1. Neighboring Drancy, which grew even faster, was controlled by the SFIO; Aubervilliers, also a working-class suburb, was dominated by Pierre Laval and the Radicals (Peru; Archer; Jean Jolly, Dictionnaire des parlementaires français , vol. 6 [Paris, 1970], pp. 2161-65).

2. Agulhon, "L'opinion politique," pp. 50-51; Phlipponneau, p. 401.

3. On the early years of the Third Republic and its fight for stability see Sanford Elwitt, The Making of the Third Republic (Baton Rouge, 1975); Adolphe Thiers, Notes et souvenirs, 1870-1873 (Paris, 1903); Daniel Halévy, La Fin des notables (Paris, 1930); Maurice Réclus, L'Avènement de la Troisième République, 1871-1875 (Paris, 1900).

4. Agulhon, "L'opinion politique"; Phlipponneau, p. 401; Conseil général de la Seine, p. 15.

5. On late nineteenth-century French party politics, see François Goguel, La Politique des partis sous la Troisième République (Paris, 1958), pp. 33-109; David Thomson, Democracy in France since 1870 (London, 1969); Emanuel Beau de Lomenie, Les Responsabilités des dynasties bourgeoises , 3 vols. (Paris,

1943-1954); Sanford Elwitt, The Third Republic Defended (Baton Rouge, 1986); Denis Brogan, The Development of Modern France, 1870-1939 , 2 vols. (Gloucester, Mass., 1970); Léon Jacques, Les Partis politiques sous la Troisième République (Paris, 1913); Robert de Jouvenel, La République des camarades (Paris, 1934); Peter Campbell, French Electoral Systems and Elections, 1789-1957 (New York, 1958).

6. See Agulhon, "L'opinion politique," p. 52; also Masson. On class and politics in the Third Republic, see Thomson, pp. 39-74.

7. Goguel, La Politique , pp. 110-50; Brogan, vol. 1, pp. 357-87. On the Dreyfus affair, see Douglas Johnson, France and the Dreyfus Affair (London, 1966); on late nineteenth-century French socialism, see Harvey Goldberg, The Life of Jean Jaurès (Madison, 1962); Claude Willard, Le Mouvement socialiste en France. Les Guesdistes (Paris, 1965); Georges LeFranc, Le Mouvement socialiste sous la Troisième République (Paris, 1963); Patrick Hutton, The Cult of the Revolutionary Tradition: The Blanquists in French Politics, 1864-1893 (Berkeley, 1981).

8. Ferret. The conservative Journal de Saint-Denis , which supported the municipal administration, attacked its more liberal opponents, charging that "the republic, for many of them . . . is a regime of bureaucrats, budget busters, wasters of finances, or of men thirsty for honors and for profits" ( Journal de Saint-Denis , 23 August 1903).

9. Paris-Est , 29 November 1902, p. 3. See other issues of Paris-Est : 6 September, p. 3, and 8 November 1902, p. 3; 18 April 1903, p. 3; also Agulhon. On radicalism in 1900, see Jean-Thomas Nordmann, Histoire des radicaux, 1820-1973 (Paris, 1974), pp. 115-45; Goldberg, pp. 235-92; Georges LeFranc, Les Gauches en France, 1789-1972 (Paris, 1973), pp. 158-68; Madeleine Rébérioux, La République radicale? 1898-1914 (Paris, 1975).

10. Paris-Est , 9 November 1901, p. 3.

11. Since problems in the allotments were just surfacing, the progressive Radicals did not address them then or develop any later expertise in dealing with them, judging from their propaganda. This failing was crucial, because allotments loomed large in Bobigny politics and because employés living in allotments should have been the Radicals' natural constituency. Paul Peysson was an employé d'administration; several of his followers were market gardeners ( Paris-Est , 23 April 1904, p. 3).

12. Paris-Est , 28 December 1901, p. 3. Some problems also arose from personality conflicts ( Paris-Est , 19 April 1902, p. 3; 30 May 1903, p. 3; 6 June 1903, p. 3).

13. Paris-Est , 12 April 1902, p. 3. Adrien Veber was a Republican Radical Socialist; in 1905 he took part in forming the SFIO, which expelled him in 1918 for his pro-war stance. In 1919 he ran against the Socialists for reelection to the legislature and was defeated (Jolly, vol. 8, pp. 3162-63).

14. Paris-Est , 17 May 1902, p. 3. See other comments in Paris-Est , 19 April 1902, p. 3; Journal de Saint-Denis , 27 April 1902, p. 3.

15. Paris-Est , 26 March 1904, p. 3; 7 May 1904, p. 2; Journal de Saint-Denis , 19 May 1904, p. 1; 14 August 1904, p. 4.

16. Paris-Est , 17 May 1902, p. 3; 30 May 1903, p. 3; 6 June 1903, p. 3; 26 March 1904, p. 3; 23 April 1904, p. 3. The members of the Republican Committee were its electoral candidates; most opposing candidates were market gardeners.

17. In March 1904, for example, Peysson wrote a long article in Paris-Est detailing how the growth would benefit groups in the community. It would increase the value of farmers' and market gardeners' land and reduce the amount of agricultural produce, thus lessening competition. More people would buy shopkeepers' wares; a larger city would be richer and could provide better services for workers. Some of Peysson's reasoning was tortuous, but for the leftist Radicals, growth and urbanization equaled progress, which was good for everyone ( Paris-Est , 19 March 1904, p. 3).

18. Journal de Saint-Denis , 16 August 1903, p. 3; 24 December 1903, p. 3.

19. Journal de Saint-Denis , 17 December 1903, p. 3; 30 August 1903, p. 3; 4 October 1903, p. 2. They labeled Peysson a follower of Marx and Jaurès, wanting to collectivize everything in sight, and an opportunist for allying with Veber and the socialists.

20. In the 1905 election for arrondissement council, and usually in elections for national office, the traditional Radicals backed Nationalist candidates ( Journal de Saint-Denis , 22 June 1905, p. 1; 29 June 1905, p. 1; Paris-Est , 1 July 1905, pp. 1, 3).

21. Paris-Est , 1 July 1905, p. 3.

22. Paris-Est , 18 January 1902, p. 1; 26 April 1902, p. 3. On relations between the Republican Left and the Socialists before 1905 see Goldberg, especially pp. 293-357; Nordmann, pp. 119-54; Willard.

23. In 1905, the Second Internationale's condemnation of Socialist participation in bourgeois governments led the new SFIO to withdraw its support from the governing Republican coalition (Goguel, La Politique , p. 122; Goldberg, pp. 322-57).

24. Paris-Est , 31 March 1906, p. 3; 7 April 1906, p. 3; 26 May 1906, p. 1; Agulhon, "L'opinion politique," p. 53.

25. Paris-Est , 20 October 1906, p. 3; 2 May 1908, p. 3; 4 April 1908, p. 3; 9 May 1908, p. 3; 14 May 1910, p. 1.

26. Paris-Est , 20 April 1912, p. 3; Nordmann, pp. 182-85.

27. Paris-Est , 30 December 1911, p. 4; 20 April 1912, p. 3; 4 May 1912, p. 3; Agulhon, "L'opinion politique," pp. 53-54.

28. Paris-Est , 8 May 1912, p. 3; Journal de Saint-Denis , 28 April 1912, p. 4. Montigny was elected mayor by the city council in December 1910, after Mayor Jacquelot resigned. I found little information about the Republican Socialist list, probably of remaining leftist Radicals; it opposed the city council on gas service for Bobigny.

29. Paris-Est , 25 May 1912, p. 3; see also Journal de Saint-Denis , 28 April 1912, p. 4.

30. On the Republican Left before 1914, see Jacques, pp. 223-66, 351-67; Nordmann, pp. 119-188; Rébérioux.

31. Journal de Saint-Denis , 10 April 1904, p. 1. On socialism in France before 1905 see, among others, Goldberg; Willard; Hutton; Moss; Hanagan;

Scott, Glassworkers ; Jolyon Howorth, Edouard Vaillant (Paris, 1982); Trempé; Alexandre Zevaes, Le Socialisme en France depuis 1871 (Paris, 1908).

32. Paris-Est , 1 July 1905, p. 1; Roger Price, A Social History of Nineteenth-Century France (London, 1987), pp. 255-57; Berlanstein, pp. 167-68; Henri Leyret, En plein faubourg (Paris, 1895). On politically conservative workers in the early twentieth century, see Robert Roberts, The Classic Slum (Manchester, 1971); Robert Tressell, The Ragged, Trousered Philanthropists (London, 1971).

33. Another example is city councillor Vernet, of working-class origin, who was elected as a traditional Radical but resigned in 1906 to join the SFIO ( Paris-Est , 2 June 1906, p. 3).

34. Peru; Bontemps and Jolinon; Berlanstein, Working People , pp. 156-68; Brunet, Saint-Denis , pp. 34-168; Price, Social History , pp. 257-58.

35. Journal de Saint-Denis , 10 May 1906, p. 2; Paris-Est , 12 May 1906, p. 1; 26 May 1906, p. 1; Jolly, p. 3162.

36. Nothing came of the meeting to create a People's University section. Paris-Est , 15 January 1910, p. 3; 29 January 1910, pp. 3, 4; Journal de Saint-Denis , 13 June 1912, p. 2. On the universités populaires see Goldberg, pp. 269-70.

37. Paris-Est , 28 May 1910, pp. 3, 4.

38. On the SFIO and municipal policy, see Adrien Veber, Le Socialisme municipal (Paris, 1908); Pierre Mimin, Le Socialisme municipal (Paris, 1911); M.J. McQuillen, "The Development of Municipal Socialism in France, 1880-1914," Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 1973; Joan Scott, "Mayors versus Police Chiefs: Socialist Municipalities Confront the French State," in French Cities in the Nineteenth Century , ed. John Merriman (New York, 1981).

39. RDCM, 2 August, 19 October, and 30 November 1912; 31 May 1913. In 1912 workers composed roughly 40 percent of the population of Bobigny.

40. Paris-Est , 18 July 1914, p. 3. The city council resignations followed that of Mayor Jacquelot, whose reasons for leaving office I could not discover.

41. On the beginnings of World War I in France see Jean-Jacques Becker, 1914: Comment les Français sont entrés dans la guerre (Paris, 1977); Jean-Jacques Becker and Annie Kriegel, La guerre et le mouvement ouvrier français (Paris, 1964).

42. On wartime life in France see Becker, Les Français ; Fridenson, 1914-1918 ; Amdur, pp. 56-120; Alfred Rosmer, Le Mouvement ouvrier pendant la guerre , 2 vols. (Paris, 1936-1956).

43. RDCM, 8 August and 29 August 1915.

44. RDCM, 25 December 1917. Despite the Socialists' recommendation, nothing indicates that the council abolished tipping.

45. RDCM, 23 August 1914; also 13 September 1914; 21 January, 7 March, 11 April, 6 June, 18 June, and 22 June 1915; 12 March and 10 May 1916; 9 June 1918. Brunet, Saint-Denis , pp. 184-85; McMillan, pp. 102-3.

46. RDCM, 21 January, 19 September, and 14 November 1915; 23 January and 22 June 1916.

47. RDCM, 23 September 1916.

48. Goguel, La Politique , pp. 215-25; Brogan, vol. 2, pp. 556-57; Maurice Labi, La Grande Division des travailleurs (Paris, 1964); Jean-Louis Robert, La Scission syndicale de 1921 (Paris, 1980); Kriegel, Aux origines ; Robert Wohl, French Communism in the Making, 1914-1924 (Stanford, 1966); Annie Kriegel, La Croissance de la Confédération générale du travail 1918-1921 (Paris, 1966); Colette Chambelland and Jean Maitron, eds., Syndicalisme révolutionnaire et communisme: les archives de Pierre Monatte, 1914-1924 (Paris, 1968); Jean Charles, ed. Les Congrès de Tours. Texte intégral (Paris, 1980). On the international dimension, see Cronin and Sirianni; Charles Bertrand, Revolutionary Situations in Europe, 1917-1922 (Montreal, 1977).

49. Paris-Est , 22 November 1919, p. 2; Goguel, Géographie des élections , pp. 76-77; Wohl, pp. 148-52.

50. Journal de Saint-Denis , 13 November 1919, p. 1. For the first time in many years, Paul Peysson did not run for office.

51. Pronier, p. 21; see also Raymond Leslie Buell, Contemporary French Politics (New York, 1920), pp. 152-69.

52. On the SFIO and the 1919 elections, see Kriegel, Aux origines , pp. 423-39; Wohl, pp. 148-52.

53. The census figures bear out this shift (LN, 1911, 1921).

54. The independent Socialists changed their slates from election to election and never put out election manifestos; their lack of wartime representation on the city council was a great handicap.

55. Brunet, Saint-Denis , p. 236; see chapter 1, which discusses this combined development.

56. On social class, the Left, and politics in modern France, see Thomson, pp. 39-74; Kriegel, The French Communists ; Judt, Marxism ; Richard F. Hamilton, Affluence and the French Worker in the Fourth Republic (Princeton, 1967); Richard DeAngelis, Blue-Collar Workers and Politics: A French Paradox (London, 1982); Maurice Duverger, ed., Partis politiques et classes sociales (Paris, 1955).

57. Paris-Est , 27 December 1919, p. 1. The Socialists, of course, would have said they made a greater effort to keep constituents informed of city business.

58. RDCM for 1920: 6 August, 25 January, 18 November, 17 September, and 25 January.

59. Pronier, p. 22; Girault, Sur l'implantation ; Brunet, Saint-Denis , pp. 241-45; François Platone, "L'implantation municipale du parti communiste français dans la Seine et sa conception de l'administration communale," mémoire de maîtrise, Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1967.

60. Le Populaire , 24 October 1922, pp. 1, 2; Brunet, Saint-Denis , p. 267; Girault, Sur l'implantation .

61. Brunet, Saint-Denis , pp. 245-68.

62. RDCM, 23 October 1931.

63. RDCM, 23 March 1923. After Clamamus said he had verified the membership of La Prolétarienne in the PCF's Labor Sports Federation, the city council approved the endorsement over Vasseur's dissenting vote.

64. Paris-Est , 6 December 1919, p. 2; RDCM, 17 May 1925.

65. Brunet, Saint-Denis , p. 236; Girault, Sur l'implantation , pp. 108-17.

66. Denis; Bontemps and Jolinon; Peru.

67. On Bobigny's municipal elections in the 1920s and 1930s, see L'Humanité and the Journal de Saint-Denis for May 1925, May 1929, and May 1935. In 1928 the prefect of the Seine annulled the results of the regular legislative election in Clamamus's district because of suspected voting irregularities; Clamamus easily won the special election held in October 1928, in spite of vigorous campaigns by both the SFIO and the Right (AN, series F7 13112, police reports of 7 July, 20 September, 15 October 1928; F7 13017, police reports of 4 October, 6 October, 9 October, and 11 October 1928; F7 13260, police reports of 5 October and 13 October 1928).

68. The legend of the Red Belt has obscured the SFIO's presence in the Paris suburbs between the wars, running the city halls of Suresnes, Champigny, Puteaux, and Boulogne-Billancourt, the largest suburb and site of the giant Renault plant (Archer; René Sordes, Histoire de Suresnes [Suresnes, 1965]; Denis; Pourteau).

69. Bernard Chambaz, "L'implantation du parti communiste français a Ivry," in Sur l'implantatation du parti communiste français dans l'entre-deux-guerres , ed. Jacques Girault (Paris, 1977), pp. 156, 158; Brunet, Saint-Denis , pp. 245-60.

70. Bobigny, Archives communales, PCF electoral manifesto for 1929 municipal elections.

71. Fourcaut and Girault, p. 70.

72. Bobigny, Archives communales, PCF 1935 electoral manifesto.

73. "La ruine de la petite commerce" (Bobigny, Archives communales, PCF pamphlet, 1935).