1924 in Douarnenez, if women do not have the right to vote, the sardine
workers, they, have a class consciousness. In this port city which hasjust elected a communist mayor, the workers intend to assert their
rights by striking. A long, hard and victorious strike, that of the Penn
sardin. ---- Douarnenez, 1924. While the men go fishing on the high
seas, the women work in the factory to salt, prepare and can the fish.
The city has developed since the 1850s around the sardine, in this poor
and remote region that is Brittany. The canning industry has experienced
a meteoric rise and is at its peak. Women do not have the right to vote
and, since the Civil Code of 1804, have been placed under the
guardianship of their husbands[1]. Their working conditions are appalling.
The 1919 law that limits the working day to eight hours is not
respected. In the middle of the fishing season, the Penn sardin -
literally "sardine heads" - can work up to 14 hours in a row. Night
hours are not increased. Families are so poor that girls are sometimes
put to work before the age of 10 and the oldest are over 80. All for a
pittance: 80 centimes an hour, the price of a liter of milk at the time
and about half the salary of men for an equivalent position. Back home,
they still have to take care of the often large family.
Sardinian farms in Douarnenez around 1900-1910.
CEDIAS - SOCIAL MUSEUM, PHOTO LIBRARY
However, class consciousness was growing. A first strike took place in
1905 and made it possible to obtain a wage per hour rather than per
thousand sardines worked. It was followed by many social advances such
as the creation of a professional union composed exclusively of women.
Furthermore, the new mayor, Daniel Le Flanchec, was a communist.
One-eyed, tattooed, and a talented orator speaking Breton, he was an
atypical character from anarchist circles close to Bonnot's gang.
During the month of November, discontent became more and more palpable.
On Friday 21, female workers at the Carnaud factory asked to be received
by the foreman to discuss the issue of their pay and the excessive
hours. He refused. This was one offense too many: the workers left the
workshops and went from one factory to another to spread the protest,
while others went to warn Le Flanchec.
The support of the young communist party for the strike
This was the day after the Tours congress of 1920, which saw the
communist party (French Section of the Communist International, SFIC)
created following the split with the socialist party (French Section of
the Workers' International, SFIO). The communists were then keen to
create their first strongholds and this social movement was a golden
opportunity to show that the party could very concretely improve the
living conditions of the working class. Le Flanchec welcomed the workers
and took on the role of political and union relay to help build the strike.
On Sunday, November 23, the sardine workers organized the first
processions in parallel with those of the SFIC and marched in the city.
On the 25th, all the factories went on strike! More than 1,500 women
workers mobilized, as well as 500 men workers - mainly welders. They
were first motivated by need: it was a poverty strike. Several union
figures went there and tried to give these demands a more political
character.
First of all, a certain Charles Tillon arrived from Quimper. At 27, he
was the head of the General Confederation of Unitary Labor (CGTU) in
Brittany, a young union created after the Tours congress promoting
revolutionary unionism.
Then Lucie Colliard arrived from the same union, responsible for women's
work at the federal level. She helped set up a strike committee in the
town hall and the distribution of food. With her militant expertise and
her feminist convictions, she convinced the workers to raise their
demands and demand a raise to one franc twenty-five instead of one
franc. From there came the famous slogan, which would become the anthem
of the strike: "Pemp real a vo! We will have twenty-five cents!".
The strike continued to swell: on the fourth day, more than 3,000 people
marched in the street. The fishermen stayed on land: without Penn sardin
to prepare the fish, the entire economy of the city was blocked.
The bosses, for their part, categorically refused any negotiation. They
did not want to set a precedent by giving in to the communists, which
would endanger their other factories. Some of them, like Béziers,
nicknamed "the king of canning", had several dozen on the Atlantic coast.
Their plan is to wait for the peak fishing season to arrive in early
January...
A long strike that takes on a national dimension
The more time passes, the more the strike takes on a national character.
Depending on their political orientation, either the newspapers consider
that the Douarnenez police are "in the hands of a real soviet" - to use
Béziers' words - or they come to the defense of the workers. The
ministers are worried: they too do not want the new communist party to
emerge strengthened from this strike.
In mid-December, two delegations are sent to Paris, to the office of the
Minister of Labor Justin Godart where negotiations are taking place. But
in the capital, while Le Flanchec organizes a ball in support of the
strikers, Béziers and his cronies go to a pharmacy, ironically called
L'Aurore syndicale, which offers the rental of strike breakers. About
twenty thugs are sent to Douarnenez to recruit "scabs" among the
strikers. Everyone sticks to their guns and perhaps it would have been
like this for weeks if a brutal event had not changed the situation.
On the first day of 1925, Le Flanchec and a few of his friends sing the
Internationale upstairs at L'Aurore, a bar in Douarnenez. Downstairs,
four men raise their elbows, looking sullen. They are among the
mercenaries who came from Paris; they have been trying unsuccessfully to
break the strike for twelve days. Suddenly, one of them pulls out a
revolver, goes up and opens fire. The shooting leaves three wounded,
including Le Flanchec.
Demonstration in early January 1925 in front of the red factory.
CEDIAS - MUSEE SOCIAL, PHOTO LIBRARY
A happy ending
This attack was the straw that broke the camel's back. The prefect and
the Minister of Labor, fearing a conflagration, ordered the factory
workers to negotiate. The latter accepted in exchange for burying the
affair. They found themselves forced to make concessions as the evidence
overwhelmed them. Finally, the workers obtained all their demands: a
one-franc wage increase, payment for hours spent waiting for fish, a 50%
increase for overtime and hours after midnight. After seven weeks of
fighting, the Penn Sardins won.
Joséphine Pencalet (1886-1972), one of the Penn Sardins, was a candidate
and elected to the Douanenez municipal council during the 1925 municipal
elections... elected even though she did not have the right to vote! The
election was invalidated a few months later.
In addition to all these advances, the strike would allow another
victory, highly symbolic: the election of a woman, on May 3, 1925, as
municipal councilor for the first time in France.
What remains today of the "great strike" of the Penn sardin? First of
all, it was undeniably a strike of women - workers, what's more - even
if it was not strictly speaking a feminist strike. It was also a union
victory and an important example of the rise of Marxist ideas in France
at the beginning of the 20th century. As for the city of Douarnenez, it
remained a bastion of the PCF until 1995. On November 23, a conference
and screenings on the subject of the sardine workers were organized
there, followed by a fest-noz. There is no doubt that we will have heard
the song of the Penn Sardin, composed in 2003 by Claude Michel
(1936-2023)[2], feminist accordionist from Concarneau:
"Listen to the sound of their clogs
Here are the factory workers,
Listen to the sound of their clogs,
Here are the Penn Sardins."
Johanna (UCL Finistère)
Read the related article: Joséphine Pencalet: A Penn Sardin elected
municipal councilor
Timeline: Social achievements of women and workers in France at the
beginning of the 20th century
April 23, 1919 law setting the working time at 8 hours per day and 48
hours per week.
March 12, 1920 law extending the civil capacity of professional unions
allowing married women to join a union and participate in its
administration and management without the authorization of their husbands.
June 21, 1924 law on the codification of labor laws. The Industrial
Tribunal can authorize women to conciliate, request or defend themselves
before the court in the event of the husband's absence, inability or
refusal of authorization.
April 21, 1944 right to vote for women recognized by the ordinance of
the French Committee of National Liberation on the organization of
public powers in France.
April 29, 1945 first time that women can exercise this right during
municipal elections.
Validate
[1]The Civil Code, also known as the Napoleonic Code, institutionalizes
the legal inferiority of women in relation to men, with women having to
"obedience to their husbands" (Chapter VI. Of the respective rights and
duties of spouses, art. 213).
[2]"Claude Michel (singer-songwriter)", Wikipedia.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?1924-La-grande-greve-des-Penn-sardin
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