Bernadette Cattanéo

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Bernadette Cattanéo
A smiling woman with glasses in a patterned dress with a dark belt sitting in front of a wood door and some shelving.
Cattanéo, 1936
Born
Bernadette Le Loarer

February 25, 1899
Brélévenez, Côtes-d'Armor, France
DiedSeptember 22, 1963
La Penne-sur-Huveaune, Bouches-du-Rhône, France
Occupations
  • Trade unionist
  • communist activist
  • newspaper editor
  • magazine co-founder
Spouse
Jean-Baptiste Cattanéo
​
​
(m. 1922)​
Children2

Bernadette Cattanéo (née Le Loarer; February 25, 1899 – September 22, 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 the World Committee Against War and Fascism.[1] Cattanéo also held various roles of importance within the Confédération générale du travail unitaire (CGTU) and the French Communist Party (PCF).

Early life[edit]

Bernadette Le Loarer was born in Brélévenez, Côtes-d'Armor, February 25, 1899. [1] Her parents were Jean Marie Le Loarer, a railwayman, and Marie Ollivier, an illiterate peasant. Her family was Breton-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 October 10, 1922 and had two children.

Career[edit]

Bernadette Cattanéo, Luce Langevin, Wanda Landy, Margarita Nelken, and Maria Rabaté (l-r) celebrating the victory of the Popular Front in Spain in 1936, under the auspices of the Women's Committee

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 newspaper La Nouvelle Vie Ouvrière in April 1925.[2]

After a reorganization 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 of L'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 of Profintern on April 5, 1928 in the USSR where she met Joseph Stalin.[2] She traveled there eleven times. Georgi Dimitrov made her responsible for setting up the World Committee of Women Against War and Fascism in 1934.[2] In this coordinated development, she was secretary of the International Women's Organizations' Joint Coordination Committee, where she represented the PCF and the CGTU[6] and associated with Gabrielle Duchêne and Maria Rabaté, herself a communist leader.[7] The magazine Femmes dans l'action mondiale (Women in Global Action) was created in this connection and was managed by these three women.[8]

When World War II broke out, she opposed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, left the PCF and in late 1941 moved to Moissac in France's Zone libre,[2] where she coordinated a number of resistance 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 as Albert Vassart [fr] and Angelo Tasca.[9]

Death and legacy[edit]

Bernadette Cattanéo died in La Penne-sur-Huveaune, Bouches-du-Rhône, September 22, 1963.[1]

Her papers are held by the Grand Équipement Documentaire, on the Condorcet Campus.[10][11]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c "Fonds Bernadette Cattanéo". FranceArchives (in French). Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lemarquis, René; Pennetier, Claude (2 December 2017). "CATTANÉO Bernadette (née LE LOARER Marie, Bernadette)". maitron.fr/ (in French). Maitron/Editions de l'Atelier. Retrieved 9 January 2023.
  3. ^ a b Violence, Guerre, Révolution: L'exemple Communiste (in French). L'AGE D'HOMME. 2004. ISBN 978-2-8251-1942-6. OCLC 1107010227.
  4. ^ "Fonds Bernadette Cattanéo". FranceArchives (in French). Retrieved 9 January 2023.
  5. ^ "Cartes postales du fonds Bernadette Cattanéo. Projet : Correspondances militantes". transcrire.huma-num.fr (in French). Retrieved 9 January 2023.
  6. ^ León y Barella, Alicia; Vaccaro, Rossana (March 2017). "Construire/Déconstruire/Reconstruire la mémoire de Bernadette Cattanéo". Genre de l'archive. Constitution et transmission des mémoires militantes (in French). CODHOS Editions. p. 46.
  7. ^ FEMINISMES ET NAZISME (in French). Odile Jacob. 2004. p. 153. ISBN 978-2-7381-7114-6. OCLC 1350415309.
  8. ^ Les Communistes Et la Lutte Pour la Paix (in French). L'AGE D'HOMME. 1988. pp. 89–. ISBN 978-2-8251-3406-1.
  9. ^ a b Pudal, Bernard; Pennetier, Claude (2 March 2017). Le souffle d'octobre 1917 (in French). Ivry-sur-Seine: éditions de l'Atelier. ISBN 9782708245198.
  10. ^ "Calames". www.calames.abes.fr (in French). Retrieved 8 January 2023.
  11. ^ Rouvrais, Alexandre. "Humathèque Condorcet". Campus Condorcet (in French). Retrieved 8 January 2023.
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