French General Confederation of Labour (CGT)

The French General Confederation of Labour (CGT) is presented as a workers’ union whose local history is carried by its members and by Luc Grandemange’s decades of activism. At Luc’s funeral, its members’ presence makes visible both the solidarity he helped sustain and the industrial past being mourned; the portrait also complicates that legacy by tracing Luc’s later turn toward anti-immigrant politics.

Presence at Luc Grandemange’s Funeral

At the back of the funeral gathering, CGT members stand apart from the more formally dressed mourners, sharing an air of aloofness and refusing to dress up. Their presence places organized labor among the communities that knew Luc, alongside family, neighbors, former workmates, drinking companions, local officials, and business owners. The congregation includes Muslim coworkers from Luc’s past as well as union loyalists who are uncomfortable inside the church. They are not presented as a single uniform group, but their attendance links the ceremony to a working-class history extending beyond the immediate family.

Luc Grandemange’s Union Career

Luc had paid his first union dues in 1963 and went on to serve as a union representative, workers’ delegate, officer at large, and secretary. He became a recognizable figure during the major strikes at Metalor steelworks, although the account does not describe him as a leading negotiator or an ideological authority. His contribution was more social than strategic: he could loosen the mood, encourage people who were wavering, and keep coworkers connected through a difficult struggle. His importance lay partly in the bonds he helped maintain, not simply in formal office or political doctrine.

Solidarity as a Local Practice

Luc’s union work is remembered as a collective practice shaped by ordinary gestures as well as official roles. His jokes could delay a meeting and were not always funny, but his easygoing manner helped people stay together. The mourners’ discomfort reflects the loss of more than an individual colleague: with Luc, a piece of the valley’s shared labor history is also being laid to rest. The union appears through this local, personal account rather than through an institutional description of its national structure or policies.

A Complicated Political Legacy

The account does not treat Luc’s union history as proof that his later politics remained inclusive. Over time, his involvement and conviviality took a chauvinistic turn: he came to frame the problems facing workers in terms of immigrants and to blame newcomers for unemployment. This is presented as Luc’s own development, not as an official position of the CGT. The distinction matters: a figure who had helped workers maintain solidarity could also adopt a politics that narrowed the community he believed he was defending.

Union Memory amid Changing Work

The CGT’s presence at Luc’s funeral gains further weight against the novel’s depiction of work after the steelworks’ decline. Patrick’s Districan route is monitored through a scanner that records visits to vending machines, information the company uses to measure pace and downtime; his dispute over wearing the company cap becomes another point of supervision. Hacine, employed temporarily by Solodia Industrial Cleanup Company to demolish neglected worker housing, must learn to pace his labor around a schedule set by others. These jobs are not shown as CGT campaigns, but they contrast with the older workplace solidarity associated with Luc and the strikes at Metalor steelworks. The union’s narrative significance lies in this contrast between a remembered culture of shared struggle and a later landscape of monitored, fragmented employment.