Bernard Thibault
Bernard Thibault (born January 2, 1959 in Paris ) is a French trade union leader . From 1999 to 2013 he was general secretary of the French trade union confederation Confédération générale du travail (CGT).
Life
Thibault grew up in the greater Paris area. After the 9th grade, he left school and began an apprenticeship with the French state railways SNCF , which he completed in 1976.
His external trademark is his half-length, somewhat anachronistic mushroom head hairstyle.
Since 1987 he has been a member of the French Communist Party (PCF), which at the time was very closely associated with the CGT.
Thibault is married and has two children.
Union career
In 1977 he joined the CGT and in 1980 became Secretary of the Railway Union within the CGT ( Cheminots CGT ). In 1993 he became chairman of the CGT railway workers' union, and two years later he became the leading figure in the French strike wave of 1995 .
In 1999, at the age of forty, he was elected Secretary General (= Chairman) of the CGT umbrella organization, which he has been leading ever since. He is counted among the reform wing of the association and continued the policy of emancipation of the union from the PCF, which began in the 1990s, even against internal resistance. In 2001, he resigned from all his party offices, but without leaving the PCF. Under his leadership, the decade-long decline in membership of the trade union federation could be stopped.
Thibault found himself in a difficult situation on the occasion of the French referendum on the European Constitutional Treaty in 2005. He spoke out in favor of accepting the treaty, but was overruled in the CGT's National Committee. In the following referendum election campaign, the union campaigned for the constitutional treaty to be rejected, but Thibault remained chairman of the association.
Thibault announced early on that he would not apply for a fifth term from 2013 and took part in the search for his successor. An agreement was reached on Thierry Lepaon , who was elected as Thibault's successor on March 22, 2013 at the trade union congress in Toulouse .
Web links
- Bernard Thibault: The man who brings France to a standstill FAZ report on Thibault from April 26, 2006. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
- Portrait of Bernard Thibault union boss: "The government wants to make an example" Report in the Tagesspiegel of November 14, 2007. Accessed on March 14, 2012.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Le Point, December 11, 2009. ( Memento of the original from April 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 14, 2012
- ^ Institut Supérieur du Travail: "PC-CGT: la courroie cassée?" ( Memento of the original from May 15, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 14, 2012
- ↑ Bernard THIBAULT ( French ) In: Monsieur Biographie . Retrieved March 14, 2012.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Thibault, Bernard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French trade unionist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 2nd January 1959 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Paris |