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The Political Life of the Rank and File: French Aircraft Workers During the Popular Front, 1934–38

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Herrick Chapman
Herrick Chapman
Affiliation:
Carnegie-Mellon University
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Extract

Between 1934 and 1938, several million workers took part in the elections, strikes, and protests that made the popular front a pivotal moment in the recent history of France. Giant street demonstrations, the General Strike of November 1938, and above all the massive sit-down strikes of June 1936 made most workers at least momentary actors in the drama of national political life. Yet, for all that has been written about these events, little is known about how labor conflict during the popular front actually affected workers' views. The problem has been in large part one of sources: the speeches, newspapers, leaflets, and memoirs of the period reveal more about trade union leaders and local militants than about the ordinary men and women who made popular protest possible but whose opinions rarely found their way into print. As a result, a number of questions remain largely unanswered: How much of the ethos of the popular front, and how much of the ideology of the Socialist and Communist parties, did rank-and-file workers come to embrace? Which slogans spoke most poignantly to lathe operators at Renault, textile workers in Lille, or sales clerks at the Galeries Lafayette? Were the euphoria of June 1936 and the crushing defeat of the General Strike in November 1938 as important in the lives of these people as they were for labor leaders? How popular, in short, was the political experience of the popular front?

Type
The Popular Front
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 30 , Fall 1986 , pp. 13 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 1986

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References

NOTES

This essay is a revised and expanded version of a paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Society for French Historical Studies, Charlottesville, Virginia, April 6–7, 1984. I wish to thank Michael Seidman and David Montgomery for their comments on the original paper, and Liz Cohen, Lynn Hunt, Carl Landauer, William Reddy, and my colleagues in the social history reading group at Stanford University for their helpful criticisms of a subsequent draft. I also wish to acknowledge the Social Science Research Council and the Hays-Fulbright Doctoral Fellowship Program which provided funds for my research.

1. For a description of the march see Depretto, Jean-Paul and Schweitzer, Sylvie V., Le Communisme à l'Usine: Vie ouvrière et mouvement ouvrier chez Renault 1920–1939 (Paris, 1984), 186.Google Scholar

2. For interpretations that stress the role militants played in labor protest during the Popular Front, see Badie, Bernard, “Les Grèves du front populaire aux usines Renault,” Le Mouvement social 81 (10–12 1972)Google Scholar; Hainsworth, Raymond, “Les Grèves du front populaire de mai et juin 1936: Une nouvelle analyse fondée sur l'étude de ces grèves dans le bassin houiller du Nord et du Pas-de-Calais,” Le Mouvement social 96 (07–09 1976)Google Scholar; Depretto and Schweitzer, Le Communisme. For interpretations which stress the indigenous sources of working-class radicalism and the conservative role of the PCF, see Simone Weill, “La Vie ouvrière et la grève des ouvrières métallos,” La Révolution prolétarienne (1936); Guerin, Daniel, Front populaire, révolution manquée (Paris, 1970)Google Scholar; Danos, Jacques and Gibelin, Marcel, Juin 36 (2 volumes, Paris, 1972)Google Scholar; Mitzman, Arthur, “The French Working Class and the Blum Government (1936–1937),” in Contemporary France: Illusion, Conflict and Regeneration, ed. by Cairns, John C. (New York, 1978)Google Scholar; and Seidman, Michael, “The Birth of the Weekend and the Revolts Against Work: The Workers of the Paris Region during the Popular Front (1936–1938),” French Historical Studies 12 (Fall 1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Several historians have viewed the strikes of June 1936 as largely spontaneous but have not viewed workers as particularly radical in their aspirations or in their rejection of industrial discipline. See Lefranc, Georges, Histoire du front populaire (Paris, 1965)Google Scholar and Juin 36: “L'explosion sociale” (Paris, 1966)Google Scholar; Prost, Antoine, “Les Grèves de juin 1936: essai d'interpretation,” in Léon Blum, chef du governement 1936–1937 (Paris, 1967)Google Scholar; and Prouteau, Henri, Les Occupations d'usines en Italie et en France, 1920–1936 (Paris, 1938).Google Scholar

3. On British aircraft unions, see Claydon, T.J., “The Development of Trade Unionism Among British Automobile and Aircraft Workers, c. 1914–1946,” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Kent at Canterbury, 1981).Google Scholar

4. Ministère du Travail, Statistique des grèves.

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6. Interview with Maurice Le Mistre, former chef-d'atelier, Aérospatiale, Bourges, , 29 02 1980.Google Scholar On paternalism in the industry, see also Mazer, Paul, “Le Personnel ouvrier et mécanicien,” in Quinze ans de l'aéronautique, 1932 à 1947 (Union Syndicale des Industries Aéronautiques, 1949), 464Google Scholar; Duporq, Jean, Les Oeuvres sociales dans la métallurgie française (Paris, 1936)Google Scholar; Petit, Edmond, La Vie quotidienne dans l'aviation en France au début de XXe siècle (1900–1935) (Paris, 1977), 172–74.Google Scholar

7. As quoted in a police report on aircraft militants in Toulouse. Commissaire Divisionnaire au Prefet, 9 Aug 1934, Dossier Latécoère, 1934. Archives Départementales de la Haute-Garonne 1896/215.

8. Interview with Joseph Roos, former state engineer and Director of the Comité d'Organisation in the aircraft industry (1940–44), 23 June 1980.

9. For police reports on metalworking unions before 1936 in the major centers of aircraft production, see Archives Nationales (AN) F7 13784, 13785, 13786; for Paris, Archives de la Préfecture de Police (APP) 315, 419, 420; for Bourges, Archives Départementales du Cher (ADC) 33 M 117; for Marseille, Archives Départementales des Bouches-du-Rhône (ADBR) 14 M 24, 25; for Toulouse, Archives Départementales de la Haute-Garonne (ADHG) 1896/215, 216, 217; for Bordeaux, Archives Départementales de la Gironde (ADG) 1 M 612–15; for Nantes and Saint-Nazaires, Archives Départementales de la Loire-Atlantique (ADLA) 1 M 2384. For a discussion of metalworking unions at the national level during the 1930s, see Dufraisse, R., “Rapport entre organisations ouvrières et organisations patronales de la métallurgie française devant la dépression économique (1929–1939),” in Mouvements ouvriers et dépressions économiques de 1929 à 1939 (Assen, 1966), 189–219.Google Scholar

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13. Commissaire Divisionnaire de Police spéciale au Préfet, 8 Aug. 1934, Dossier Latécoère, 1934. ADHG 1896/215.

14. Assouline, Pierre, Monsieur Dassault (Paris, 1983), 81.Google Scholar

15. Procès-verbaux, , Chambre Syndicale des Industries Aéronautiques, 7 06 1935, AN 91 AQ 56.Google Scholar

16. Mars, P., Les Perceurs du ciel, préface de Paul Vaillant-Couturier (Paris, 1935), chap. 10.Google Scholar

17. Assouline, Dassault, 84.

18. For material on the Bréguet strike, see the police reports to the préfet of Seine-Inférieure, Archives Départementales Seine-Inférieure (ADSI) 10 M 382. My thanks to John Barzman for bringing this dossier to my attention. See also the deposition of Marius Olive to the Cour Suprême de Justice, in the archives of the Procès de Riom, AN APR WII 66/66.

19. For a full discussion of the sit-down strikes in the aircraft industry, see Chapman, “Reshaping French Industrial Politics,” chap. 5.

20. Cot, Pierre, L'Armée de l'Air, 1936–1938 (Paris, 1938), 185–86.Google Scholar

21. Jourdain, Comprendre pour accomplir, 24.

22. Report from the prefect of the Haute-Garonne to the Ministers of the Interior, Labor and Air, 27 May 1936, Dewoitine dossier, ADHG 1896/216.

23. Leaflet by the Syndicat Ouvrier de la Métallurgie de Bourges (Section de l'Aéroport), ADC 33 M 117.

24. For ministerial correspondence on the Duralumin strike, see AN F22 229. On the strike itself, see L'Union des Métaux, July 1935.

25. Note from the prefect of the Haute-Garonne, to the Air Minister, 12 1934, Dewoitine dossier, ADHG 1896/215.Google Scholar

26. Weill, “La Vie ouvrière,” 150.

27. Marius Olive, deposition.

28. For descriptions of the union's activities and programs, see the monthly newspaper of the Fédération des Métaux, L'Union des Métaux. See also Depretto and Schweitzer, Le Communisme, 223–25.

29. Fédération des Métaux, “Des avions pour la France! Les faiblesses de la production aéronautique française! Les Remèdes permettant de les surmonter!” (1938).

30. Assouline, Dassault, 113–16.

31. Fédération des Métaux, “Des avions pour la France!”

32. Published in L'Union des Métaux, July–August 1938.

33. See the letters of the Amicales Socialistes in aviation published in Le Populaire Girondin, a Socialist paper in Bordeaux. ADG 1 M 614. On the efforts of the SFIO to create Amicales Socialistes, the Socialist counterpart to the Communist cell, see Baker, Donald N., “The Socialists and the Workers of Paris: The Amicales Socialistes, 1936–40,” International Review of Social History 24 (1979): 1–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rioux, Jean-Pierre, “Les Socialistes dans l'entreprise au temps du Front populaire: quelques remarques sur les Amicales Socialistes (1936–1939),” Le Mouvement social 106 (01–03 1979): 3–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34. Report from the Commissariat Spéciale, Toulouse, 13 Dec. 1937. ADHG 1896/217.

35. On the response of aircraft workers to the Spanish Civil War see Les Ailes Syndicalistes, August 1936; Association de Recherches et d'Etudes du Mouvement Ouvrier de la région de Saint-Nazaire, Saint-Nazaire et le mouvement ouvrier de 1920 à 1939 (Saint-Nazaire, 1983), 270Google Scholar; Jourdain, Comprendre pour accomplir, 25; Assouline, Dassault, p. 94; Schweitzer, Sylvie, “Les Ouvriers des usines Renault de Billancourt et la guerre civile espagnole,” Le Mouvement social 103 (04–06 1978): 112.Google Scholar

36. For a summary of the motives behind nationalization, see Stéphane Thouvenot's report to the Cour Suprême de Justice, 19 Oct. 1940, presented to the Cour d'Appel de Rabat, Service Historique de l'Armée de I'Air Z 11606.

37. On nationalizing the aircraft companies see Général Hederer, “Pierre Cot et la nationalisation de la construction aéronautique (1936–1937),” in Hommage à Pierre Cot (1979); Hederer's deposition to the Cour Suprême de Justice, 23 Oct. 1940, Daladier Papers 4 DA 15 Dr 2 no. 152; Fédération des Techniciens, Dessinateurs et Assimilés de l'Industrie et des Arts Appliqués, Les Nationalisations: Aviation, Armament (Paris, 1937)Google Scholar; Clarke, Jeffrey J., “The Nationalization of War Industries in France, 1936–1937: A Case Study,” Journal of Modem History 49 (09 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Fridenson, Patrick and Lecuir, Jean, France et la Grande-Brétagne face aux problèmes aériens (1935-mai 1940) (Vincennes, 1976), 36–41.Google Scholar

38. See the police reports in ADHG 1896/216.

39. ADHG 1896/217. On the conflict over reabsorbing SNCAM into SNCASE, see also La Depêche du Midi, 18 Nov 1937.

40. Marius Olive, deposition.

41. Cot, Pierre, Triumph of Treason, translated by Sybille, and Crane, Milton (New York, 1944), 328.Google Scholar

42. Jacomet's, testimony to the Sous-Commission du contrôle des Dépenses engagées pour la Dé fense Nationale, Sénat, 17 06 1938Google Scholar, Service Historique de l'Armée de l'Air 3 D 493.

43. Boutiron, Deposition to the Cour Suprême de Justice, AN Archives du Procès de Riom.

44. See a series of memoranda on this conflict in ADLA 1 M 2338.

45. On the General Strike of 1938 see Bourdé, Guy, La Défaite du front populaire (Paris, 1977), 172–92Google Scholar; on worker participation in the strike by industry, 193–212. See also Ehrmann, Henry, French Labor from Popular Front to Liberation (New York, 1947), 113–25Google Scholar; Lorwin, Val R., The French Labor Movement (Cambridge, 1954), 82–84.Google Scholar

46. Bourdé, La Défaite, 213–32.

47. On the post-strike repression in the aircraft industry, see Chapman, “Reshaping French Industrial Politics,” 335–44.

48. Seidman, Michael, “The Birth of the Weekend and the Revolts Against Work: The Workers of the Paris Region during the Popular Front (1936–1938),” French Historical Studies 12 (Fall 1981): 249–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49. For work on cultural diversity within working-class communities and work settings, see, for example, Lequin, Yves, Les Ouvriers de la région lyonnaise (1848–1914) (2 volumes, Lyon, 1977)Google Scholar; Bodnar, John, Simon, Roger and Weber, Michael P., Lives of Their Own: Blacks, Italians, and Poles in Pittsburgh, 1900–1960 (Urbana, 1982)Google Scholar; and Sabel, Charles F., Work and Politics: The Division of Labor in Industry (New York, 1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50. Kriegel, Annie, "The French Communist Party and the Problem of Power (1920–1939), in Contemporary France: Illusion, Conflict and Regeneration, ed. Cairns, John C. (New York, 1978)Google Scholar; The French Communists: Profile of a People (Chicago, 1972), 136–70.Google Scholar

51. Jourdain, Comprendre pour accomplir, 23; see also Assouline, Dassault, 95.