During the summer of 1953, when the great popular demonstrations of the immediate post-war period began to decline, whole sections of French society were set ablaze again. These strikes were the starting point for a resurgence of conflicts which intensified in the following years.
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It was in July 1953 that Pierre Poujade organized his first major anti-tax demonstration in Saint-Céré (in Lot), kicking off the movement that bore his name. The winegrowers of the South mobilized against the drop in wine prices by blocking the main roads. In August of the same year, the first massive strike broke out in the public services, which forced the government to abandon decree-laws which wanted to extend the retirement age by two years. These strikes were the starting point for a resurgence of conflicts which intensified in the following years. On June 20, 1955, in Saint-Nazaire, shipyard welders, who had been struggling for four months, stormed the management offices. After the summer break, 12,000 steelworkers faced 4,000 CRS and managed to surround them. The firefighters were then “disarmed” by the demonstrators who seized their lances and turned them against the CRS. In the end, these clashes caused around a hundred injuries, half of them among the police. Thirty-two strikers were arrested, but no charges were brought against them. After 6 months of struggle, the workers of Saint-Nazaire obtained a wage increase of 22%; which ended the conflict.
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The Nantes unions of the metallurgical companies then demanded equality with the people of Nazaire by adopting on their own a tactic of struggle, combining rotating strikes and demonstrations, which had proved its worth in Saint-Nazaire. During clashes with the security forces, a homemade bomb was thrown into the middle of a CRS platoon, which injured 27 of their ranks. A few days later, during a demonstration in front of the prefecture, Jean Rigollet, a 24-year-old mason, was killed by CRS fire. Emotion was then brought to its height, provoking scenes of violence described by observers as real situations of “urban guerrilla”. In September 1955, Paris-Match devoted its A to its events with the headline: “The France of strikes has Nantes as its capital.” Fearing a generalization of the movement throughout France, the authorities then played the card of appeasement. The prefect of the department resigned, the CRS left the factories and the 210 arrested workers were released. After 49 days of struggle, the strikers had won a 12 to 15 percent wage increase, returned to work. As Danielle Tartakowski noted in her book on the history of these popular struggles, the most important manifestations of this took place above all in under-industrialized, under-urbanized regions whose propensity to demonstrate was low for a long time, which perhaps explains the violence of revolts that escaped the control and discipline imposed , the major organizations of the labor movement.
Bibliography
Danielle Tartakowski, “The revolts of the ‘French desert'” or “How is a social movement not born” : 1953-1955″, in: Street demonstrations in France: 1918-1968, Éditions de la Sorbonne, 1997 (Chapter 23).
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2023-09-07 14:02:30
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