1947 strikes in France

The strikes in France in 1947 were a series of insurrectional strikes, started in late April at the Renault factory and in September and aggravated by the Cominform denouncing the Marshall Plan. Soon there were 3 million strikers. 23,371,000 working days were lost to strikes in 1947, against 374,000 in 1946, but the movement stayed less important in Italy, where the Communists were also excluded from the government. In May, the Communist ministers in effect left the government, ending tripartisme, and at the end of the year, the CGT divided into a reformist minority and a pro-Atlantic-creating Workers' Force (FO). Although created in December 1944, the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS) had their first real mission of policing with the strikes of November–December 1947, all under the leadership of Minister of the Interior Jules Moch (SFIO) .

The strikes begin on 25 April 1947 at the Renault factory at Boulogne-Billancourt, nationalized in 1946. The day before, the Ramadier cabinet had reduced the daily bread ration from 300 to 250 grams.

The plant employed 30,000 men; the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) claimed 17,000 members. The strike was started, among other things, by the Trotskyist Pierre Bois, an activist of the communist Union and a founder of Workers' Struggle, and anarchists (Gil Devillard of the Anarchist Federation) and international Communist Party members (PCI, Trotskyist) . The importance of the intervention of the PCI in this movement was clear in a magazine article (Cavalcades), No. 65 of 26 June 1947, titled "A teacher, an engineer, a journalist, leaders of the Fourth International, tomorrow could paralyze France." . The strike did not, at first, have the support of the French Communist Party (PCF ) and the General Confederation of Labour (CGT). The PCF is indeed in government, as part of tripartisme. Plaisance, a secretary of the CGT, said outside the factory : "This morning, an anarcho-Hitlero-Trotskyists band wanted to blow up the factory." The CGT then excused: "The strike arms the trusts". Despite this communist opposition, the strike quickly brought in more than 10 000 workers. Eugene Hénaff, secretary general of the CGT Metallurgy, was booed at Boulogne-Billancourt.

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