“…On the one hand, employers, backed by the state, aimed to re-establish the uncontested authority of the patron within a reorganized free market economy. 72 On the other, the French labour movement, both communist and non-communist, aimed to defend the social-democratic ethos of Popular Front industrial politics. On the railways both Se´mard and Jarrigion made clear that what was at stake were not individual benefits or privileged working conditions over which they were prepared to give ground, but rather the wider principle of collaboration and cheminot representation within the workplace.…”