A-Infos (en) France, OCL CA #361 - Miners' strikes, a forgotten memory (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Coal is no more. Oil and its derivatives are no longer in vogue. Today, 
nuclear power is on the offensive. The North and Pas-de-Calais regions 
are proudly displaying their "Hauts-de-France" identity. Working-class 
history is fading while the National Rally is gaining ground. --- A 
tragedy foretold --- On March 10, 1906, in the Pas-de-Calais region, an 
explosion in the Courrières mining company's mines killed 1,099 miners 
(1), including 242 children under the age of 16, as well as 16 rescuers, 
and injured many others. This social tragedy left numerous orphans and 
widows, many of whom were evicted from their homes, which were owned by 
the mining company. Four towns near Lens were affected by the disaster. 
While management had invested in tunnel reinforcement and renovations, 
these investments undoubtedly reduced shareholder dividends and profits. 
However, at the same time, they allowed for increased productivity and 
the exploitation of the miners. Following this tragedy, the government, 
the Church, and prominent figures facilitated relief efforts. 
International solidarity then rallied around the affected families and 
their unions. This tragedy could have been avoided were it not for the 
greed of management, the bosses, and the shareholders. Indeed, a miner's 
representative had reported a high concentration of firedamp, a highly 
explosive gas, deep in the mine shortly beforehand. On the morning of 
the disaster, he requested that the descent into the mine not take 
place. This representative was met with only intransigence and refusal. 
The resumption of work was delayed by an hour. Around 6:30 a.m., the 
explosion devastated 110 kilometers of interconnected tunnels.

Long live the strike! Long live the revolution!
On March 13, during the funerals of the first victims, anger simmered 
among the families and miners in the surrounding coalfields. In 
Billy-Montilly, the mine owners, present at the funeral, were met with 
cries of "Murderers!" from some 15,000 people, but also with shouts of 
"Long live the strike! Long live the revolution!" In every town that 
buried its dead, the funerals became demonstrations. It is true that the 
families still held hope in the ongoing search at the bottom of the 
mine. But the greedy management ordered the resumption of mining 
operations. And to quell the anger, the Socialist deputies, Basly, 
Lamendin, and others, spoke, "with heavy hearts," of the inevitable 
"Fate." Basly, the deputy mayor of Lens, a former union leader, 
nicknamed the "Tsar of Lens" because of his ties to the "old" union (2) 
to which he was beholden, restrained the revolt, refusing any call for a 
strike. On March 14, however, the strike took shape, spreading 
throughout the mining region and even reaching some areas in Belgium. 
Between 25,000 and 50,000 strikers answered the call for a general 
strike. This strike was spearheaded by a relatively new, 
anarcho-syndicalist CGT union, founded only in 1902, led by the 
anarchist Benoît Broutchoux (3). The strikers' slogan was "the 4x8": 8 
francs a day, 8 hours of work, 8 hours of rest, 8 hours of leisure. They 
also demanded the right for miners' representatives to stop work in case 
of danger.
On March 30, 13 miners were brought alive from the mine to the surface. 
On April 14, a fourteenth survivor reappeared. A growing anger is rising 
against the management's contemptuous attitude, as they considered 
halting the search just three days after the tragedy. It is this 
powerful anger that will fuel the miners' strike and struggle.

Repression
While in Paris, at the National Assembly, Jean Jaurès, leader of the 
SFIO (4), denounced the management of the Courrières mines and their 
secret shareholder meetings, which he claimed were driven solely by 
profit and disregarded human life, on the ground, Georges Clemenceau, 
the Minister of the Interior, sent troops at the request of the 
employers to... protect the pits. Clemenceau, representing a bourgeois 
and social right wing, would later become head of government. He would 
appoint a socialist to the Ministry of Labor (Viviani), who would 
harshly repress any radicals or radicals who dreamed of revolution. The 
minister dispatched 20,000 soldiers to quell the strike. That's roughly 
one soldier for every two or three strikers, depending on the 
circumstances. The city of Lens was then placed under siege and forced 
to endure a curfew. While the conservative and clerical press denounced 
the "hidden dictatorship of the CGT over the mass of workers..." or "the 
revolution underway," CGT union leaders were arrested and imprisoned, 
including B. Broutchoux. He was then replaced by Pierre Monatte (5), 
another revolutionary syndicalist, to continue and organize the 
struggle. The government, employers (through the use of strikebreakers), 
and socialist unions supported each other to break the strike, wear down 
the striking miners, and isolate the "young" revolutionary CGT union and 
its leaders. For greater peace of mind, discussions were held in Paris 
without CGT representatives, including the imprisoned B. Broutchoux. The 
miners faced a powerful business and political class, deaf to all 
demands, as well as a bourgeoisie that was indispensable to the French 
economy and capital of the time. Amidst poverty, repression, and 
betrayal, the movement ended in late April after six weeks of conflict. 
On April 23, P. Monatte was arrested and imprisoned along with other 
delegates and leaders for "conspiracy against the security of the State."
On May 1, a day of general strike, the demand for an eight-hour workday 
became central to the CGT's call to demonstrate. Under social pressure, 
on July 13, 1906, French deputies voted for the eight-hour day, a vote 
rejected by the Senate. This demand was not achieved until April 23, 
1919, when it was ratified by the Senate. As for its implementation...

The army patrols in Anzin, near Valenciennes, on October 26th
A strike for nothing?
No! A reaction, a necessary revolt against poverty and injustice. The 
beginnings of a proletariat which, after the Paris Commune of 1870, 
collectivized its strength and attempted to assert itself as a class, 
against the bourgeoisie and its auxiliaries. A hope for emancipation 
that would be championed in 1905 and then in 1917 by the Soviets in 
Russia. A hope that would be swallowed up by the drums of war shortly 
thereafter in the name of the "Sacred Union." A Union that would send 
millions of proletarians to die in the trenches or, for some, shot as an 
example. This call to defend France would be supported by socialist 
leaders, trade unionists, and even anarchists. For these miners, for all 
workers, this revolutionary energy would be channeled into a chauvinism, 
a nationalism that would lead them to accept, in the name of "duty to 
the nation," the increase of their exploitation at work: hours, 
production rates, etc.

1906...1948
..."Mr. Clemenceau will have shown the working class that the capitalist 
class, whatever the government, will stop at nothing, no matter how 
dirty or criminal, to obstruct its emancipation movements.
I am cured of all illusions about the "exceptions" of the political 
world. Wasn't Mr. Clemenceau, in the eyes of many comrades, one of these 
"exceptions"? The working class knows that it has no one to rely on but 
itself and that, among its enemies, there are perhaps none worse than 
good "radical and socialist" ministers and journalists of the same 
persuasion." (P. Monatte 1906).
Had the 1906 revolt been forgotten? In the autumn of 1948, coal and iron 
remained essential to the French economy; vital resources for France's 
recovery after the Second World War. The mines had been nationalized 
since 1945. It was the Cold War between the Western and Eastern blocs. 
The leaders of the French Communist Party (PCF) were beholden to Moscow 
(Stalin). Until 1947, the Stalinists of the PCF and the CGT (General 
Confederation of Labour) called on workers to produce "more and more." 
Strikes were denounced as "the weapon of the trusts." The workers' 
standard of living declined with rising prices. Anger was simmering, but 
the owners of the French coal mines, and therefore the State, remained 
inflexible. In April 1948, a split occurred within the CGT, leading to 
the creation of the CGT/FO (Workers' Force). At the end of 1947, the 
Communists, members of the government alongside the Socialists and the 
Right, were expelled; the bourgeoisie distrusted them. The Minister of 
Industry and Labor, the Socialist Robert Lacoste, considered lowering 
miners' wages and reducing the number of surface miners by 10%. The 
rising anger of the workers led the CGT (General Confederation of 
Labour) to call for an indefinite strike. FO (Workers' Force) opposed 
it, although some sections participated. The CFTC (French Confederation 
of Christian Workers) proposed only 48 hours. This presented an 
opportunity for the PCF (French Communist Party) and the union 
bureaucracy to demonstrate the strength of the working class. It was 
neither about social emancipation nor revolution, as the miners of 
northern France and the fledgling CGT of 1806 had hoped, but rather a 
demonstration of power through the CGT, which would raise hopes for the 
PCF's return to government. On October 4, the strike was approved by 84% 
of the 340,000 coal and iron miners. A very tough struggle ensued, 
lasting three weeks. The repression, as in 1806, was ruthless. A 
socialist minister, Jules Moch, was at the Ministry of the Interior, and 
he was a notorious anti-communist. He first called in the CRS (riot 
police) to restore order, then brought back 60,000 soldiers from 
Germany, equipped with weapons and armored vehicles, to support the 
gendarmes with orders to fire. Faced with the fierce resistance of the 
miners, both in the Lorraine coalfield and in the Gard and Loire 
regions, the hunt for the union leader intensified, with house-to-house 
searches. The North African miners had to return to the mines under 
threat of expulsion and the destruction of their barracks. The toll was 
terrible: 6 dead, 3,000 arrested, including 117 delegates, and 1,340 
prison sentences. 3,000 miners were laid off, evicted from their homes 
with their families and left destitute, penniless, and jobless because 
local employment was prohibited. Despite strong worker solidarity with 
their struggle, the strike did not become widespread. The CGT called for 
a return to work...

"With time, everything fades away..." sang Léo Ferré. And so it is with 
the tributes paid to them. With time, all that remains are museums, 
vestiges of a petrified, vanished world, of the "black faces." They are 
stripped of their struggles, of their dream of international 
emancipation. Their memory fuels regional tourism. With time..., the red 
of the revolution has indeed faded, even turned green. Some have even 
repainted it red, white, and blue, thus further stifling the voices of 
the miners and their families, crying "murderous bosses... long live the 
strike, long live the revolution!" to retain only a cultural heritage 
reified into a commodity. Yet, sometimes, in the course of current 
events, such as at the Bollaert stadium in Lens, the smoldering embers 
resurface, fueled by the Football Club supporters who rekindle the 
memory of these "coal miners." As for the 1948 strikers, it wasn't until 
2011 that the Court of Appeal recognized "these dismissals" as illegal. 
In 2014, the last survivors received compensation.

Decaen 15 03 2026

Notes
1... While Courrières remains the largest mining disaster in Europe, the 
Benxi disaster in China in 1942 claimed 1,549 lives.
2... "Old" union - radical or socialist- (reformist) affiliated with the 
National Federation of Mines. "Young" union - revolutionary - linked to 
the CGT and affiliated with the Federal Union of Miners.
3... B. Broutchoux: Anarchist. Anti-capitalist, militarist, clerical, 
and anti-sabotage. But in favor of the general strike.
Read: "The Amazing and True Adventures of B. Broutchoux," a graphic 
novel by Phil & Callens, published by Le Dernier Terrain Vague.
4... SFIO. French Section of the Workers' International. Socialist.
5... Pierre Monatte. Anarchist, he drifted towards revolutionary 
syndicalism. Even mobilized at the front, he maintained contact with the 
CGT and the leadership core opposed to the war.

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