1871 French Constituent Assembly election (Vive la Commune!)

A constituent election was held in France on September 17, 1871 in order to choose the members of the Constituent Assembly, the body tasked with creating a constitution for France in the aftermath of the Communard Revolution of 1870. Held in the aftermath of the Treaty of Frankfurt and the following decentralization of France, which saw the rise of thousands of communes and the loss of power of the central government.

The election saw a major victory for the Republicans, Socialists and Jacobins, forces that had supported the rights of communes to self-government while marking a major defeat for conservatives that wanted a strong central government. The new Republican plurality began designing a concept for a new constitution with the occasional support of both socialists and conservatives. However, in the long-term, the Constituent Assembly failed at its task as the fundamental differences between the factions, coupled with the creation of the Congress of the Communes, led to the downfall of any meaningful constitutional project.