The late 1870s was a time of rebirth for the international labour movement, after a decade marked by muffled social tensions. The drastic repression which followed the 1871 Paris Commune decimated the First International, and in many countries the economic depression and widespread hostility drastically reduced labour militancy. In France, the contrast was stark with the social buoyancy of the last years of Napoleon III's Second Empire: the Third Republic set up in 1871 was young and fragile, under the constant threat of monarchical restoration, and its leaders were anxious to silence any opposition which might jeopardise stability. However, as the regime gained strength and confidence following the Republicans’ victory at the 1876 legislative elections, anti-socialist repression was eased. In 1879 and 1880, amnesty measures allowed back into the country many of the former Communards previously exiled in Belgium, Britain, or Switzerland, or deported to New Caledonia. Their return reinvigorated socialist agitation, and labour forces and radical ideas soon gained momentum. While free from such intense political repression, Britain had also been affected by the decline of the First International in the late 1870s. Since 1848, the country had been the shelter of the revolutionary elite of most European countries affected by repression, starting with France. However, these refugees, busy as they were trying to settle old disputes, fighting for survival in dire poverty, or just focusing on events in their own countries and keeping a very low profile, usually stayed away from British politics. The native labour movement was largely separate from these refugee circles and the economic downturn of the 1870s affected trade union militancy. Nonetheless, a decidedly combative mood appeared in the late 1870s, and more advanced ideas were formulated in the radical clubs of London, both by native militants and exiles importing socialist theories from the Continent – a process known as the Socialist Revival. Anarchism was one of the most striking expressions of this newfound bellicosity, and it was in those years that the budding movement spread beyond the confidential exile circles of the Swiss-based anti-authoritarian International, gaining converts in most European countries and achieving a high degree of visibility and influence, without ever becoming a mass movement.