The Commune was proclaimed on 28 March 1871 at the Hôtel de Ville. On 29 March, the newly elected representatives set to work.

The municipal government was made up of ten committees: finance, justice, general security, labour and trade, food supplies, external relations, public services and the permanent executive committee.

The committees oversee the main government departments. They worked with numerous organisations, including the Women's Union for the Defence of Paris and Care of the Wounded, the Committee of the Twenty Arrondissements, clubs, the International Workers' Association, trade unions and associations.

This collaboration established a genuine democracy that allowed the people to become involved in the exercise of power. It was a direct citizens' democracy, in which elected representatives could be dismissed at any time, and in which the people never relinquished their sovereignty.

The Commune ensured that justice was accessible to all. Judicial acts became free of charge. Police custody was limited to 24 hours. Prisons were visited.

The Commune worked with the federation of artists to reopen libraries and museums, and with the artistic federation it organised popular concerts to benefit the wounded, widows and orphans of the National Guard.

It was in the difficult conditions of a civil war, with Paris being bombarded by the Versaillais, that the members of the Commune carried out their duties as elected representatives: carrying out their duties in the town halls, taking important measures that the Versaillais had not given them time to put in place. These measures continue to challenge us because of their modernity.