Federation of state education

Origins and operation

It is constituted with the Libération by transformation of the old general federation of teaching (FGE), created in 1929 in the CGT of Leon Jouhaux (to which its main component, SNI was affiliated since 1920).

The choice of autonomy: Bonissel-Valière motion

In 1947, at the time of the scission of the CGT which gave rise to CGT-FO, the FEN refused to choose between the two confederations and settled in autonomy while transposing to the federation Bonnissel-Valière motion of the congress of the SNI which fixed the framework of operation for forty years. Rene Bonissel was a figure of foreground of the SNI and in addition perceived like the spiritual sons of Georges Lapierre (general secretary of the clandestine SNI, died in deportation like his successor Joseph Rollo. Marcel Valière was the person in charge of the tendency émancipée École, general secretary of the unit federation of teaching CGTU of 1935 with the reunification of the CGT.

Bonissel-Valière motion rested on the principle of the representation proportional on the basis of texts of orientation. The FEN applied it for the part of its administrative commission corresponding to the share of the departmental sections, the national unions transposing the internal weight their tendencies in their own delegations. On the other hand, was reaffirmed, against the position of the militants said then members of the C.G.T. the principle of a homogeneous executive taken in the majority tendency whatever it is.

Autonomous militants of the majority (among which one found socialist) and militants of the École Emancipée indeed refused to join FO to maintain the unit of the federation. The militants of the tendency near at the time of the communist (which will become Unité and Action in the Sixties) preached the affiliation in CGT, but did not leave FEN except for a trade union of technical education, the SNET " apprentissage" (the other SNET, known as " SNET-écoles" approving autonomy).

The autonomous militants largely majority, are supported on the SNI, which gathers 75% of manpower then, and control the majority of the other trade unions like SNES (until 1967). The FEN however had admitted the affiliation with in an individual capacity with one or the other of the confederations (CGT or FO), provided that it is not structured as parallel national unions and that it does not give parallel watchwords. The Communist militants thus made live a FEN-CGT until 1954 when a decision of the political office of the PCF invited the teachers members of the party to concentrate all their activity in the SNI. Some militants close to autonomous, primarily of the second degree (Paul Ruff) constituted a FO tendency, but agglomerated in the majority as of the Fifties.

On the other hand, in 1957, the FEN was the motive fluid of the initiative For a plain and democratic trade union movement (PUMSUD), with militants of CGT (Pastre) and of FO who remained marginalized in their organization. It is Denis Forestier (general secretary of the SNI and future chair MGEN) who had implied himself in the PUMSUD. But the experiment turned short to the beginning of the year sixty.

National unions and of the currents of thought (tendencies)

The FEN, right from the start, was structured by the national unions (the project of the School émancipée to create a federation of industry was very minority) and was organized in departmental sections. Since 1948, it was agreed that the representation planned for the departmental sections in the administrative commission of the FEN (monthly deliberative organization) would allow the representation of the currents of thought.

the number of trade unions varied according to the periods (of a score with nearly fifty). the main trade unions were:

the National union of the teachers (SNI), become SNI-PEGC in 1976 and Trade union of the teachers in 1992;
the National union of secondary educations (SNES) which had amalgamated with the National union of the modern colleges in 1949 and the National union of technical education (known as SNET-schools with the Release) ;

the trade union Administration and Intendance (A&I), result in 1994 of the fusion of the SNAU (national union of the university administration) and of the SNIEN (national union of the intendance of State education);
the Trade union of the agents of State education (SNAEN);
the National union of higher education (SNESup);
the National union of the technical personnel of higher education (SNPTES), present in the universities and at CNRS;
the National union of physical education (SNEP).
the National union of autonomous technical education action (SNETAA), which gathered the teaching personnel of the training colleges, become then colleges of technical education (THIS), then colleges of vocational training (LEP) and currently vocational schools (LP).
the Trade union of the male nurse (E) S and teachers of health (Snies)

the three principal tendencies existing since 1945 were:

Unit Independence and Democracy (UID), majority, famous near to the socialist (see the following section) ;
Unit and Action (U&A), a long time called member of the C.G.T. and within which found the militants close to the PCF, but not only (found themselves there socialist militants or not politically affiliated);
School Emancipée (EE), near to the Extreme left.

Two additional tendencies transfer the day after May 1968:

School émancipée for the working single face (EE-FUO), corresponding to a scission in the émancipée School which gathered the militants close to the OCI of the time become later on left the workers (Pt). In 1983-1984, the majority of these militants joined Working force, to start with their person in charge Jean-Jacques Marie, aggregate of letters known in addition to be an eminent specialist in the trotskisme ;
trade-union Restoration (RS) which gathered militants of the PSU claiming self-management. A certain number of these militants contributed to the reinforcement of SGEN - CFDT with the beginning of the year seventy. The tendency RS, while being maintained sometimes in some trade unions, disappeared in fact of the national federal landscape at the end of the Seventies.

At the end of the Eighties, majority of the SNETAA, hitherto UID but in conflict with the remainder of the federal majority since 1987, and interdict to use initials UID in 1990, created its own tendency (Otherwise).

The FEN, its tendencies and left parties

A fast assimilation led to give a homogeneous political coloring to the tendencies:

socialist for UID ( autonomous majority in 1948)
communist for U&A ( members of the C.G.T. in 1948)
extreme-left for the ÉÉ (with its various currents).

It is however advisable to stress that the most committed militants (thus often most committed also politically) were not all adherent or sympathizers of a party. It is true also that, at times when the left parties and of extreme-left did not dialog, even clashed violently, the FEN made cohabit in its center all the militant pallet of left and extreme-left.

If all the Communist militants found themselves in the tendency Unité and Action - and not ailleurs -, the tendency could count among its representatives of the militants not inserted or pertaining to the socialist party, and, in its center, with the majority tendency. It was the case of former militants of the Convention of the republican institutions, the political movement of François Mitterrand before the socialist reunification Congrès of Épinay, 1971) like Louis Mexandeau. Jean Small, person in charge teaching of SNES also belonged to the PS.

Admittedly, at the time when the double affiliation was possible (adhesion with a trade union of the FEN and the CGT or Working force, it is well a decision of the political office of the Communist party, immediately applied, which brought “ communist teachers to concentrate their activity within SNI ”, but what was still possible in 1954 or 1956 (support, with the national congress of the FEN, the Soviet intervention in Budapest), became more difficult then, in particular after the conquest of the SNES when Unité & Action (1967) and, especially, the weakening of the French Communist party itself of which deviated a certain number of militants Unité & Action without giving up their orientation of tendency.

the émancipée School was it even older than the FEN or the FGE which had preceded it. The FGE was creates in 1929 and its trade union of teachers (the SNI) in 1920. The émancipée School had been creates in 1910 like body of the federation of the members of the state education affiliated in the CGT of before 1914 and, like it, of inspiration anarchist-trade unionist. If the political militants of extreme-left militant with the FEN found themselves there spontaneously, it drained also younger, more combative militants… and was sometimes a seedbed of autonomous militants like Robert Chéramy or Louis-Paul Tonturier.

As for the Socialists - that one found in the various currents of thought of the FEN -, they were rather the spokesperson of their trade union in their party that the reverse. The Algerian crisis, and singularly the attitude of the government of Guy Mollet had resulted besides in the abandonment of any political activity for number of them, even the passage to the autonomous Socialist party, become a little later founded PSU, in rupture with the SFIO, by Edouard Depreux and Alain Savary, hostile with the war of Algeria. This attachment with trade-union independence had led tendency UID besides to refuse, in 1972, to engage the FEN as such in the common program of government PCF-PS-Radicals of left, against the opinion of the tendency Unité and Action.

The teaching fortress

An undeniable weight

The FEN obtains a massive rate of unionization from approximately 70%. Coupled with the progression of manpower, the FEN is reinforced, while at the same time the working trade unionism is declining, asserting more 500 000 members, that is to say more than CGC or the CFTC, and can-ême even Working force. In the Sixties and seventies, she even rather often plays a part of bridge between the confederations.

It is in it obtains government of the time (letter of the Prime Minister of then, Jacques Chirac) an official recognition like central trade-union in fact .

The creation of works mutualists, co-operatives and of associations

In parallel, the FEN and the SNI establish or are active in many additional organizations: Mutual S, Co-operative S, Bank… like MGEN, MAE, CAMIF, CASDEN - Banque Populaire, which brew considerable sums. The militants of the FEN are also active in extra-curricular associations: League of teaching, Youth with the Outdoor, etc supported the development of FCPE for the parents of pupils. Linked, the FEN is an economic actor and trade-union impossible to circumvent.

In 1948, the very recent creation of the MGEN (decision of the congress of the SNI of 1946) had weighed heavy in the choice of the maintenance of the unit by autonomy.

External competition

The trade unions of the FEN could be disputed by catégoriels trade unions (like the National union of the colleges created in 1960) or, at the personnel not-teachers, by confederated trade unions (primarily CGT which, a long time, had one teaching trade union: that of professional technical education).

In the Seventies however, SGEN - CFDT was posed like an alternate but very minority organization in the first degree, more present in the second degree, while benefitting from the innovative image which had then CFDT and of innovating teaching orientations.

In 1984, they are the militants of the tendency EE-FUO (to which the persons in charge were close to the party of the workers of Pierre Lambert) which joins or constitutes trade unions of teachers within Working force. As from this moment, if the trade unions of the FEN remain very strongly majority, one cannot speak any more about hegemony and the organic concept of unit is some consequently reached.

To that the weight of the desyndicalisation is added, even if the trade unions of the FEN, proportionally speaking, are much touched than the working power stations. But this phenomenon feels when appear, in the Eighties of the coordinations which catch on the wrong foot the trade-union directions, whatever their orientation, which will be sensitive until November - December 1995.

The college, object of divergences in the FEN since always

To the Release, the SNES, which belonged like all the trade unions until 1967 in the majority federal, was opposed to the Langevin-Walloon plan and reaffirmed his attachment with the traditional model of secondary education, while the complementary courses, structures administratively attached to the first degree and functioning with teachers selected in the teachers, developed.

The question was more strongly still posed as from 1959. The complementary courses left the place with colleges of mainstream education (CEG) dedicated to disappear and to colleges from secondary education (THESE) where three dies of orientation cohabited (as of 6th), die I only being intended (except exception) to provide the future pupils of long secondary mainstream education. These three dies were respectively taken of loads by teachers of the traditional secondary (certified, incorporated -- but also auxiliary teachers) for die I, with the professors of college of mainstream education become PEGC (professors of mainstream education of college) for die II, with teachers specialized for what one called way III (sometimes practical classes or classes of transition).

In 1969, “to break the SNI”, the government of the time had created the academic bodies of PEGC (professors of mainstream education of college) with a specific recruitment. It is this same claim which had led friendly professors of CEG (ANPCC -- ex-friendly main road of the complementary professors of course) to transform itself into National union of the colleges (SNC) in 1969. It is SNCL - FAEN of today.

Syndicalement, the PEGC continued to raise of the field of unionization of SNI (become SNI-PEGC in 1976). In 1975, the model of THESE had left the place to the single college instituted by the law Haby. The disappearance of the dies justified the coexistence of different bodies with difficulty. The specialized teachers of way III were gradually integrated among the PEGC and, durably, the power struggle between the personnel of the type “ second long degree; ” and the PEGC were of type half-half . With the trade-union influence rose a bearing debate on the design pédagogique : the SNES, and the teachers of second degree with him, denounced the risks of primarisation college and the threats on the disciplines of teaching, insofar as the PEGC constituted a possible outlet for the teachers and where their official recruitment did not expect that one year of DEUG and two years in training center, in the measurement also where they are bivalent or trivalent teachers on broader fields (letters/history-geography; letters/living language; maths/physical sciences, for example). Conversely, the majority of the SNI disputed the rupture in 6th, the passage of a single teacher with ten narrowly specialized teachers. And the same ones consider as the intransigent refusal of the SNES to touch in-depth with the college is a source of the current difficulties.

The situation worsened after 1967, when the tendency Unité and Action became majority with the SNES then, in the tread, conquered the SNEP (physical education) and the SNPEN (professors of the teacher training schools teachers, recruited among certified and incorporated). The SNES disputed the questioning of architecture of the second degree (so much so that it very violently fought the creation of the professional baccalaureats in 1984, even if it asserted the rise in the qualification level by a widening of the access to the existing baccalaureats, general or technological).

Rise of the internal conflicts

The weight growing of the SNES and Unit and Action

From 1945 to 1967, except for SNESup, the trade unions of teachers belonged in the majority federal. In the Seventies, the opposition between tendencies doubled of an opposition between teachers of the type second long degree and other teachers. The SNI-PEGC and the SNETAA (teaching of the vocational schools) belonged indeed in the majority federal. At the end of the Eighties, the majority of the SNETAA separates from the federal majority and creates her characteristic running of thought (Otherwise) whose influence hardly exceeds the SNETAA.

However the numerical reinforcement of secondary education by the lengthening and the massification of the schooling in second cyle, combined with the increasing secondarisation of the personnel of college (in 1987, Rene Monory, Minister for Education, decides to stop the recruitment of the PEGC), objectively reinforce U&A which can consider, in the long term, to conquer the FEN.

As of the Eighties, the climate interns is strongly degraded. On the one hand, the minority militants show the majority to prepare a trade-union recombining which would gather a block reformist made up of CFDT, FEN and autonomous labor unions belonging to the Group of ten (of which a part, but a part only, will take part in 1993 in the creation of the UNSA, in a context where the scission of the FEN is however already an accomplished fact and not a consequence). In addition, the majority militants denounce the constitution de facto of a FEN (a) around the trade unions with direction Unité & Action (SNES, SNEP, SNESup, SNETAP (agricultural training public : the trade union of Michel Deschamps who will be the first general secretary of FSU)) and of a block of thirty departmental sections of the SNI-PEGC with direction Unit & Action - a FEN (a) making its own decisions, adopting its own watchwords and defending its own positions.

Nolens volens (that it or not is wanted), the tendencies are not any more of the currents of thought supporting the expression of the ideas as in 1948, they became, of share and others, fractions.

The scission of 1992 and its consequences

Cleavages become increasingly strong, in particular with the congress of Clermont-Ferrand (1991) which sees to be opposed two blocks. The federal majority, arithmetically threatened, is determined to engage an internal reorganization with its advantage (trade union of the teachers). The stake results in the ousting of Yannick Simbron, general secretary of the FEN, considered to be wait and see, and its replacement, four months after its re-election, by Guy Néouannic.

In April 1992, a national federal council of the FEN, on the Commission Report of the conflicts makes a report of not-affiliation (in fact, of exclusion) of the SNES and SNEP. The justice, seized by these two trade unions, imposes only one confirmation by a congress what will be made in Creteil in October 1992.

In the interval, SNI - PEGC became (June 1992) Syndicat of the Teachers (SE-FEN), by occupying, in the federation, the free field left by the disappearance of the SNES and the SNEP (on this occasion, it is joined by the SNEEPS and of the militants resulting from the SNES, the SNETAA and the SNEP).

The SNES, the SNEP, the majority of the other trade unions with direction U&A, militants U&A of the SNI-PEGC and the majority of émancipée the École militants (those of Alp-of-High-Provence remain with the SE) will found the FSU, after the creation of a trade union of the first degree, the SNUipp. The SNETAA belongs to the founders of FSU, but leaves it in 2001.

This block lost the legal battle which it had engaged, but it gains that of the professional elections of 1993, then the following ones. FSU clearly precedes the FEN and in 1996, if the Syndicat of the teachers reaches the joint committee of certified, it is preceded by SNUipp in the teachers and professors of the schools. The fall of the FEN, become UNSA Education in 2000, is stopped only with the professional elections of 2005 : the ex-FEN then positions like the second federation of the sector.

Conclusion: with UNSA, a return to integration in an interprofessional structure

With leaving the scission, the FEN sees its influence very strongly reduced. On the other hand, since 1993, it succeeds partially, but it makes a success of the operation of regrouping of autonomous labor unions (confederations remaining each one on their pre square) with the creation of the UNSA (National union of the autonomous labor unions) of interprofessional nature. The UNSA, which accounted for only 0,71% of the votes to the conciliation board elections of 1997, reached more than 5% of the voices in 2002. A contrario , the audience in the private one of the ex- Group of ten passed from 0,31% to 1,5% and the CFE-CGC obtains passed, it, from 5,85% to 7% of the votes.

One can consider, not juridically but in the facts, especially as from 1998 (congress of Issy-les-Moulineaux of UNSA marking the entry of many militants of the private sector) that the history of historical FEN is completed and that starts, on the field of unionization which was it his, history of a UNSA Éducation, just like the general Federation of the teaching of pre-war period was other thing which the FEN which continued it.

Appendices

Files: The files of the FEN were deposited with the Center of the files of the work world to Roubaix.

General secretaries of the FEN

Their trade union of origin is mentioned thus that the evolution of the trade-union affiliation if it intervened during the mandate.

1945-1956 : Adrien Lavergne . SNCM (national union of the modern colleges higher elementary schools, then SNES after fusion SNES-SNCM of 1949.
1956-1966: Georges Lauré . SNET (national union of technical education, then SNES after fusion SNES-SNET of 1966).
1966-1974 : James Marangé (SNI).
1974-1981 : Andre Henry (SNI, then SNI-PEGC as from 1976).
1981-1987 : Jacques Pommatau (SNI-PEGC).
1987-1991 : Yannick Simbron (SNI-PEGC).
1991-1997 : Guy Néouannic (SNI-PEGC).
1997-2000-2002 : Red-headed Jean-Paul (Administration and Intendance). Jean-Paul Roux remained general secretary of the federation under his new denomination of UNSA Éducation of 2000 to 2002.

Two general secretaries of the FEN resigned because of internal tensions within the majority: Georges Lauré (around the question of the political weight of the SNI in the federation) and Yannick Simbron, constrained with the resignation during the time having followed the congress of Clermont-Ferrand. André Henry resigned of the general secretary of the FEN in May 1981 when it agreed to become Minister for the spare Time in the first government Mauroy made up after the election with the presidency of the Republic of François Mitterrand. Adrien Lavergne, James Marangé, Jacques Pommatau, Guy Néouannic and Jean-Paul Roux ceased exerting their function when they took their administrative retirement in accordance with the explicit or tacit trade-union rule applied in the trade unions of the FEN.

Adrien Lavergne and Georges Lauré had been general secretaries of their trade union of origin (the not written rule was then to choose it neither with the SNI, nor with the SNES which, at the time, included/understood technical education). James Marangé, Andre Henry, Jacques Pommatau, Yannick Simbron were, before exercising their mandate, members of the national secretariat of the SNI or the SNI-PEGC. Guy Néouannic had not never had national responsibilities in his trade union for origin, but was national secretary of the FEN since 1975 when it had a long time the responsibility for the sector right and freedoms, teaching out of France (it had exerted itself before in French establishments abroad).

Red-headed Jean-Paul, resulting from the personnel of intendance, is the first general secretary of the FEN resulting from a trade union of personnel ATOSS. Elected at the national office of its trade union of origin, he was assistant general secretary (1977-1982). He had been departmental secretary of section FEN of the VAr (1974-1980) and had assumed the responsibility for the sector " revendications" FEN (and thus the important file public office ) of 1983 to 1997. From 1998 to 2001, Jean-Paul Roux also cumulated his functions with those of general secretary of UNSA Fonctionnaires.

Except Guy Néouannic, the general secretaries of the FEN had before exerted responsibilities with the national secretariat for their trade union for origin, in particular as general secretary (Lavergne, Lauré) or assistant general secretary (Jean-Paul Roux).

External bonds

Official site of UNSA Education (ex-FEN)
exhaustive Bibliography on the FEN
Historical libertarian
Bonissel-Valière Motion of the FEN (1948)

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