The unplanned February 1848 insurgency gave rise to a Republic. But what exactly is meant by the word? Looking to soap discussions, this issue is the subject of public debates, demonstrations and clashes, especially in the streets of Paris. There are two opposing views on the part of the Republic. On the one hand, the moderate Republic, supported by the majority of the Provisional Government and then of the National Assembly, according to which the Republic boils down in elections by ‘universal’ suffrage (women remain excluded). On the other hand, the Democratic and Social Republic, which joins members of clubs, workers and ordinary citizens, for whom the Republic only makes sense if it allows the people to participate directly in public affairs, to retain control over their representatives and to ensure the emancipation of workers. The failure of the June insurgency allows the triumph of the moderate Republic and of the institutions of the representative government, but the Democratic and Social Republic continues, as a revolutionary horizon, as part of the newly-born labour movement, by returning to the discourse and controversy about the meaning of citizenship and representation, this dipped in spring 1848 points to the possibility of an emancipating Republic, who is not adversed but whose revolutionary power is still present. [Editor summary]