For several weeks, the idea of the first of May as a nonworking public holiday for all workers has been contested in France. After well over a century at the center of the international workers’ movement calendar, it took an effort by trade unions to defeat a draft law allowing bakeries, pastry shops, and independent florists to open during the holiday.Marylise Léon, head of the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (CFDT), objected to the idea “that people should always have to work more, even on the very day that symbolizes the rights won by the working world.” And Sophie Binet, the head of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), pointed out that if the law were passed, it “would make it possible to have at least 1.4 million more workers working on May 1.” The mobilization proved effective, and Sébastien Lecornu’s government did not end up introducing the bill. But the fact that it was even such a live debate in France tells us something important about the political winds in the country.The MartyrsMay 1 carries several meanings in social and political history. First and foremost, it is a nonworking day — an occasion to go on strike and participate in the labor movement’s marches and demonstrations — a sometimes-insurrectionary dimension of the day that has led to numerous repressions. In this sense, it serves as a commemoration of Chicago’s Haymarket Massacre in 1886, or five years later in France when multiple labor movement demonstrators were injured or killed in a similar episode.An engraving of the aftermath of the Fourmies massacre, published on the front page Le Petit Parisien, May 17, 1891. (E. Glair-Guyot, adapted from a photograph by M. Perron / Musée de l’Histoire vivant)In the small industrial town of Fourmies in the Nord, a worker protest was met with fierce opposition from local employers, who had announced the day before, via public notice, that “work will proceed on May Day as on any other day; any contrary…
