The Controversy Surrounding Labor Day and Workers’ Day in France

POLITICS – On May 1, its parades, its lily of the valley… And Philippe Petain. For several years, politicians on the left have been scolding their colleagues from other walks of life who talk about Labor Day, rather than Workers’ Day. A terminology that dates back to Vichy and the collaborationist regime.

This May 1, it is therefore the Renaissance deputies (the new name of La République en Marche) who are singled out. The party’s official Twitter account actually posted a message in the morning glorifying the values ​​of ” work ” and of ” solidarity”, as you can see it below.

« Without work, no value creation; without creation of value, no redistribution and solidarity. On this May 1st, we reaffirm our attachment to these fundamental values ​​of work and solidarity. “, is it thus written in this very political message, relayed by several elected officials of the presidential camp.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon steals Elisabeth Borne

It was enough to arouse criticism from many parliamentarians on the left, who do not fail to remind their colleagues of the story. ” Revival of what? Because the name ‘labor day’ is the Vichy regime, stings, for example, Olivier Faure, the First Secretary of the PS. For all the others it’s the international day of struggle for workers’ rights… »

« “Labour Day” is a Pétainist expression. May 1 is the international day of struggle for workers’ rights. It was nothing “Adds the leader of the rebellious deputies Mathilde Panot in this concert of criticism, when the MEP Aurore Lalucq adds to the address of the supporters of the President of the Republic:” Your ideology does not give you the right to deny history. ” Message received ?

Before the parliamentarians, the Prime Minister herself drew the wrath of Jean-Luc Mélenchon on Friday after using this controversial expression in the 8 p.m. newspaper of France 2. “ No Mrs Borne. May 1 is not Labor Day except under Pétain. It has been the day of struggle for workers’ rights since the 19th century “, replied the former presidential candidate on Twitter.

If parliamentarians are also experienced in the response, it is because the odd has become relatively frequent. Four years earlier, Emmanuel Macron had also aimed at the side by welcoming the party of “those who love work, cherish it. “An exit which had earned him a slew of criticism from reassembled historians.

It must be said that the left recalls, here, a historical reality. And so as not to be mistaken, the officials of the presidential camp could have referred… On the Department of Labor website. This one actually tells how, “ under the occupation, the Vichy regime tried to appropriate the 1^is May “whose tradition goes back, in France, to May 1, 1890.

At the end of the 19th century, the workers parade » SO “to ask for the eight-hour day », with a red triangle in the buttonhole, the symbol of the division of time between work, leisure and sleep. Recovered in 1942 by the Vichy regime, which took advantage of it to “ impose their own vision of work », the symbolic day will be « definitely returned to the workers four years later, in 1946.

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