Georges Marchais - Early Life

Early Life

Born into a Roman Catholic family, he became a mechanic, just before the beginning of WWII, with the Société Nationale d'Étude et de Construction de Moteurs d'Aviation. After the fall of France, he appears to have enrolled in Nazi Germany to work in the Messerschmitt aircraft manufacturing plant, as he left for Germany before the establishment of the STO system, by which French workers were compelled to work in German plants.

In 1946, he became secretary of the metalworkers' trade union in Issy-les-Moulineaux, and advanced in the Confédération générale du travail in his commune from 1951, becoming secretary of the Seine Metallurgical Workers' Union Federation from 1953 to 1956.

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