Saint-Brieuc, 10th March 1972. Workers at the Joint français factory voted for an indefinite strike. The factory in the Côtes d’Armor, which produced rubber components for various industry sectors, employed a specialised workforce made up of more than 60% women. “The aim was to disrupt the normal routine,” recalls Julia Le Louarn, who worked at Joint français at the time. “We organised walkouts, including at night. Then a general strike was called, and everyone joined in.”
The Joint français strike triggered a nationwide wave of solidarity and became a landmark event in the region’s history. A decade later in the 1980s, another major struggle emerged in Plogoff (Finistère), when local residents mobilised against plans to build a nuclear power station. A public consultation process gave those who objected an opportunity to make their case in the media. Women played a leading role in the campaign, including the town’s mayor, Amélie Kerloc’h. They organised night-time operations to block access to the town centre and confronted the gendarmes deployed to maintain order. Thousands more protesters came to lend them a helping hand, and ultimately they succeeded in preventing the project from going ahead.
Before the French Revolution
Women have been making their voices heard for centuries. Even before the French Revolution in 1767, women working in the Poullaouen galena mines (Finistère) went on strike to demand higher wages. The dispute lasted six weeks and ended in victory for the workers. According to historian Vincent Daumas, it may be “the first specifically female strike known to history”.
Later, in the factories, these movements became more frequent. In 1917, women employed at the gunpowder factory in Pont-de-Buis (Finistère) walked out in protest against long working hours and lower wages than those paid to male workers. After the First World War, female workers in the fish processsing factories of Douarnenez (Finistère), known as les sardinières, also took collective action. Following several weeks of strikes in 1925, they won a pay rise.
A Forgotten History
But the role of women has nevertheless often remained in the background. At Joint français, although women made up the majority of the workforce, it was men who spoke to the media and became the public faces of the movement. Likewise, few people today remember the struggle at the Chantelle lingerie factory in Saint-Herblain (Loire-Atlantique), where female workers detained their employer and voted for an indefinite strike in 1981. A similar pattern can be seen in the fishing port of Lorient (Morbihan). While the dockers’ strikes attracted widespread media attention, the campaign led by female fish processing workers for equal status with their male counterparts has largely faded from public memory.
In 1985, Franco-Swiss filmmaker Carole Roussopoulos (1945–2009) documented their fight in Les Travailleuses de la mer. The film was screened in Lorient in 2025, likely for the first time. Many of the women featured in the documentary, most of them trade union activists, attended the screening. Four decades after filming, they remained proud of the struggle they had waged.
Translated by Tilly O'Neill
