Bernard Thibault, born in 1959, was the secretary of the

Confédération Générale du Travail The General Confederation of Labour (french: Confédération Générale du Travail, CGT) is a national trade union center, founded in 1895 in the city of Limoges. It is the first of the five major French confederations of trade unions. It is t ...

(CGT) between 1999 and 2013, a

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with France ...

workers' union The Workers' Union was a general union based in the United Kingdom, but with some branches in other countries. During the 1910s, it was the largest general union in the UK, but it entered a rapid decline in the 1920s, and eventually became pa ...

. He represents the moderate wing of the CGT, as opposed to the more radical wing noted in

Marseilles Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fra ...

' trade union. Bernard Thibault was born on January 2, 1959, in the

6th arrondissement of Paris The 6th arrondissement of Paris (''VIe arrondissement'') is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, it is referred to as ''le sixième''. The arrondissement, called Luxembourg in a reference to the seat of ...

, from a family hailing from the

Morvan The Morvan (historically Morvand from the Latin ''Murvinnum'' 590)Pierre-Henri Billy, ''Dictionnaire des noms de lieux de la France'', éditions Errance, 640 pages, 2011 , is a mountainous massif lying just to the west of the Côte d'Or escar ...

area. At the age of 15, he entered the SNCF apprenticeship centre in

Noisy-le-Sec Noisy-le-Sec () is a commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. Population Heraldry Transport Noisy-le-Sec is served by Noisy-le-Sec station on Paris RER line E. Education Schools:

, which he left in 1976 with a qualification in general mechanics. He was then hired by the SNCF yard at Paris-la-Villette. In 1977, he joined the

Confédération générale du travail The General Confederation of Labour (french: Confédération Générale du Travail, CGT) is a national trade union center, founded in 1895 in the city of Limoges. It is the first of the five major French confederations of trade unions. It is t ...

, and was put in charge of the union's "Young workers commission". In 1980, he became secretary of the union in his train yard, and was later elected secretary of the CGT for all rail workers of the Eastern Paris railroad network. During the strikes of Fall 1986, he provided the impetus for the start of the strikes and is credited with forwarding the principle of coordinated strikes, which the unions had until then been reluctant to adopt. He promoted integrating non-unionist strikers into the decision process, which was largely left to general assemblies of workers at the local level (a practice that was repeated during the large 1995 strikes). He was at the time considered one of the main figures of the strike and a symbol of the renewal of the CGT. In 1987, he joined the

French Communist Party The French Communist Party (french: Parti communiste français, ''PCF'' ; ) is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its MEPs sit in the European Un ...

and, shortly thereafter, the CGT federal office for rail workers. In 1997, he was appointed to the confederal office. During the 46th Congress of the CGT in January–February 1999, he succeeded to Louis Viannet as the head of the confederation. He also resigned his national responsibilities in the Communist Party, to fight the idea that the unions were the force driving the party. Thanks to his comparatively young age, and to the economic recovery in France at the end of the 20th century, he managed to counter the sag in CGT members. The internal tensions in the

Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail The French Democratic Confederation of Labour (french: link=no, Confédération française démocratique du travail, CFDT) is a national trade union center, one of the five major French confederations of trade unions, led since 2012 by Laurent B ...

brought about by the Fillon retirement law prompted members to switch unions and reinforce the CGT. However, Thibault's efforts to push the CGT towards a more reformist stance, as witnessed for instance during the strikes of November 2007, was met with resistance within the leadership of the union, which for example did not give a voting directive to its members for the 2005 referendum on the European Constitution.

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See also