Word: frachon
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...nationalized Renault automobile plant struck for a ten-franc-an-hour raise. Their demands ran counter to the Government's hold-the-line policy (TIME, March 3), which the Communist Party (and its five Cabinet ministers) had approved. To deal with the situation, beetle-browed Benoit Frachon, Communist Co-Secretary General of France's General Federation of Labor, called in Eugene Henaff, a tough Communist disciplinarian (whose chief claim to distinction is that he has worn a red tie every day for the past eleven years). Benoit Frachon issued instructions: "We have a small wildcat strike chez Renault...
...concentrated on interviews. In Paris he sat down with Foreign Minister Georges Bidault, Premier Paul Ramadier, President Vincent Auriol, Communist Labor Boss Benoit Frachon, and a raft of other politicians and industrialists. In his off-hours he hustled through the Renault and Chausson factories (autos and trucks) and a textile plant; he talked with businessmen, workers, storekeepers. He had the usual trouble with the French telephone system...
...Mouse. In Paris a cold wind blew all week. Bristly Benoit Frachon, working away in his cold office, amid the smoke and grit from the Gare de 1'Est, would have dearly loved to go fishing in the sun at one of his favorite Riviera vacation spots. But Frachon could not get away. As Communist boss of the Confederation General du Travail, he was directing one of the most massive and delicate operations in French labor history. His problem was to maneuver the C.G.T.'s six million members so as to take maximum political advantage of the bitter discontent arising...
...Frachon played cat-&-mouse. France twitched and jumped with "token" strikes, ranging from the theater ushers, who would not take patrons to their seats, to the Paris police, who struck for four hours.* At the same time the subway workers struck. A stockbroker, Louis Molinier, watched the resulting traffic snarl in the Place de la Concorde. He pulled his coat collar up against the wind, shivered, and said: "It gives you the impression that a thousand men with rifles could take over the whole city...
...more important than the party's position in the Government. The Communists have edged aging Léon Jouhaux out of the real leadership of France's Confédération Générale du Travail, have made Communist Co-Secretary General Benoit Frachon the real boss over the Confédération's six million workers. French Communists, through unions directly controlled by Communists, can stop key industries, including metals, light & power, railroads, building, mines, chemicals, textiles, food processing, communications. The constant threat of a general strike permits the Communists...