{JSTOR|23646026}}. Accessed 4 June 2024.</ref>

====Rights to strike and organise (1864–1866)====
His most important social reform was the 1864 law that gave French workers the right to strike, which had been forbidden since 1810. In 1866, he added to this an "Edict of Tolerance" which gave factory workers the right to organise. He issued a decree regulating the treatment of apprentices and limited working hours on Sundays and holidays. He removed from the [[Napoleonic Code]] the infamous article 1781, which said that the declaration of the employer, even without proof, would be given more weight by the court than the word of the employee.{{Sfn|Séguin|1990|pp=314–317}}

====Education for girls and women, school reform (1861–1869)====
Napoleon III and the Empress Eugénie worked to give girls and women greater access to public education. In 1861, through the direct intervention of the Emperor and the Empress, [[Julie-Victoire Daubié]] became the first woman in France to receive the [[baccalauréat]] diploma.<ref>René Viviani, Henri Robert and Albert Meurgé ''Cinquante-ans de féminisme: 1870–1920'', Ligue française pour le droit des femmes, Paris, 1921</ref> In 1862, the first professional school for young women was opened, and [[Madeleine Brès]] became the first woman to enroll in the Faculty of Medicine at the [[University of Paris]].

In 1863, he made [[Victor Duruy]], the son of a factory worker and a respected historian, his new Minister of Public Education. Duruy accelerated the pace of the reforms, often coming into conflict with the Catholic Church, which wanted to keep control over education. Despite the opposition of the Church, Duruy opened schools for girls in each commune with more than five hundred residents, a total of eight hundred new schools.{{Sfn|Milza|2006|p=592}}

Between 1863 and 1869, Duruy created scholastic libraries for fifteen thousand schools and required that primary schools offer courses in history and geography. Secondary schools began to teach philosophy, which had been banned by the previous regime at the request of the Catholic Church. For the first time, public schools in France began to teach contemporary history, modern languages, art, gymnastics and music. The results of the school reforms were dramatic: in 1852, over 40 percent of army conscripts in France were unable to read or write, yet by 1869, the number had dropped to 25 percent. The rate of illiteracy among both girls and boys dropped to 32 percent.{{Sfn|Milza|2006|p=592}}

At the university level, Napoleon III founded new faculties in [[Marseille]], [[Douai]], [[Nancy, France|Nancy]], [[Clermont-Ferrand]] and [[Poitiers]] and founded a network of research institutes of higher studies in the sciences, history, and economics. These also were criticized by Catholic ecclesiastics. The Cardinal-Archbishop of Rouen, [[Henri-Marie-Gaston Boisnormand de Bonnechose|Monseigneur Bonnechose]], wrote, "True science is religious, while false science, on the other hand, is vain and prideful; being unable to explain God, it rebels against him."{{Sfn|Milza|2006|p=598}}

===Economic policy===

====Lower tariffs and the re-opening of French markets (1860)====
One of the centerpieces of the economic policy of Napoleon III was the lowering of tariffs and the opening of French markets to imported goods. He had been in Britain in 1846 when Prime Minister [[Robert Peel]] had lowered tariffs on imported grains, and he had seen the benefits to British consumers and the British economy. However, he faced bitter opposition from many French industrialists and farmers, who feared British competition. Convinced he was right, he sent his chief economic advisor, [[Michel Chevalier]], to London to begin discussions, and secretly negotiated a [[Cobden–Chevalier Treaty|new commercial agreement]] with Britain, calling for the gradual lowering of tariffs in both countries. He signed the treaty, without consulting with the Assembly, on 23 January 1860. Four hundred of the top industrialists in France came to Paris to protest, but he refused to yield. Industrial tariffs on such products as steel rails for railways were lowered first; tariffs on grains were not lowered until June 1861. Similar agreements were negotiated with the [[Netherlands]], [[Kingdom of Italy|Italy]], and France's other neighbors. France's industries were forced to modernize and become more efficient to compete with the British, as Napoleon III had intended. Commerce between the countries surged.{{Sfn|Séguin|1990|pp=241–243}}

====Economic expansion and social change====
By the 1860s, the huge state investment in railways, infrastructure and fiscal policies of Napoleon III had brought dramatic changes to the French economy and French society. French people travelled in greater numbers, more often and farther than they had ever travelled before. The opening of the first public school libraries by Napoleon III and the opening by [[Louis Hachette]] of the first bookstores in Napoleon's new train stations led to the wider circulation of books around France.{{Sfn|Séguin|1990|p=304}}

During the Empire, industrial production increased by 73 percent, growing twice as rapidly as that of the United Kingdom, though its total output remained lower. From 1850 to 1857, the French economy grew at a pace of five percent a year and exports grew by sixty percent between 1855 and 1869.{{Sfn|Séguin|1990|pp=306–307}}

French agricultural production increased by sixty percent, spurred by new farming techniques taught at the agricultural schools started in each [[Departments of France|Department]] by Napoleon III, and new markets opened by the railways. The threat of famine, which for centuries had haunted the French countryside, receded. The last recorded famine in France was in 1855.{{Sfn|Séguin|1990|pp=306–307}}

During the Empire, the migration of the rural population to the cities increased. The portion of the population active in agriculture dropped from 61 percent in 1851 to 54 percent in 1870.{{Sfn|Séguin|1990|p=309}}

The average salary of French workers grew by 45 percent during the Second Empire, but only kept up with price inflation. On the other hand, more French people than ever were able to save money; the number of bank accounts grew from 742,889 in 1852 to 2,079,141 in 1870.{{Sfn|Séguin|1990|p=309}}

====Growing opposition and liberal concessions (1860–1870)====
Despite the economic progress the country had made, domestic opposition to Napoleon III was slowly growing, particularly in the ''[[Corps législatif]]'' (Parliament). The liberal republicans on the left had always opposed him, believing he had usurped power and suppressed the Republic. The conservative Catholics were increasingly unhappy, because he had abandoned the Pope in his struggle to retain political control of the Papal States and had built up a public education system that was a rival to the Catholic system. Many businessmen, particularly in the metallurgical and textile industries, were unhappy, because he had reduced the tariffs on British products, putting the British products in direct competition with their own. The members of Parliament were particularly unhappy with him for dealing with them only when he needed money. When he had liberalized trade with England, he had not even consulted them.{{Sfn|Séguin|1990|pp=345–346}}

Napoleon's large-scale program of public works, and his expensive foreign policy, had created rapidly mounting government debts; the annual deficit was about 100&nbsp;million gold-francs, and the cumulative debt had reached nearly 1,000&nbsp;million gold-francs (1&nbsp;billion in US readings). The Emperor needed to restore the confidence of the business world and to involve the legislature and have them share responsibility.

{{Cleanup section|reason=Dates of 1861 reforms are either in the wrong order or incorrect. Unclear sourcing.|date=November 2021}}
On 24 December 1860, Napoleon III, against the opposition of his own ministers, issued a decree announcing that the legislature would have greater powers. The Senate and the Assembly could, for the first time, give a response to the Emperor's program, ministers were obliged to defend their programs before the Assembly, and the right of [[Deputy (France)|Deputies]] to amend the programs was enlarged. On 1 February 1861, further reforms were announced: Deputies could speak from the tribune, not just from their seats, and a stenographic record would be made and published of each session. Another even more important reform was announced on 31 December 1861: the budget of each ministry would be voted section by section, not in a block, and the government could no longer spend money by special decree when the legislature was not in session. He did retain the right to change the budget estimates section by section.

The Deputies quickly took advantage of their new rights; the Emperor's Italian policy was bitterly condemned in Parliament, and anti-government amendments by the pro-Catholic deputies were defeated by votes of 158 to 91 in the ''Corps législatif'' and 79 to 61 in the Senate.{{Sfn|Séguin|1990|pp=346–347}}

In the [[1863 French legislative election|legislative elections of 1863]], pro-government candidates received 5,308,000 votes, while the opposition received 1,954,000 votes, three times more than in the previous elections. The rural departments still voted for Napoleon III's candidates, but in Paris, 63 percent of the votes went to anti-government republican candidates, with similar numbers in all the large cities. The new Assembly contained a large opposition block ranging from Catholics outraged by the Papal policies to [[Legitimists]], [[Orléanist]]s, [[protectionism|protectionists]] and republicans, armed with new powers given to them by the Emperor himself.{{Sfn|Plessis|1988}}{{Page needed|date=March 2021}}{{Sfn|Milza|2006|pp=568–569}}

Despite the opposition in the legislature, Napoleon III's reforms remained popular in the rest of the country. A new [[1870 French constitutional referendum|plebiscite was held in 1870]], on this text: "The people approve the liberal reforms added to the Constitution since 1860 by the Emperor, with the agreement of the legislative bodies and ratified by the Senate on April 20, 1870." Napoleon III saw this as a referendum on his rule as Emperor: "By voting yes," he wrote, "you will chase away the threat of revolution; you will place the nation on a solid base of order and liberty, and you will make it easier to pass on the Crown to my son." When the votes were counted, Napoleon III had lost Paris and the other big cities but decisively won the rest of the country. The final vote was 7,336,434 votes yes, 1,560,709 votes no, and 1,900,000 abstentions. [[Léon Gambetta]], the leader of the republican opposition, wrote in despair, "We were crushed. The Emperor is more popular than ever."{{Sfn|Séguin|1990|p=370}}