Second French Empire

The Second French Empire, officially the French Empire, was the government of France from 1852 to 1870. It was established on 2 December 1852 by Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, president of the Second Republic, who proclaimed himself Emperor of the French as Napoleon III. The period saw notable achievements in infrastructure and the economy, including a national railway network that helped build a common national identity and the extensive renovation of Paris, and France reasserted itself as a dominant power in Europe. Historians have judged its foreign policy a failure, and the empire came to an end in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War.