Who was the ruler of France during the Franco Prussian War?

Napoleon III, a nephew of Napoleon 1, was the first President of France from 1848 to 1852 and the Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870, and on July 19, 1870, he declared war on Prussia partly because his military advisers had persuaded him that the French army could defeat Prussia and that such a victory would restore his declining popularity in France.

The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War was a conflict between the Second French Empire (later the Third French Republic) and the North German Confederation led by the Kingdom of Prussia. Lasting from 19 July 1870 to 28 January 1871, the conflict was caused primarily by France's determination to restore its dominant position in continental Europe, which it had lost following Prussia's crushing victory over Austria in 1866.

During his rule Napoleon III commissioned the grand reconstruction of Paris carried out by Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, accompanied by an elaborate system of parks and gardens. He expanded and consolidated the French railway system, as well as modernising the banking system. Napoleon III promoted the building of the Suez Canal and established modern agriculture, which ended famines in France and made the country an agricultural exporter. His social reforms included giving French workers the right to strike and the right to organize, and the admission of the first women to French universities.