Therefore the CFDT which will open the ball

The establishment of the Trade Union Confederation International is an international event first of course. But it is also a franco-français event. Of course, the pluralism prevailing in the hexagon does not disappear a magic wand. D' qu' en, Confédération, des difficile imaginer qu' France Aujourd'hui to d' qu' en, Confédération, des Difficile imaginer qu' France aujourd'hui as in en, Confédération, des Difficile imaginer qu' France, Confederation of difficult imaginer qu' France imagine that qu' France France today's as the International Confederation go do so Tuesday. There is and it will still continue at least for a time five representative national trade union organizations. But if the small GSC, focused on coaching, will stay out of the CSI, the four general confederations, CFDT, CFTC, FO and CGT, will meet for the first time together in a global organization.

Already in 1999, the CGT had joined the CFTC, CFDT and Force working in the European Confederation of trade unions, but French plants were going to order dispersed in the world today. Force ouvrière and the CFDT are the first since its creation in 1949, the second since 1989, the International Confederation of free trade unions (ICFTU), six times more powerful as the number of members that the World Confederation of labour, including the CFTC is member.

Twenty years of empowerment

The CGT, she is now more nowhere. If its the agri-food Federation obstinately to participate in the World Federation of trade unions, the Central followed by all other federations left in 1994 this organization involving the unions of Communist affiliation under the cup of Moscow and is today moribund. It is therefore for the Confederation of Bernard Thibault rupture is symbolically the highest. But the troops were prepared to this evolution was reintroduced without waves at its last Congress in last April. ' have il different to il was to enter the ICFTU, which the anticom-

munisme was one of the cements founding and which was dominated by Americans to the AFL-CIO, with weight in the new international will be diluted and particularly weakened by a recent split.

So far, membership of the CGT to the ITUC, alongside seven other organizations currently unaffiliated well mark the culmination of twenty years of empowerment to the Communist Party in particular and the policy in General, committed by Louis Viannet and continued by Bernard Thibault. Note that this empowerment to the policy is one of the salient features of the creation of the ITUC, who signs the approximation of the three historical currents of trade unionism, the ICFTU, the WCL Christian current social democratic current, and the Communist current with unions like the CGT. It is one of the reasons for the reluctance of the creation of the new International Labour Force.

A game of musical chairs

Central Jean-Claude Mailly should not fight to get to sit in the instance of strengthened management of the ITUC, its Executive Board of 25 members. Nevertheless that a game of musical chairs is preparing. The CGT, who obviously wants to treat his arrival had Ortega to enter right now in the Executive Office of the CSI, like the CFDT. The two unions that are insured to enter the General Council of the International Confederation among the 75 members full (for 360 unions), FO and CFTC that obtaining positions of substitutes, began agreed on the principle of alternating in the Executive Office of 25 members.

François Chérèque Central, which has currently sit in the equivalent instance of the ICFTU, was not enthusiastic about the idea of this gift to the CGT. The latter not did a casus belli. Therefore, the CFDT which will open the ball. It will require abandoning its position to the European Trade Union Confederation Executive Committee at its Congress in May 2007. Whether to replace to the these. This could be... FO, although the latter has ceased in recent years point to his disagreements with the direction of the these. But this might have to cede his place in the international Office of labour in 2008, for example to the CGT. A seat currently occupied by the predecessor of Jean-Claude Mailly FO: Marc Blondel... Therefore, everything is not settled.