Parallel Lives: Remembering the PCF and CGT. Issue 3 (1st December 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ross, George
• Is Part Of: French politics, culture & society. Volume 37:Issue 3(2019)
• Page Start: 95
• Page End: 107
• Publication Date: 2019-12-01
• Subjects: French Communism -- French trade unionism -- French left politics -- Union de la Gauche -- French political memoirs -- Mitterrand years; France -- Politics and government -- 1958- -- Periodicals; France -- Civilization -- 1945- -- Periodicals; France -- Social conditions -- Periodicals; France -- History -- 20th century -- Periodicals; France -- History -- 21st century -- Periodicals; 320.944
• DOI: 10.3167/fpcs.2019.370305
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1537-6370

Abstract

Abstract : Philippe Herzog and Jean-Louis Moynot were members of the top leaderships of the Parti Communiste Français (PCF) and the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), respectively. Each participated in and lived through the dramatic years from the 1960s through the 1980s when both organizations first supported Union de la Gauche and then turned away from it, eventually precipitating both into decline in ways that would transform eventually the French political and trade union left. The strategic shifts underlying these deep and significant changes were traumatic for those who lived through them. Herzog and Moynot have recently published memoirs detailing their experiences of this period and their political lives thereafter. Both books, in different ways, give us new and important understandings of what happened during a critical moment of change in French politics.