The coup d'état of 2 December 1851 was a self-coup staged by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte (later Napoleon III), at the time President of France under the Second Republic.

Code-named Operation Rubicon and timed to coincide with the anniversary of Napoleon I's coronation and victory at Austerlitz, the coup dissolved the National Assembly, granted dictatorial powers to the president and preceded the establishment of the Second French Empire a year later.

Contrary to the Party's expectations that Louis-Napoleon would be easy to manipulate (Adolphe Thiers had called him a "cretin whom we will lead [by the nose]"), he proved himself an agile and cunning politician.

He broke away from the control of the Party of Order and created the Ministère des Commis, appointing General Hautpoul as its head, in 1849.

He also actively encouraged the creation of numerous anti-parliament newspapers and acquired the support of 150 members of Parliament, the "Parti de l'Elysée".

The provisions of the constitution that prohibited an incumbent president from seeking re-election appeared to force the end of Louis-Napoleon's rule in December 1852.

On 19 July, it refused the constitutional reform proposed by Louis-Napoleon, also scrapping universal male suffrage in an effort to break popular support for Bonaparte.

Prepared to strike, Louis-Napoleon appointed General Saint-Arnaud as the Minister of War and a circular was issued reminding soldiers of their pledge of "passive obedience".

Reacting to this coup, parliamentarians took refuge in the mayor's office of the 20th arrondissement of Paris, and 220 of them voted to oust Louis-Napoleon from power.

According to Victor Hugo the killings on 4 December were arbitrary and anybody visible to the soldiers was shot at or bayoneted including women and children.

The department of Basses-Alpes even declared itself administered by a "Committee of Resistance" but the army, still loyal to the President, succeeded in quelling the rebellion.

Victor Hugo fled to Brussels, then Jersey, and finally settled with his family on the Channel Island of Guernsey at Hauteville House, where he would live in exile until Napoleon III’s downfall[2] in 1870 and collapse of the regime during the Franco-Prussian War.