The national ateliers (workshops) were instituted by the Provisional Government immediately after the February revolution of 1848. By this means the Government sought to discredit Louis Blanc’s ideas on “the organisation of labour” in the eyes of the workers and, at the same time, to utilise those employed in the national workshops, organised on military lines, against the revolutionary proletariat. Revolutionary ideas, however, continued to gain ground in the national workshops. The Government took steps to reduce the number of workers employed in them, to send a large number off to public works in the provinces and finally to liquidate the workshops. This precipitated a proletarian uprising in Paris in June 1848. After its suppression, the Cavaignac Government issued a decree on July 3, disbanding the national workshops.

For an assessment of the national workshops see Karl Marx, The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850.