Benoît Frachon
Benoît Frachon (13 May 1893 – 1 August 1975) was a French metalworker and trade union leader who was one of the leaders of the French Communist Party (Parti communiste français, PCF) and of the French Resistance during World War II (1939–45). He was Secretary-General of the Confédération générale du travail (CGT) from 1945 to 1967. 1893–1914: Early years Benoît Frachon was born on 13 May 1893 in Le Chambon-Feugerolles, Loire, the third of five children in a working-class family. Le Chambon-Feugerolles was a mining and industrial town in the Loire coal basin. His father was a miner who died of uremia at the age of 51. Benoît received a Certificate of Primary Education in July 1904. He went on to secondary school in Chambon-Feugerolles, but dropped out two years later. At the age of thirteen he became apprenticed to a former metal worker, who taught him the basic skills. When Frachon's father died he obtained work with a manufacturer of bolts and other hardware. He joined the union in 1909. He joined a strike at his factory in January 1910 that soon spread to all the metal works in the Loire. He lost his job due to another strike