First of all, the executive government (the President of the Republic and the ministers) of the Third Republic had left Paris over the 1870-1871 winter due to the siege. The legislative branch (National Assembly) had initially taken shelter in Bordeaux, but decided to return, however to Versailles rather than Paris. This aborted return increased the reciprocal suspicion between the citizens of Paris and the national political powers. Such suspicion had always existed, especially under the Ancient Regime (before 1789). The local Parliament of Paris and the nobles who headed it has been in permanent conflict with the King of France and his ministers, and the mob of Paris often supported the Paris Parliament and its fight against the King's troops. Dauphin Charles in the XIVth century, King Henri III in the XVIth century, and even child Louis XIV had to leave Paris under the pressure of the masses.
Over that same winter in Paris, shortly after the proclamation of the Third Republic on 4 September 1870, so-called comités de vigilance (vigilance committees) came into being in all of the 20 districts of Paris, working as kinds of provisional, unorganized administrations. Then, delegates appointed by these district committees formed a comité central (central committee). This central committee had a dual agenda: to fight against Prussia until a military victory was accomplished and to set up a Commune appointed by the people.
Meanwhile, there existed a so-called Garde nationale (National Guard), made up of individual citizens of Paris who were to defend just the city. In peacetime, the National Guard was maintained mostly for providing a stable source of income to unemployed citizens of Paris. On 3 March 1871, the members of the National Guard constituted a federation which was directed by its own central commitee. The central committee of the National Guard rapidly merged with the other central commitee appointed by the district committees as explained above.
On 10 March 1871, the National Assembly adopted hurtful measures against Paris, the most severe of them being the suppression of the national guards' pay. Most of the Paris workers therefore lost their only source of income. After the capitulation of Paris, the national guards had not laid down their arms. They had kept their rifles and more than 500 cannons, hiding them in Montmartre and Belleville (northern districts of Paris). When the chief of the government, Adolphe Thiers, came back to Paris on 15 March 1871, he ordered them to give back the cannons, which were considered by the national guards as their personal property. That demand was the starting point of the insurrection.