“Mom, I will come back late, right after the demonstration against the Vietnam war! Can you make sure I have something to eat when I return?”
And we all thought the parents were there just to provide for us!
I was born in a privileged family! I guess my mother did whatever she could to bring me up according to the specific standards of the French « high society » although we were not even « above average ».
May of 1968 was not very far behind and it was time for me to forget about the holidays in Switzerland, summers on the French Riviera, Easter by the Brittany coast.!
We were all young anarchists, future Trotskyites, former members of the Communist Youth, pot smokers for some, all of us in need of a clear identity which none had yet found.
In reality, all of us were simply young idiots going through a rebellious phase against parental and state authority as well.
(First contact with the "working world" : the Citroën car plant in Paris late sixties before destruction and replacement by a leasure park)
We all wanted “something else” without knowing what. In the aftermath of May 1968 and the student unrest, some of us had left Paris to go the French area of Larzac, convinced that the future was in manufacturing goat cheese, some others had escaped society on their way to Kathmandu. A small bunch of “soixante-huitard” (1) decided that talking about the working class would require gaining experience as a factory worker This clearly meant that we had to gain personal experience if we pretended to be credible.
Far away from other educational consideration such as registering for university, some of us elected to leave their comfortable life, and work on an assembly-line in an industrial production environment.
It is 4:45 AM. I switch off the alarm clock. The folks are still asleep. Coffee in the kitchen. Walking to the door across the Persian rugs, I think about my choice as an assembly-line worker. Quickly, I don my safety shoes and after a seven minutes’ walk I am standing by countertop of Zeyer, a reputable café on Place d’Alésia, whose history goes back to the late 19th century.
(Citroën ID 19 or DC 19 cars readied to be transporter to destination)
“Léon, get me a glass of white wine, but If you have only rose wine, it will also do…Huhhh…. why don’t you give me both after all?”
The factory worker drinking wine at 5:00 AM is a colleague of mine. Both of us are working at CITROEN, in the Parisian factory located on Quai de Javel in the 15th arrondissement (2). We don’t know each other but both of us catch the same bus number 62 dropping us a few hundred yards away from the factory’s main entrance.
The big clock over the counter is ticking. He drinks his wine, I drink my coffee and together we jump in the bus. By the time we cross the train tracks going west, both of us are already asleep. The bus has stopped several times to pick up its load of early workers, most of them going to the same factory. Clock-in time is 6:00 sharp and late comers will be subjected to financial penalty. Working on an assembly-line manufacturing the famous ID 19 and DS 20 Citroen, I just cannot be late!
( Chez Gégéne....A famous "guinguette" for the working class of the 30's....still in activity)
Upper management has eyes everywhere, especially around the main entrance on Rue de Javel! On the line, cars are moving inch by inch and same gestures take place all day long exactly like in the Charlie Chaplin movie “Modern Times”. Tightening a nut, checking a lock on a trunk, how many times a day? Four thousand, five thousand? Going for a pee? Want to smoke a cigarette? You need to ask the team-leader for permission.
If he is in a good mood, he will assign a co-worker to replace you for a few minutes. Sometimes, getting behind may require the help of an “ infirmier de chaîne”(3) and it will cost you a couple of cigarettes if he is a smoker or a couple of beers at the staff canteen.
(André Citroën : from "double chevron" gears to car manufacturing....a generous genius, alumni of the Polytechnical School. He died in 1935)
In the late 60’s, the working week is of 40 hours, five days in a row. During your eight hours, there will be only one thought in your head: thinking about the end of the shift, leaving the plant, catching the bus back home. It will not be Paulette Goddard waiting for me in front of the factory at 3:00PM, it will be Eve-Marie, a young nursing student. She will come from Meudon, not very far away, to spend the rest of the day with a sweaty and smelly automobile worker. She will be proud of me, I will be proud of me! Today, like yesterday, I have learned just a bit more about class-struggle, the old industrial conflict mentioned by Karl Marx!
(Demonstrating in Paris . 1968 . Less than a year after, I tried the line at Citroën...)
I wanted to try myself at being a line worker? I Have got my plate full. Turks, Moroccans, Algerians, people from Mali, Senegal, or other African nations, they do not make any difference. We work together, sweat together, smell alike under the glass skylights of the building. We eat together at the staff canteen; Besides the colour of the skin, we are all in the same boat.
They stink? I stink!
Thousand arms doing the same gesture as ID 19 and DS 20 are getting produced using the energies of three shifts of eight hours each. No one talks about Vladimir Ulyanov AKA Lenin! No one dares mentioning Marx, especially during the couple of daily breaks.
At CITROEN, there is a « company » union by the name of CFT (4). Belonging to CFT can help your career but will certainly cut you off from your buddies on the line who belong usually either to CGT (5) or other major unions. No one talks about the « class-struggle ». Be careful: « enemy ears » may be listening to your conversations. Pay attention to whom you are talking to: he can be a scab, a blackleg, a knob stick trying to get information on an upcoming conflict.
(Near the end....plant is being dismantled)
Every now and then, I start thinking about the « guinguettes » (7) along the river Marne, east of Paris and can imagine myself taking Eve-Marie there for an end-of-the-day moment drinking wine and looking at the fishermen. At the staff canteen, one can buy beer or wine and drink without any kind of control. For some, drinking red wine is a sign of good health. « Wine is like blood » have I heard so many times « if you drink red wine, It will give you enough strength to do your work on the line ».
The hours go by, the end of shift is getting nearer! Locker rooms, smell, dust, and the end-of-shift siren! The flow of workers rushing towards the main exit is incredible. It is a mass exile! The new shift will access the factory through a different entrance as not to create « pedestrian jam » In front of the factory, union representatives give fliers that no one will read right away by fear of being observed! * During peak hours, bus number 62 runs every 7 Minutes! I Just need 6 to get to the bus stop!
I can already see myself getting back to my folk’s apartment in the clean environment of a bourgeois family. The brutal reality of the industrial world is slowly getting at me. I had no idea it was that bad. Even if a part of my heart is close to the working class, I already know that I do not belong there, that my hands are not and will never be those of an authentic workman. I am privileged as I never had to choose between misery and poverty!
(Starting the day at 5:30 AM , coffee or white wine at " Zeyer" ?
Workers of all lands, unite! but for the time being, I am sitting in a bus chugging up the Rue d’Alesia. Pensioners, mothers with their kids just picked-up after a day at school, workmen from CITROEN, the bus is packed and my eyelids are getting heavy.
This morning in the same bus, there were only three of us!
Getting back to Rue Alphonse Daudet! Passing in front of the baker’s and buy a “ ficelle” (6), what a pleasure this is going to be!
Tomorrow morning, at 4:45, I will not need my alarm clock and it will the first lie-in in a long period of time. Tomorrow, there will be no body odors, ni vibrations, no sweat, no noise. Tomorrow there will be no coffee at Zeyer’s, no bus N°62
Today, CITROËN just fired my ass !
© 2017 Sylvain Ubersfeld for Paris-Memoires
(1) Soixante-huitard : someone who has participated one way or another to the May 1968 unrest in France (especially in Paris) or who supported/supports the ideas developed during that period. (2) An arrondissement is like an administrative “section” of the town. There are 20 arrondissement in Paris, each of them with several “quartiers” (quarters) The Javel CITROEN plant was the biggest industrial building in Paris “intra-muros” and in the 30s, 30.000 workmen manufactured various model of CITROEN cars. (3) Infirmier de chaîne ( Line “nursing” operator) At Citroen,”infirmiers de chaîne” were posted on the different sections of the assembly line to help workmen who were “ behind” for some reason or other. When one would realise one was behind schedule with a particular task, one would scream :” Infirmier de Chaîne”, and the miracle-man would come and help you getting back in swing… (4) CFT : Confederation Française du Travail . A Management backed union extremely active at CITROEN in my days. Joining CFT would help you to get housing or have you kids cared better by CITROEN. (5) CGT: the mainly communist backed union at the center of all working class struggles for many years, until recently replaced by CFDT. The CGT was historically tied to the communist party in France. CGT means Confederation Generale du Travail. (6) Ficelle : about 1/3 of a standard Baguette. Very thin, very pleasant to eat on the way back home. It is also great when you are having breakfast in a café ! Ficelle should be a part of the World Heritage List (7) Guinguettes were popular cabarets located along the Marne river , close to Paris. Guinguettes were ( and still are) definately a part of the cultural and social heritage transmitted through the memory of "formers" workmen as well as through movies and book from the 1890/1970 era