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The discontented Parisian population was ripe for an uprising, and on 22 February 1848 it duly came when troops fired on demonstrators. Louis Philippe abdicated and was replaced by a Second Republic. Nationwide elections returned a conservative government which opposed any reforms. The Parisian workers rose again only to be massacred by General Cavaignac, with some 5,000 people being killed in the fighting and subsequent reprisals. Fresh elections were held at the end of 1848.

France's political divisions were a major factor in its ill-preparedness for the outbreak of the Second World War on 3 September 1939. Some of the Catholic Right were openly hostile to parliamentary democracy, Socialism and Communism, and welcomed the possibility of a fascist regime, even imposed by foreign forces.

In the aftermath of the revolt, Charles V of France took steps to guard against a recurrence; a new city wall was constructed to guard against exterior enemies while the grim fortress of the Bastille was built to control the city's restless population. Another revolt, this time over excessive taxation, broke out in 1382 under Charles VI of France but was quickly and violently suppressed. The city was subsequently punished by having its earlier privileges withdrawn.

The original Latin name of Paris was Lutetia, known in French as Lutèce. The name was later changed into Paris, based on the name of the Gallic parisi tribe.

The area of modern Paris has been inhabited since at least the fourth millennium BC, although little is known about these early inhabitants. The first known permanent settlement on the site was founded about 250 BC by a Celtic tribe called the Parisii, who established a fishing village on the Seine island that was later to become the Ile de la Cité. This was known as Lutetia, a name first recorded by Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars.

It was under Napoleon's rule that Paris in its modern form was created. In 1853 he appointed Baron Haussmann as Prefect, charged with modernising the city. This Haussmann did to a drastic extent, demolishing much of the old city and replacing it with a network of wide, straight boulevards and radiating circuses.