At the end of a congress of which she herself underlined the “violence” of the debates, Sophie Binet succeeded Philippe Martinez on March 31 as general secretary of the CGT. At 41, this former PS activist, who went through the UNEF, became known in the CGT ranks for her commitment to gender equality. Historian of the labor movement, specialist in the history of the left and president of the Society for Jauresian Studies, Gilles Candar places this surprise election in the evolution of feminist struggles within the union.
L’Express: For the first time since its creation in 1895, the CGT has decided to put a woman at its head. What should you see there?
Gilles Candar: It is undoubtedly a real change, even if it was expected. Philippe Martinez had pushed his candidate, Marie Buisson. And his opponents were also betting on a woman, Céline Verzeletti. But beyond the personalities of each, the election of Sophie Binet marks the culmination of a long battle within the CGT on the question of the place of women in the union, and more broadly in society.
There are two great moments in this story. In 1913, the typographer Emma Couriau asked to join the Fédération du Livre, which refused her and expelled her husband, himself a typographer, on the grounds that he had not prevented his wife from working. A huge fight ensued in the ranks of the CGT to find out whether women could work, and therefore be militant. The revolutionary syndicalists defend this right. Marie Guillot, a teacher, is one of the most virulent. She will even be elected, in 1922, confederal secretary of the CGTU, the unitary current, in the orbit of the Communist Party. Not long since she landed a year later, when the union was torn between supporters of an alignment with Moscow and those of reformism embodied by Léon Jouhaux. From there, women are accepted in the CGT but confined to female activism, around social, cultural works…
In short, housewife unionism?
Yes, there was a bit of that. The second key moment, in 1955, was the creation by the CGT of a magazine specifically intended for women, called Antoinette. In this monthly magazine, readers found information on the life of the union, but above all a lot of articles on the house, the children… Madeleine Colin then Christiane Gilles, who succeeded her as editor in the 1970s, went try to free ourselves from this maternalist and familialist vision dictated by the confederal office, to impose more feminist themes and demands.
In 1981, an open crisis broke out over the journal, accused of favoring the struggle of the sexes to the detriment of the traditional class struggle, then defended by Henri Krasucki. Christiane Gilles, who was confederal secretary, is sidelined and resigns from the CGT. She will then enter the cabinet of Yvette Roudy, the Minister for Women’s Rights during the first seven-year term of François Mitterrand. The review then went into decline, then disappeared in 1989. This editorial adventure, which is quite unique in the history of French trade unionism, illustrates well the difficulty that the CGT has long encountered: how to integrate into its monolithic doctrine the singularity of the cause feminist? In a sense, the election of Sophie Binet, who is very committed to these issues, is the revenge ofAntoinette.
It comes from Ugict, the executives and technicians branch of the CGT. That’s a surprise too…
Exact. But it is in phase with the evolution of French society, which is more and more educated. The CGT is obliged to follow the movement. Even the Communist Party did it. In 1994, Robert Hue was the first national secretary to graduate. Marie-George Buffet had a license. Pierre Laurent, a master’s degree. Fabien Roussel worked as a journalist before entering politics. At some point, you have to get rid of purely working-class folklore. In 1978, at the Grenoble congress, Georges Séguy, the boss of the CGT, had already defended the idea of opening the union to other sensitivities. It was too soon. Four years later, Henri Krasucki succeeded him to bring the organization back into line.
Decreeing a change of style does not solve everything. The profile of Sophie Binet is interesting because it seems in tune with the concerns of her generation. But like all the others before her since 1895, she will not have free rein. The CGT is a complex structure where professional federations and departmental unions compete for power. It is not a state that is administered from the top down: it is the Holy Roman Empire…