 This discontent can be traced to the first worker uprisings, the Canut revolts, in Lyon and Paris in the 1830s (a "canut" was a Lyonnais silk worker, often working on Jacquard looms).Many Parisians, especially workers and the lower-middle classes, supported a democratic republic.A specific demand was that Paris should be self-governing with its own elected council, something enjoyed by smaller French towns but denied to Paris by a national government wary of the capital's unruly populace.