Word: frachon
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Dates: during 1947-1947
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...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...