Bernadette Cattanéo | |
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_-_aout_1936_(cropped_2023).jpg) Cattanéo in 1936 | |
| Born | Bernadette Le Loarer (1899-02-25)25 February 1899 Brélévenez,Côtes-d'Armor, France |
| Died | 22 September 1963(1963-09-22) (aged 64) |
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| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
Bernadette Cattanéo (néeLe Loarer; 25 February 1899 – 22 September 1963) was a French trade unionist and communist activist, as well as a newspaper editor and magazine co-founder. She is remembered as the secretary general of theWorld Committee Against War and Fascism.[1] Cattanéo also held various roles of importance within theConfédération générale du travail unitaire (CGTU) and theFrench Communist Party (PCF).
Bernadette Le Loarer was born in Brélévenez,Côtes-d'Armor, 25 February 1899.[1] Her parents were Jean Marie Le Loarer, a railwayman, and Marie Ollivier, an illiterate peasant. Her family wasBreton-speaking and Catholic, but it was a teacher who awakened Cattaneo to socialist ideas. She trained as a seamstress before going to Paris in 1919 to do several odd jobs. There, she met Jean-Baptiste Cattanéo, who, like her, was a pharmacy employee.[2] They married on 10 October 1922 and had two children.
At the end of 1923, Cattanéo joined the French Communist Party,[3] with an interest in issues affecting women.[2] She was fired from her job in a pharmacy for having organized a strike with her husband and found employment as editor of the newspaperLa Nouvelle Vie Ouvrière in April 1925.[2]
After a reorganisation of the PCF, she directed its 35th department and was a member of the party's women's commission.[2] At the same time, she joined the women's commission of the CGTU, of which she was appointed secretary in 1929,[2] and joined the confederal office[3] in November 1931.[4] During this time, she was on the editorial board ofL'Ouvrière.[2] She traveled in France and Europe between 1925 and 1936 to follow the strikes organized by the CGTU.[5]
Cattanéo was also active internationally since she took part in the fourth congress ofProfintern on 5 April 1928 in the USSR, where she metJoseph Stalin.[2] She travelled there eleven times.Georgi Dimitrov made her responsible for setting up theWorld Committee of Women Against War and Fascism in 1934.[2] In this coordinated development, she was secretary of the International Women's Organisations' Joint Coordination Committee, where she represented the PCF and the CGTU[6] and associated withGabrielle Duchêne andMaria Rabaté, herself a communist leader.[7] The magazineFemmes dans l'action mondiale (Women in Global Action) was created in this connection and was managed by these three women.[8]
WhenWorld War II broke out, she opposed theMolotov–Ribbentrop Pact, left the PCF and in late 1941 moved toMoissac in France'sZone libre,[2] where she coordinated a number ofresistance initiatives.[9] She returned to Paris in June 1944 and discontinued all her political activities.[2] She nevertheless maintained contact with former communist figures such asAlbert Vassart [fr] andAngelo Tasca.[9]
Bernadette Cattanéo died inLa Penne-sur-Huveaune,Bouches-du-Rhône, 22 September 1963.[1]
Her papers are held by the Humathèque, on theCondorcet Campus.[10][11]
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