Marcel Paul

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Marcel Paul (July 12, 1900—November 11, 1982) was a French trade unionist and communist politician.

General Secretary of an electricity workers' branch inside the Confédération Générale du Travail, he joined the French Communist Party (PCF) in 1927, and became close to Maurice Thorez - without breaking his link to the unions.

Drafted during the Phony War, he was taken prisoner by the Germans, but managed to escape and fled to Brittany - where he established links with the PCF and its regional leader Auguste Havez. Paul joined Havez to form a branch of the party that aimed to integrate the Resistance; in November 1940, he returned to Paris and led an insurgent Organisation Spéciale (OS, "Special Organization [of the PCF]"), while creating connections with the trade unions.

arrested on November 13, 1941 and tortured by Prefecture of Police Special Brigadesmen in the police station of Saint-Denis. Held in Fontevraud-l'Abbaye and transferred to Blois and delivered to the Germans - he was taken to Compiègne, and subsequently deported to Auschwitz, then Buchenwald. He was part of the insurrection of the camp in April, 1945. Notably, Marcel Paul also helped save the life of many inmates, including the industrialist Marcel Dassault (who later became an important financial backer of the PCF newspaper L'Humanité).

After the liberation of France, he became Minister of Industrial Production in the interim government of the Charles de Gaulle. He voted for nationalization of electricity and gas on April 8, 1946, creating Électricité de France and Gaz de France.

He was deputy leader of the PCF in Haute-Vienne in the Second Constituent National Assembly, then in the French National Assembly from 1945 to 1948, when he resigned. Paul was on the Central Committee of the PCF from 1945 to 1964.