Georges Marchais

Biography

Born in a catholic family, Georges Marchais becomes mechanic fitter in the aircraft industry (Snecma) right before the German invasion of May 1940.

At Messerschmitt: polemics and uncertainties

It leaves to work in Germany in December 1940, at Messerschmitt with Augsburg. In 1970, Charles Tillon will show Georges Marchais to be carried voluntary, the first German requisitions of labor having begun only in 1942. Its biographer Thomas Hoffnung estimates that there is not any proof, and that he was rather transferred beyond the rhine, within the framework of the requisition of the workers of the aircraft industry by the Nazi Germany. Moreover, two legal decisions, making following a complaint of Georges Marchais against her detractors, establish that Georges Marchais left well for Germany under the constraint.

According to the thesis most usually allowed, at that time, Georges Marchais, was not any manifest political aware. It was held indeed completely in-outside events of the Popular front, general strike of the November 30th 1938 and Résistance. It appears indeed among the first workmen transferred in Germany, at one time former to the development of the Resistance officialized after the war and to the creation of the Maquis, and forever asserted to have belonged there.

Uncertainty also remains on the date of its return in France. He will claim to have benefitted from a permission in June 1943 to hide and not to set out again (frequent case at the time), but will be quite unable to specify the places where he sheltered. No administrative trace nor no testimony show its presence in France before April-May 1945. Always according to Thomas Hoffnung, Marchais was resigned to set out again in Germany after its permission, and did not return to France that to the fall of 3rd Reich, among thousands of anonymous French.

Career within the Communist party

In 1946, he is secretary of the trade union of metals of Issy-les-Moulineaux. Secretary of the inter-union center CGT in the same commune in 1951, secretary of the Federation of European and International Public Service Unions of workers of the metallurgy of the the Seine of 1953 with 1956.

Member of the French Communist party (PCF) since 1947, Georges Marchais begins as of this time a career which propels it rather quickly and durably towards the tops of the party, without never on the occasion to take part nor to expose itself at the time of the events founders of the communist epic former to 1945.

In 1956, Marchais is temporary member of the Central committee of PCF and secretary of the Federation of the Seine-South, then in 1959 member of the central committee and the political office. Starting from 1961, he is secretary with the organization then assistant general secretary in 1970.

In 1968, it is opposed to the strike coed and attacks Daniel Cohn-Bendit, which it describes as “German anarchist”. It keeps silence in public at the time of the Printemps of Prague.

It will be, in the name of the Communist party, co-signatory of the common Programme of government with the PS and the Radical lefts in June 1972.

General secretary of one PCF to the starter of the decline

In December 1972, he becomes general secretary of PCF, succeeding Waldeck Rochet, which resigns for health reasons. Appointed elected official of the district of the the Valley-of-Marne in March 1973 then of the 11^ème (Arcueil-Cachan-Villejuif) starting from the boundary changes of 1986, it will be regularly re-elected with each poll until in 1997.

Its arrival with the head of PCF coincides with the apogee of the power of the Soviet Union and the beginning of its decline: in 1974, the Portuguese leave the Africa to leave the place to modes pro-Soviet, in 1975, the Americans are driven out Vietnam where the Russian settle in their place; the cardinal Agostino Casaroli and the pope Paul VI regard then as irresistible the seizure of the Soviet Union on Europe and seek to approach some. 1979 is the year of the fall of the Shah of Iran and the come to power of the Sandinistes to the Nicaragua, but it is also the beginning of the invasion and the Soviet vexations of Afghanistan.

Georges Marchais, who knew to collect the confidence of the parties “brothers”, is then best with same to drain information on carried out Soviets and political trainings and trade-union which they finance in the Mediterranean countries and in Turkey, as well as the identity of the Afghan emissary of the Khalk and the Parcham (collaborator of the Russians) in France.

In 1974, at the time of the congress of the party, well in its role, it evokes the “overall positive assessment in the USSR”, which causes a sharp polemic in France. Two years later, the party will give up any reference to the Soviet model, with the Dictatorship of the proletariat, to adopt theses close to those of the Italian Communist party, in the line of the “euro Communism”.

Chief candidate of PCF to the European elections of 1979, it is elected appointed European and until in 1989 will remain it. Publicly, it supports the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan of the December 26th and 27th 1979.

Communist candidate with the presidential election 1981, it obtains 15,34% of the voices. This result confirms the decline of its party to the profit of the socialist party.

PCF with the government, decline

With the election of François Mitterrand, PCF enters to the government. Mitterrand entrusts four ministries to him to make it interdependent of its government action. In spite of the characterized anticommunism of the US president Reagan, this one preserves with France the same relations as under the predecessor of François Mitterrand, knowing that it does not have anything to fear of Georges Marchais.

Its participation in the government, which removes its role of party protestor to him, makes still lose voices the dissatisfied ones in PCF, phenomenon which will still worsen with the dissolution of the the USSR in 1991.

Invited Apostrophes in May 1990, Georges Marchais estimates that PCF “was Stalinist” and has not been it any more “for 15 years” (either since 1975).

Short retirement

In 1994, at the time of the congress of PCF, it yields its seat of general secretary to Robert Hue but remains regular member of the political office (famous national office). The same year, he becomes president of the committee of PCF for the defense of freedoms and human rights in France and in the world. In June 1995, it attends the first rank with funerals of his friend Robert-Andre Vivien chaired by Jacques Chirac. Georges Marchais dies on November 16th, 1997 at the hospital Lariboisière, following an mild heart attack.

It is buried with the sound of Bitches Brew of Miles Davis to the cemetery of Champigny (94), city where it lived near his Liliane wife and of her children.

Portrait

Of a high stature, with an outstanding aspect and a particular elocution when he made speeches, Georges Marchais made the joy of the caricaturists and the chansonniers of any hair, in particular of Thierry the Lad but more especially Pierre Douglas. It was also distinguished, during its televised appearances, by distorsions with the Grammaire and the Syntaxe (" All and sundry which is here… " " I give you which is my opinion … "). One-to-one, it was expressed with a completely natural tone, in an academic syntax and a vocabulary precise and adapted without relationship with those which its imitateurs lent to him, which would tend to indicate that its " for lack of français" could be voluntary, or although its tone " naturel" from politician and his tone of private man differed without he wanting it, which often meets in the speakers.

During the televised interviews, it had habit of désarçonner the journalists by its distributed unexpected, the fact of answering only the questions which were appropriate to him, of diverting the conversation, etc… In documentary the Georges cathodic the , realized by Yvan Jeuland, the Elkabbach journalists and Duhamel, as certain former collaborators of Went, reconsider its relationship with the TV. They insist on its “direction of the spectacle” and its particular diction, estimating that Marchais made thus to dissociate others; the figures of audiences which resulted from this were, according to them, excellent revealing of its impact.

Works

the Communists and the Peasants , (1972)
the democratic challenge , (1973), editions Grasset
the policy of PCF , (1974)
Communist and/or Christian , (1977)
Let us speak frankly, (1977)
Réponses , (1977)
the hope at the present , (1980)
Démocratie , (1990)

Quotations

celebrates It sentence “Conceal you Elkabbach” was actually never pronounced by Georges Marchais, but by a imitator.
the sentence " I said to my wife: 'Liliane, pack the bags, one returns in Paris'" is on the other hand authentic, it pronounced it during a television program, reporting its amazement following a televised statement of François Mitterrand, whereas the Marchais couple was on vacation in Corsica.
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “It was not my question”; Georges Marchais: “It was p' small fireclay cup not vot' question, yes but it is my answer! ”
" But it is a scandal Mr Barre".

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