The Birth of the Weekend and the Revolts against Work: The Workers of the Paris Region during the Popular Front (1936-38)

Abstract

The Popular Front period in France has often been described by both Left and Right as a revolution manquee, a missed opportunity for the working class to take control of the means of production. When workers occupied and staged sit-down strikes in the factories during May and June, 1936, commentators of various political persuasions believed that the workers were on the road to revolution. Yet despite an unprecedented one million workers occupying factories all over France, the bourgeoisie managed to retain its ownership of the means of production. Instead of making revolution during the governments of the Popular Front, the workers demanded-and received-paid vacations and the forty-hour week. In the midst of the greatest economic depression that capitalism has ever known, France gave birth to the weekend. In the face of high unemployment and the increasing threat of war, French workers fought for their forty-hour week with Saturday and Sunday off. Thus the Popular Front was not only an alliance of unions and left political parties to prevent fascism in France, but it was also the birthplace of mass tourism and leisure. The demand for a social revolution in which the workers take over and develop the means of production was superseded by numerous struggles against work. This article will examine the revolts against work, and it will explain in detail