The Limits of Self-Management ? The French Democratic Confederation of Labour and Corsican Nationalism in 1970s France

After the events of May and June 1968, France witnessed an impressive revival of regionalist demands. Galvanised by their involvement in the major social conflicts of the time, such as the struggle of the Languedoc winegrowers (1970-1976), the fight for the Larzac (1971-1981) or the Joint Français strike (1972), regionalist militants managed to spread their slogans widely and to create political organizations with a robust social anchorage. But their demands did not remain confined within the still narrow circle of regionalist militants. On the contrary, they went far beyond them and, in the 1970s, had an impact on the whole political spectrum. In particular, a number of left and far-left political organisations seemed to be very receptive to these new ideas. The best known example of this trend is the Unified Socialist Party (PSU), which produced numerous reflections on this issue, while its members became involved in regionalist struggles in Corsica, Catalonia, the Basque Country and Brittany. Beyond the political formations, the trade unions were also affected by this resurgence of autonomist movements. Among them, the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (CFDT) is traditionally considered to have been particularly in tune with these "new social movements" that developed during the 1970s, including regionalist movements. For example, it made the motto "To live and work in the region", inspired by the regionalist slogans, one of the main elements of its public communication. However, the demands of the regionalist movements did not take hold by themselves inside the CFDT. Although the self-managing and federalist perspectives of the CFDT seemed to constitute a favourable environment for autonomist ideas, regionalist activists had to work hard inside the CFDT to help them gain legitimacy. The present paper aims to analyse the impact of autonomist demands on the CFDT in the 1970s. More specifically, it will address this issue by looking at the history of the conflict which opposed at that time the Corsican members of the CFDT to its confederal authorities. The latter viewed with suspicion the central place occupied by the Corsican struggle in the activities and reflections of the Corsican CFDT. For their part, the local activists wanted to modify the internal working of the CFDT so that the specificity of their island would be taken into account. Indeed, the island had no existence of its own within the CFDT, and was forced to rely on continental structures for everything related to its representation within the CFDT's confederal bodies. Our paper will draw upon yet unexploited archival collections that are kept in Paris inside CFDT's confederal archives. They will enable us to shed light on the tensions that could exist within one of France’s main trade union center between the local and the national levels, as the CFDT tried to circumscribe regionalist aspirations in order to incorporate them in the larger framework of its self-management socialist project while autonomist activists tried to use the union as a vessel for the social and national emancipation of their people.