There is a vital French tradition of political and social action in the name of the people and popular sovereignty, and French leaders and citizens have continually invoked popular sovereignty to claim political legitimacy and make demands for different political and social ends. At times the concept has been used to support a liberal ideal of the nation, at other times it has buttressed far-right claims to the nation. This chapter considers the concept of popular sovereignty within French politics and society at key historical moments – the Revolution, the brief second Republic, the Paris Commune, the interwar internal battles of the Third Republic, to populist street protests of the twenty-first century that do not adhere to a strict spectrum of left or right. The chapter does not simply track the historical existence of claims to popular sovereignty, but shows its uses across the political spectrum, the impact of couching political and social claims in the language of popular sovereignty and the demands of the people, and the malleability of that concept across centuries of a national politics and society.