The Committee of Public Safety (French: Comit de salut public) formed the provisional government in France, led mainly by Maximilien Robespierre, during the Reign of Terror (17931794), a phase of the French Revolution. Supplementing the Committee of General Defence created after the execution of King Louis XVI in January 1793, the Committee of Public Safety was created in April 1793 by the National Convention and restructured in July 1793. It was charged with protecting the new republic against its foreign and domestic enemies, fighting the First Coalition and the Vende revolt. As a wartime measure, the committee was given broad supervisory and administrative powers over the armed forces, judiciary and legislature, as well as the executive bodies and ministers of the Convention.

As the committee raised the defense against the monarchist coalition of European nations and counter-revolutionary forces within France, it became more and more powerful. In December 1793, the Convention formally conferred executive power upon the committee. Between August 1793 and July 1794, the committee's power grew to dictatorial heights as it organised the Reign of Terror. Among the members, the radical Jacobin Maximilien Robespierre emerged as a leader. After the arrest and execution of the rival factions of Hbertists and Dantonists, sentiment in the Convention eventually turned against Robespierre, who was executed in July 1794. In the following Thermidorian Reaction, the committee's influence diminished and it was abolished in 1795.During the American War of Independence, American Patriots formed committees of safety. That was a recent major precedent of a Republican revolution, well-known to the French revolutionaries.

The French Revolution (French: Révolution française [ʁevɔlysjɔ̃ fʁɑ̃sɛːz]) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considered fundamental principles of liberal democracy, while phrases like liberté, égalité, fraternité reappeared in other revolts, such as the 1917 Russian Revolution, and inspired campaigns for the abolition of slavery and universal suffrage. The values and institutions it created dominate French politics to this day.Its causes are generally agreed to be a combination of social, political and economic factors, which the existing regime proved unable to manage. In May 1789, widespread social distress led to the convocation of the Estates General, which was converted into a National Assembly in June. Continuing unrest culminated in the Storming of the Bastille on 14 July, which led to a series of radical measures by the Assembly, including the abolition of feudalism, the imposition of state control over the Catholic Church in France, and extension of the right to vote.

The next three years were dominated by the struggle for political control, exacerbated by economic depression and Civil disorder. Opposition from external powers like Austria, Britain, and Prussia resulted in the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in April 1792. Disillusionment with Louis XVI led to the establishment of the French First Republic on 22 September 1792, followed by his execution in January 1793. In June, an uprising in Paris replaced the Girondins who dominated the National Assembly with the Committee of Public Safety, headed by Maximilien Robespierre.

This sparked the Reign of Terror, an attempt to eradicate alleged "counter-revolutionaries"; by the time it ended in July 1794, over 16,600 had been executed in Paris and the provinces. As well as its external enemies, the Republic faced internal opposition from both Royalists and Jacobins and in order to deal with these threats, the French Directory took power in November 1795. Despite a series of military victories, many won by Napoleon Bonaparte, political divisions and economic stagnation resulted in the Directory being replaced by the Consulate in November 1799. This is generally seen as marking the end of the Revolutionary period.