Industrial unrest in France 1917–1918, the Loire and the Isère

Abstract In May 1918, a strike movement began in Paris and swiftly spread throughout much of the country. The strikes came at a time of heightened military danger and were promptly suppressed by the Clemenceau Government. Whereas a more widespread French labour unrest in 1917 had concentrated on wage demands, in 1918 the strikes were initiated by the radical far left of the Confédération générale du travail (CGT, France’s largest labour union) and were marked by internationalist and pacifist demands. In the months leading up to the spring of 1918, radical labour leaders in the Loire and the Isère were encouraged by federal colleagues in the CGT and its radical affiliate, the Comité de défense syndicaliste (CDS), to prepare for a series of general strikes. The launching of the Ludendorff Offensives, however, persuaded the CDS to postpone a coordinated national general strike until after the military emergency subsided. Labour leaders in the Loire and the Isère disregarded these directives and launched strikes in May and June that alienated local labour movements from their already tenuous political support from Paris. Using materials from both departmental and national archives, this study examines the political dynamics which precipitated and then accelerated the appointment of far-left radicals to leadership positions within the labour movements of the Loire and much of the Isère. It argues that the industrial significance of both areas, the anarcho-syndicalist rhetoric of local union leaders, poorly timed strike actions and the Clemenceau Government’s uncompromising jusqu’au boutisme worked together as factors to condemn this understudied movement to failure.