Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T22:38:08.215Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Civil Rights for Civil Servants? The Ligue Des Droits De L'Homme and the Problem of Trade Unionism in the French Public Services, c. 1905–1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

H. S. Jones
H. S. Jones
Affiliation:
Nuffield College, Oxford
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The law of 21 March 1884, which legalized the formation of syndicats for the defence of ‘economic, industrial, commercial and agricultural interests’, was not intended to apply to civil servants. They were not thought to have such interests. There was, it is true, some dispute as to which categories of public employees were covered by this legal prohibition, and the Chamber of Deputies maintained in 1894 that the law applied to workers in industrial enterprises run by the state. But governments steadfastly refused to allow postal officials or schoolteachers, for instance, the right to form syndicats. They did not, however, contest their right to form associations under the law of 1 July 1901, and conflict became acute in the period after 1905 as these associations began to transform themselves into syndicats or to claim rights associated with the syndicat The postal strikes in Paris in 1909 and the rail strike of 1910 were particular causes célèbres

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , December 1988 , pp. 899 - 920
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Bidouze, René, Les fonctionnaires. Sujets ou citoyens? (Le syndicalism des origines à la scission de 1947–8) (Paris, 1979), p. 25Google Scholar.

2 As early as 1899–1900 police reports were referring to the League either as a vehicle for unity between Radicals and Socialists, or as the creature of the Radical Party: Archives Nationales F7 12487 Police Générale, Commissaire Spécial of the Préfecture du Nord to the Directeur de la Sûreté Générale, 31 July 1899; Commissaire Spécial de la Police Spéciale des Chemins de Fer des Ports et des Frontières, Loire-Inférieure, to Directeur de la Sûreté Générale, 3 Dec. 1900.

3 ‘Syndicalism’ is used throughout this article to translate the French ‘syndicalisme’.It should not be taken to imply Revolutionary Syndicalism, which is rendered in French as syndicalisme révolutionnaire.

4 See Machelon, J. P., La République contre Us libertés? Les restrictions aux libertés publiques de 1879 à 1914 (Paris, 1976), pp. 40 ffGoogle Scholar., for a discussion of the legacy of this ‘mythe de la Loi souveraine et non oppressive’, the positivist implications of which, according to Machelon, are crucial to an. understanding of the many illiberal aspects of the record of the Third Republic on civil liberties.

5 Bulletin Officiel de la Ligue des Droits de l' Homme (henceforth Bulletin Officiel), I (1901), 300–2Google Scholar.

6 Ibid. pp. 355, 421, 917.

7 Anon., ‘Les droits et devoirs des professeurs comme fonctionnaires’. Réponse à Brunetière', M., Bulletin Officiel, I (1901), 789Google Scholar. Henceforth cited as ‘Réponse à M. Brunetière’.

8 Bulletin Officiel, I (1901), 918Google Scholar.

9 Bulletin Officiel, II (1902), 253Google Scholar.

10 Ibid. p. 154.

11 Bulletin Officiel, I (1901), 390Google Scholar; IV (1904), 109, 737.

12 Bulletin Officiel, I (1901), 553Google Scholar.

13 Ibid. pp. 355, 390, 617.

14 ‘Réponse à M. Brunetière’, pp. 790–1.

15 Ibid. pp. 794–5.

16 Ibid. pp. 795–9.

17 Bulletin Officiel, I (1901), 625Google Scholar.

18 In 1907, though not in 1906 or 1908, the congress drew on the conventional distinction (rejected, however, by most jurists) between fonctionnaires de gestion and fonctionnaires d' autorité to deny trade union rights to the latter: Bulletin Officiel, VII (1907), 872Google Scholar.

19 For the transformation of Republican values since the French Revolution which allowed association to take its place amongst civic virtues, see Renouvier, Charles, Manuel Républicain de l' Homme et du Citoyen (Paris, 1981: first published in 1848), p. 91Google Scholar; and Waldeck-Rousseau, R., Associations et Congrégations (Paris, 1901), pp. 2–3Google Scholar. Henri Chardon used an argument of this kind to justify his abandonment of his early hostility to the right of officials to associate for the defence of their professional interests: see Chardon, Henri, Le pouvoir administratif (Paris, 1912), p. 463Google Scholar.

20 Bulletin Officiel, VII (1907), 682–3Google Scholar

21 Ibid. P. 787.

22 Ibid. p. 788.

23 Ibid. pp. 1542–3.

24 Henri Sée, Histoire de la Ligue des Droits de l'Homme (1898–1926) (Paris, 1927), pp. 93–4Google Scholar.

25 Archives Nationales, Paul-Boncour papers, 424 AP 6, dossier 3, Veysson to Paul-Boncour, 1 June 1909.

26 Veysson to Paul-Boncour, 23 June 1909.

27 Sée, Hisloire de la Ligue, pp. 59–62.

28 Archives Nationales, Police Générale (F7 12487), Prefect of the Rhône to minister of the interior, 12 June 1908.

29 F7 12487, Prefect of the Rhône to minister of the interior, 12 June 1908, including enclosed press reports from Le Progrès.

30 Halévy, Daniel, La République des Comités (Paris, 1934), pp. 89–90Google Scholar.

31 But only roughly: thus Berthod, whose ideas on this question had much in common with those of Leroy, was a Radical-Socialist deputy who later served in Radical governments of the 1930s, under Herriot and Daladier. ‘Proudhonism’ cut across the division between Radicals and Socialists.

32 The governor-general of Madagascar, Augagneur, came under attack from members of the League, notably Pressensé; but he was defended against these attacks by his fellow-Freemasons: Arch. Nat. F7 12487, Prefect of the Rhône to minister of the interior, 12 June 1908; Sée, Histoire, pp. 77–8.

33 Bulletin Officiel, VII (1907), 824Google Scholar.

34 Ibid. VIII (1908), 1196.

35 Arch. Nat. 61 AJ 97, Célestin Bouglé papers: letters from Merrheim and other union leaders to Leroy.

36 ‘In Memoriam: Maxime Leroy’, Le Contrat Social, I (1957), 279Google Scholar.

37 On Halévy, see Silvera, Alain, Daniel Halévy and his times. A gentleman-commoner in the Third Republic (Cornell, 1966)Google Scholar, passim.

38 Leroy, Maxime, ‘Itinéraire intellectuel’, Le Contrat Social, II (1958), 282Google Scholar.

39 Ibid. 282; Bonnefous, Edouard, ‘Maxime Leroy (1873–1957)’, Le Contrat Social, III (1959), 287Google Scholar.

40 Leroy, , ‘Itinéraire intellectuel’, p. 282Google Scholar.

41 Ibid. p. 280–1.

42 Quoted by Bonnefous, , ‘Maxime Leroy’, 288Google Scholar.

43 Leroy, Maxime, Les Transformations de la puissance publique. Les syndicats de fonctionnaires (Paris, 1907), P. 3–44Google Scholar.

44 Leroy, Maxime, Vers une République heureuse (Paris, 1922), p. 7Google Scholar.

45 Ibid. pp. 8–9.

46 Ibid. p. 13.

47 Alice Erh-Soon Tay and Eugene Kamenka, ‘Public Law-Private Law’, in Benn, S. I. and Gaus, G. F., Public and private in social life (London, 1983), p. 81Google Scholar.

48 Bouglé, Célestin et al. , Proudhon el notre temps (Paris, 1920)Google Scholar.

49 For a discussion of these, see Ritter, Alan, The political thought of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (Princeton, 1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ch. I.

50 Fournière, E., ‘Les projets Briand et le contrat’, Revue socialiste, LIII (1911), 13Google Scholar.

51 Ibid. pp. 13–14.

52 Ibid. p. 14.

53 Fournière, E., ‘Association et initiative privée’, Revue socialisle, XXXIX (1904), 646Google Scholar.

54 Ibid. pp. 648–9.

55 Leroy, M., La Loi. Essai sur la théorie de l' autorité dans la démocratic (Paris, 1908) pp. 222–3Google Scholar.

56 Ibid. p. 245.

57 Ibid. p. 249.

58 Leroy, , Les Transformations de la puissance publique, pp. 158–9Google Scholar.

59 For another example of concern at the contradiction between these two roles, see Desjardins', Paul introductory remarks to the debate on ‘Le fonctionnaire citoyen’, Libres Entretiens de l' Union pour la Vérilé, 4th series (1907–1908), 124–5Google Scholar. It is illuminating to find the ambiguity of the concept of ‘public’ drawn out by an English pluralist thinker, when Maitland observes that the English system of prosecution should be described as one of public, not of private prosecutions; what I are known as public prosecutions in continental Europe are in fact state prosecutions or official prosecutions: cited in Marshall, Geoffrey, Constitutional theory (Oxford, 1971), p. 25Google Scholar.

60 Leroy, , La Loi, pp. 215–16Google Scholar.

61 Ibid. p. 251.

62 Ibid. pp. 84–7.

63 Ibid. pp. 88–90.

64 Ibid. p. 266.

65 Leroy, , Les Transformations de la puissance publique, pp. 68ffGoogle Scholar.

66 Ibid. p. 82.

67 Leroy, , La Loi, p. 266Google Scholar.

68 Ibid. p. 269.

69 Leroy, , Les Transformations, p. 56Google Scholar.

70 Ibid. pp. 82–3.

71 Bulletin Offidel, VII (1907), 669Google Scholar.

72 In 1907–8 he was in personal contact with deputies such as Ferdinand Buisson and Joseph Reinach on the question of the ‘statut des fonctionnaires’, and Buisson prepared a bill based on Demartial's draft text: Bibliothèque Nationale, n.a.fr. 24874, Buisson to Reinach, 29 Jan. 1908.

73 Thuillier, Guy ‘Un fonctionnaire syndicaliste et pacifiste: Georges Demartial (1861–1945)’, Revue administrative, XXIX (1976), 357–8Google Scholar.

74 The image of Demartial's overbearing personality is confirmed by items of his correspondence: Bibliothèque Nationale, n.a.fr. 17583 fo. 339, Demartial to Jacques Rouché, December 1907.

75 Demartial, G., La Réforme administrative. Ce qu' elle devrait être (Paris, 1911)Google Scholar.

76 B.N. n.a.fr. 17583 fos. 345–6, Demartial to Rouché, n.d. (1908?).

77 Thuillier, , ‘Un fonctionnaire syndicaliste’ pp. 355–6Google Scholar.

78 Demartial, G., La Condition juridique du fonctionnaire (Paris, 1907), p. IIGoogle Scholar.

79 E.g. Demartial, , La Réforme administrative, p. 63Google Scholar; idem, La Condition juridique du fonctionnaire, p. 11; idem, ‘Les Employés de l'État et les syndicats professionnels’, Revue Politique et Parlementaire, XLIII (Jan-Mar. 1905), 514–15.

80 In 1905 he insisted that the notion of contract had no application to the relation between state and official: ‘Les Employés de l'État’, loc. cit., p. 515; but by 1911 he was drawing on the jurisprudence of the Gonseil d'État for the concept of the public law contract: La Réforme administrative, p. 63. Indeed, this was already the case in 1907: see La Condition juridique, pp. 8–9, where he argues that the situation of the official vis-à-vis the state is a complex one, owing something to the contract and something to the act of puissance publique, and introduces the concept of the public law contract to denote this complex situation.

81 ‘La fonction publique’ – a term that might in some contexts be translated as ‘civil service’.

82 Demartial, , La Réforme administrative, pp. 5–6Google Scholar.

83 Ibid. pp. 18–20.

84 Ibid. pp. 20–1.

85 Demartial, , ‘De l'opportunité d'une loi sur l'état des fonctionnaires’, Revue du Doit Publique, 24 XXIV (1907), 8Google Scholar.

86 Ibid. pp. 10–11.

87 Ibid. pp. 12–13.

88 Ibid. p. 16.

89 Demartial, , La Condition juridique, p. 16Google Scholar.

90 Idem, ‘De l'opportunité’, pp. 16–17.

91 Ibid. p. 17.

92 Bonnard, Roger, ‘Chronique administratif’, Revue du Doit Publique XXIV (1907), 489–91Google Scholar.

93 Demartial, , ‘De l'opportunité’, pp. 17–18Google Scholar.

94 17 Geo 5 c. 22.