The Women Who Refused to Stay Silent: The Sardine Strike of 1924
A forgotten feminist victory on the cold docks of Brittany.
In the endless list of things I think about way too much. In November 1924, 2,000 female workers at the sardine canning factory in Douarnenez (in my native Finistère region of Brittany) engaged in an epic six-and-a-half-week struggle with their bosses. This “beautiful women’s strike” still resonates in contemporary struggles.
Unexpected and heroic
‘It was an unexpected and heroic strike’, describes Anne Crignon, journalist and author of “Une belle grève de femmes. Les Penn Sardin Douarnenez 1924” (Libertalia, July 2023). ‘They were almost certain to lose because everything told them to keep a low profile and go back to the factory after a few days,’ she says. “And yet they won.”
It all began on 21 November 1924, when around a hundred female workers at the Carnaud metalworks went on the rampage, demanding immediate pay rises. Within a few days, the movement turned into a general strike, quickly affecting all 26 factories in the area, including 21 sardine canneries in Douarnenez.
By 25 November, the police were counting more than 2,000 strikers, three quarters of them women, in this town of around 11,000 inhabitants.
‘Pemp real a vo’ (‘1.25 francs it will be!’), they demanded in Breton, between two revolutionary chants, as they paraded in clogs along the town’s quays.
In other words, an increase of 45 centimes an hour for these ‘Penn sardin’ (‘sardine heads’) who pack fish all day, sometimes into the night, singing to stay awake. They join the factory on their twelfth birthday, and often stay there until they die.
The new Communist mayor, Daniel Le Flanchec, set up the strike committee in the town hall. And the trade unionist and feminist activist Lucie Colliard joined Charles Tillon to organise the mobilisation, soup kitchens and childcare for the strikers.
From the factories to the whole of France
The movement even took on a national dimension with the launch of solidarity collections in the press. ‘All the newspapers in France began to report on the misery strike, even the right-wing papers that saw Douarnenez as a den of Bolsheviks’, says Anne Crignon.
This women’s strike was ‘something that broke with the norms of the time’, admits historian Fanny Bugnon, a lecturer at Rennes 2.
Joined by their fishermen husbands, the sardine fisherwomen march every day through the hail, snow and storms of an icy winter. But their pugnacity failed to bend the bosses, who refused to meet them.
Intransigent, the employers’ union went so far as to recruit strike-breakers in Paris. These heavyweights scoured the port’s bars to encourage workers to return to work and precipitated the end of the strike by firing a dozen shots in a Douarnenez bar on 1 January 1925. Six people were injured, including the mayor, who was left for dead.
The incident turned into a riot and helped to discredit the bosses, who had to give in: the sardinières would be paid 1 franc an hour, with extra pay for overtime and night work. ‘Victory for the workers in Douarnenez’, proclaimed the front page of the L’Humanité newspaper on 7 January, while 3,000 people celebrated the victory in the streets of the Breton port.
A century later, the songs of the Penn sardin still resound in Breton demonstrations.
And we have never missed the yearly fête de la sardine (sardine’s party).
PS. Happy ending? Not so much. A year later, Joséphine Pencalet, a key figure in the strike, was elected in the first round of municipal elections in Douarnenez, on Daniel Le Flanchec’s list, supported by the Communist Party. She was one of the first ten women elected in France. But in November 1925, the Conseil d’Etat invalidated her election on the grounds…that she was a woman. Plus ça change…
Below the key dates:
21 November 1924
Protest begins, with 100 workers at the Carnaud metalworks and 40 labourers leaving their jobs after refusing to negotiate a 20 centime pay rise.
25 November 1924
Declaration of the general strike. More than 2,000 people took to the streets, 3/4 of them women. The movement intensified with the support of Communist mayor Daniel Le Flanchec.
13 November 1924
Madame Quéro, the owner of a ‘friture’ factory, partially accepted the workers’ demands, marking the first breach in employer solidarity. She granted wage increases and recognised union activity.
15 December 1924
Mediation by Justin Godard, Minister of Labour. Despite meetings with representatives of the strikers and the factory owners, no agreement was reached, as the bosses refused any increases.
1 January 1925
Violent clashes in the ‘L’Aurore’ café provoked by 16 strikebreakers. The mayor, Daniel Le Flanchec, is seriously injured, causing a riot in Douarnenez. The factory workers, under pressure, are forced to negotiate.
6 January 1925
After 46 days on strike, an agreement is signed. The strikers obtain the same increases as those conceded by Madame Quéro, as well as recognition of trade union rights.
7 January 1925
The end of the strike is celebrated with a public holiday.
