Notes
1. The following is based on Serge Berstein, Histoire du parti radical (Paris, 1980–1982), 2:455–518. [BACK]
2. See Alfred Sauvy, ed., Histoire économique de la France entre les deux guerres (Paris, 1972), 2:286, for figures. See also Jean-Charles Asselain, Histoire économique de la France (Paris, 1984), 2:66; Joel Colton, Compulsory Labor Arbitration in France (New York, 1951), pp. 82–86. [BACK]
3. Ingo Kolboom, La revanche des patrons: Le patronat face au front populaire, trans. Jeanne Etoré (Paris, 1986), p. 291. [BACK]
4. L’Europe nouvelle, 9 April and 21 May 1938. [BACK]
5. SNCASO, 27 September 1938, SNA. [BACK]
6. La Journée industrielle, 20 November 1938. [BACK]
7. Speech to Congrès national des commissions paritaires d’offices publics de placement, 8 September 1938, AN, 39AS830/831. [BACK]
8. Reynaud quoted in Jacques Delperrié de Bayac, Histoire du front populaire (Paris, 1972), p. 396. [BACK]
9. L’Europe nouvelle, 19 November 1938; Usine, 17 November 1938; Asselain, Histoire économique, 2:68. [BACK]
10. Reynaud quoted in Delperrié de Bayac, Histoire du front populaire, p. 462. See also Paul Reynaud, Pourquoi ferait-on la grève? Discours radiodiffusé, prononcé le 26 novembre 1938 (Paris, 1938). [BACK]
11. Jules Moch, Le front populaire: grande espérance (Paris, 1971), p. 310. [BACK]
12. Procès-verbal, 22 November 1938, AN, 39AS852; on Saturday closing, see letter from Groupement des industriels de la région de Saint-Denis, 8 July 1937, AN, 39AS803. [BACK]
13. Syndicats, 31 August 1938. [BACK]
14. Ibid., 14 September 1938; Le Travailleur du papier-carton, September 1938. [BACK]
15. La Vie ouvrière, 17 November and 3 November 1938. [BACK]
16. Syndicats, 29 November 1938. [BACK]
17. Ibid., 19 November 1938. [BACK]
18. Le Travailleur des transports, December 1938. [BACK]
19. Syndicats, 29 November 1938. [BACK]
20. L’Echo des syndicats, (CFTC) December 1938. During the Popular Front, even working-class organizations had problems making workers appear on Monday. For example, to protest lay-offs from Chausson at Gennevilliers, on 21 August (1937?) Humanité called on all the workers of this firm—including those dismissed—to demonstrate at the company on Monday, 23 August. Only seven arrived (Note concernant l’incident Chausson, AN, 39AS836). [BACK]
21. Usine, 24 November 1938; Humanité, 22 November 1938. Workers considered the new work schedule at Hutchinson—seven hours Monday through Friday and nine hours on Saturday—an insult. [BACK]
22. Humanité, 25 November 1938; La Vie ouvrière, 24 November 1938; SNCASO, 25 November 1938, SNA. [BACK]
23. Report from M. B., 6 December 1938, AN, 91AQ116. Also see the photographs of weapons in this file; report of Préfecture de police, January 1939, AN, F22760 and documents in AN, 91AQ117. [BACK]
24. Guy Bourdé, La défaite du front populaire (Paris, 1977), p. 148. [BACK]
25. Liste des individus arrêtés à l’usine Renault, AN, 91AQ116. Of those arrested, 194 were sentenced to prison terms—in some cases, of two months (Jacques Kergoat, La France du front populaire [Paris, 1986], p. 292). [BACK]
26. Reports by police inspectors, December 1938, AN, 91AQ117. [BACK]
27. Exposé, AN, 91AQ117. [BACK]
28. See the report by a management informer in AN, 91AQ16. Of the five CGT delegates listed in police reports in AN, 91AQ117, only one was a Communist militant and another was known as sympathetic to the PCF; the other three delegates were described as “nonpolitical.” Estimates of PCF membership vary; Jean-Paul Depretto and Sylvie V. Schweitzer (Le communisme à l’usine: Vie ouvrière et mouvement ouvrier chez Renault, 1920–1939 [Paris, 1984], pp. 186, 230) offer figures of 120 members in May 1936, 1,300 in June 1936, 4,200 in September, 5,500 in December, and 7,675 in March 1937. The PCF’s own numbers in Tout faire pour servir le peuple de France, 5e conférence de la région Paris-ouest du PCF à Gennevilliers (16–17 January 1937) and 6e conférence régionale à Argenteuil (4–5 December 1937) put the membership at over 7,650 during 1937 and 6,000 in December 1936. Another firm, the Bouguenais aviation plant, had lower than expected PCF membership: of 700 workers, 60 were members of the PCF, according to Résumé des rapports, (n.d.), SHAA, Z11607. [BACK]
29. See Bertrand Badie, “Les grèves du front populaire aux usines Renault,” Le Mouvement social, no. 81 (October–December 1972); Robert Durand, La lutte des travailleurs de chez Renault (Paris, 1971). [BACK]
30. Henri Heldman, “Le parti communiste français à la conquête de la classe ouvrière: Les cellules d’entreprise, 1924–1938” (Thèse, 3e cycle, University of Nanterre, 1979), pp. 194–213; Sections syndicales Hotchkiss, GIM. [BACK]
31. See file on this manifestation in APP 1867. For an overview, see Julian Jackson, The Popular Front in France: Defending Democracy, 1934–1938 (Cambridge, 1988), p. 115. [BACK]
32. Incidents de Clichy et de leurs conséquences, 19 March 1937, APP 1865. [BACK]
33. Telegrams in APP 1866, dossier, Grève générale du 18–3–37; Historique de l’affaire Clarisse, AN, 91AQ16; Rapport des sections syndicales, AN, 91AQ16 (?); Le Jour, Le Journal, and Action française, 19 March 1937; letter to Le Populaire, 26 December 1938, AN, 91AQ16; Contre-manifestation, 15 March 1937, APP 1865. [BACK]
34. Usine, 8 December 1938; SNCASO, 25 November 1938, SNA. [BACK]
35. Grève générale 30–11–38, 3 December 1938, AN, F60640. This document asserts that only 191 in a work force of 10,842 in Parisian public transport obeyed the strike order; the figure seems too low. [BACK]
36. Grève du 30 novembre 1938, AN, 39AS804. [BACK]
37. Le Travailleur des transports, December 1938; Syndicats, 7 December 1938. [BACK]
38. Humanité, 1 December 1938; R. Louzon, “De l’état démocratique à l’état autoritaire,” La Révolution prolétarienne, 10 December 1938. [BACK]
39. Jouhaux quoted in Bourdé, La défaite, p. 161. [BACK]
40. André-Jean Tudesq, “L’utilisation gouvernementale de la radio,” in Edouard Daladier: chef du gouvernement, ed. René Rémond and Janine Bourdin (Paris, 1977), pp. 256–63. [BACK]
41. Syndicats, 21 December 1938; La Vie ouvrière, 8 December 1938; Le Travailleur du papier-carton, December 1938. [BACK]
42. See Bourdé, La défaite, pp. 204–5. Nationally, participation was 72.48 percent in metallurgy and 80 percent in construction (Kergoat, France, p. 286). [BACK]
43. Renseignements obtenus, 30 November 1938, AN, 91AQ16. [BACK]
44. Note sur la grève partielle, 7 December 1938, AN, 91AQ115. Another report claimed that at Renault-Aviation and at Salmson, work continued normally on 30 November (Note, 23 January 1939, SHAA Z12947). [BACK]
45. The following is based on SNCASO, 9 December 1938, SNA. [BACK]
46. Cf. Bourdé, La défaite, pp. 223–28; cf. also Richard F. Kuisel, Capitalism and the State in Modern France (New York, 1981), p. 125. [BACK]
47. Usine, 8 December 1938. [BACK]
48. Exemples d’augmentation du rendement, AN, 91AQ116. Depretto and Schweitzer (Communisme, p. 268) assert that 843 union officials were dismissed at Renault. [BACK]
49. Patrick Fridenson, Histoire des usines Renault (Paris, 1972), pp. 270–72. [BACK]
50. Exemples d’augmentation du rendement, AN, 91AQ116. [BACK]
51. Ibid.; Un horaire provisoire, AN, 91AQ15: “The Renault factories were practically shut down from noon on 24 November to 16 December 1938. During this period, backed-up orders could not be filled, and workers lost a considerable portion of their wages that they really needed, especially during this time of year.…A large number of our workers have signed a petition asking for overtime.” [BACK]
52. Réponse au rapport fourni à tous les groupements du front populaire, 20 December 1938, AN, 91AQ116; La Vie ouvrière, 22 December 1938 and 9 February 1939. [BACK]
53. Usine, 16 December 1938. [BACK]
54. Note sur le débrayage du 24 novembre 1938, AN, 91AQ115. [BACK]
55. Robert Jacomet, L’armement de la France (1936–1939) (Paris, 1982), p. 271. [BACK]
56. Bourdé, La défaite, p. 230; Antoine Prost, “Le climat social,” in Edouard Daladier: Chef du gouvernement, ed. René Rémond and Janine Bourdin (Paris, 1977), p. 109; Sauvy, ed., Histoire économique, 2:338; Delperrié de Bayac, Histoire du front populaire, pp. 513–15. [BACK]
57. SNCASO, 9 December 1938, SNA. [BACK]
58. SNCAN, 25 January 1939, SNA. [BACK]
59. SNCASO, 9 December 1938, SNA. [BACK]
60. Jacomet, L’armement, p. 287. [BACK]
61. Emmanuel Chadeau, L’industrie aéronautique en France, 1900–1950 (Paris, 1987), p. 313–22; Robert Frankenstein Le prix du réarmement français, 1935–1939 (Paris, 1982), pp. 237–38. [BACK]
62. SNCASO, 25 January 1939, SNA. For nationalized aviation, see Liste nominative du personnel des établissements de l’armée de l’air exclu définitivement à la suite de la grève du 30 novembre 1938, AN, F60640. [BACK]
63. Letter, 26 December 1938, AN, 91AQ16. [BACK]
64. See various reports of February 1937 in AN, F712966. [BACK]
65. Bulletin du Syndicat professionnel et amicale des agents de maîtrise, techniciens, et employés des usines Renault, February 1937; SACIAT (Syndicat et amicale des chefs de service, ingénieurs, agents de maîtrise et techniciens des industries métallurgiques, mécaniques et connexes), November–December 1938. On SACIAT see L’Indépendance syndicale, August–September 1937. [BACK]
66. Philippe Machefer, Ligues et fascismes en France, 1919–1939 (Paris, 1974), pp. 91–104; Philippe Burrin, La dérive fasciste: Doriot, Déat, Bergery, 1933–1945 (Paris, 1986), pp. 219–93. [BACK]
67. Société anonyme des transports, assemblée générale du 12 juin 1939, AN, 91AQ52. [BACK]
68. Agitation, 4 November 1936, APP 1870; Discours prononcé par M. Jules Verger, 11 August 1937, AN, 39AS843; letter from Verger, président de la chambre syndicale de l’entreprise électrique de Paris, 12 August 1937, AN, 39AS843. [BACK]
69. Grève générale possible des monteurs-électriciens, 10 November 1936, APP 1870; 12 November 1936, APP 1870; Grève de monteurs-électriciens, 19 November 1936, APP 1870. [BACK]
70. The following is based on telegrams of November 1936 in APP 1870. [BACK]
71. Suggestions des adhérents, 14 April 1938, GIM. [BACK]
72. Préfecture de police, cabinet du préfet, 3 December 1936, APP 1870. On this handwritten note the date is partially illegible. [BACK]
73. Cf. Robert Paxton, Vichy France (New York, 1982), which refers to “the incipient civil war” (p. 49), “the virtual French civil war” (p. 245), and “climate of civil war” (p. 246) that supposedly existed during the Popular Front. [BACK]
74. See Delperrié de Bayac, Histoire du front populaire, pp. 407–9, for a description of the failure of the plots of the Cagoule; Martin S. Alexander, “Hommes prêts à tout accepter: The French Officer Corps and the Acceptance of Leftist Government, 1935–1937” (Paper presented at Popular Fronts Conference, University of Southampton, April 1986). [BACK]
75. See Peter N. Stearns, Revolutionary Syndicalism and French Labor: A Cause without Rebels (New Brunswick, N.J., 1971) p. 106; Stearns, Lives of Labor: Work in a Maturing Industrial Society (New York, 1925); see also Edward Shorter and Charles Tilly, Strikes in France, 1830–1968 (London, 1974), pp. 67–75. Many other authors—such as Claude Fohlen (La France de l’entre-deux-guerres [1917–1939], [Tournai, 1972], p. 157)—have written that the forty-hour week was a symbol to workers. [BACK]
76. Michel Collinet, L’ouvrier français, esprit du syndicalisme (Paris, 1951), p. 118. [BACK]