Skip to main content
Gifts from The Morning Star
A revolutionary imperative
MARY ADOSSIDES looks back at why and how the French Communist Party came into being a century ago
ON THE STREETS: PCF demonstration in Paris [Chmee2 / Creative Commons]

JUST over 100 years ago in 1920 on Christmas Day in Tours, delegates to the SFIO (French Section of the Workers International, the left wing of the Socialist Party) filled the Loire city’s indoor riding academy and opened the way to the foundation of the French Communist Party (PCF).

Eighteen years previously, in 1902, the French Socialist Party (PSF) was founded when Jean Jaures, an independent socialist politician, was eventually elected its leader.

Jaures, founder of the socialist daily l’Humanite, always opposed war and fought for a unified socialist movement.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
A NOBLE AND VIBRANT TRADITION: The 2024 London May Day march
Features / 17 April 2025
17 April 2025

Join the traditional march from Clerkenwell Green, which will bring together countless international workers’ organisations in a statement against the far right

An aerial view of Willesden Trades and Labour Hall
Features / 20 September 2022
20 September 2022
MARY ADOSSIDES reports that there’s an uncertain future for the Willesden Trades and Labour Hall, where speakers and performers over the years have included Sylvia Pankhurst and Bob Marley, and which formed a base for the legendary Grunwick strikers
A banner reading
Features / 16 June 2022
16 June 2022
Next Sunday we will know if France will take a new political direction with Jean-Luc Melenchon as prime minister, writes MARY ADOSSIDES
British Gas workers outside the headquarters of Centrica in
Features / 15 January 2022
15 January 2022
Amid a general upsurge in organised workers fighting back, we need to build a specific campaign against this shameful ruling-class tactic, writes MARY ADOSSIDES
Similar stories
Ho declaration webpic.jpg
Features / 30 April 2025
30 April 2025

KYRIL WHITTAKER looks at what guides Vietnam 50 years after reunification
 

CELEBRATING RED CHINA:
China 75 celebrations held by the
Com
Features / 30 September 2024
30 September 2024
As the People's Republic turns 75, ROBERT GRIFFITHS details how British communists championed Chinese sovereignty against imperialism, weathering the political storms of the Sino-Soviet split and collapse of the USSR to rebuild relations for the modern era
Demonstrators outside the Amba Hotel at Marble Arch, London,
Features / 10 September 2024
10 September 2024
TONY COLLINS looks at the evidence he has uncovered in his research on our early labour movement of deep and hostile police infiltration that ruined lives in the last century
Civil Rights March on Washington, DC (L to R) Charlton Hesto
Opinion / 30 July 2024
30 July 2024
JENNY FARRELL traces the critical role that the CPUSA played in the education of Harlem’s greatest man of letters