Eugène Hénaff
| Eugène Hénaff | |
|---|---|
Hénaff with his family in Spring of 1940
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| Born |
30 October 1904 Spézet, Brittany, France |
| Died | 28 October 1966 (aged 61) |
| Nationality | French |
| Occupation | Trade Union Leader |
| Known for | Resistance Leader |
Eugène Hénaff (30 October 1904 – 28 October 1966) was a French cement worker, Communist, trade union leader and member of the French Resistance during World War II (1939–45).
Eugène Hénaff' was born on 30 October 1904 in Spézet, Brittany, to a family of farm laborers. From the age of ten he worked as a farm boy. His family moved to Paris, first to the Belleville district, then to Ménilmontant. Hénaff' became a butcher's boy, worked in a printing shop and then became a cement worker.
Hénaff joined the Confédération générale du travail unitaire (CGTU) in 1924, and then the French Communist Party (PCF). He was soon elected secretary of the cement workers' union, and then became regional secretary of the building unions. From 29 June to 29 August 1933 the building workers of Strasbourg went on strike, and the strike spread to enterprises elsewhere in Alsace and Moselle. Hénaff and Benoït Frachon, the national representatives, provided assistance to the local militants Auguste Walch, Frédéric Fassnacht, Joseph Mohn and Georges Woldi.
The rise of anti-semitism in Germany in the 1930s caused growing numbers of Jewish refugees to move to France. Union rank and file members were often openly hostile, and blamed the refugees for the Depression. Hénaff' pleaded in L'Humanité in November 1933 for French workers to welcome their German comrades, and to "break the existing xenophobic currents." In 1934 Hénaff was appointed secretary of the CGTU's regional union of Parisian trade unions. In 1936 he joined the PCF central committee. In this role he was among the negotiators of the Matignon Agreements of 1936 that ended the general strike, and was one of the signatories to the agreements. After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 Hénaff, Jean Zyromski and Georg Branting of the Commission Européenne d'Aide à l'Espagne published a manifesto that said, "The Spanish people would have already suppressed the Fascist rebellion if the rebel leaders had not been able to obtain, and did not still obtain, war matériel from international Fascist organizations.
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