Confederación Nacional del Trabajo

Confederación Nacional del Trabajo

The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo is a Spanish confederation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions affiliated with the International Workers Association . When working with the latter group it is also known as CNT-AIT...

, Buenaventura Durruti

Buenaventura Durruti

José Buenaventura Durruti Dumange was a central figure of Spanish anarchism during the period leading up to and including the Spanish Civil War.-Early life:...

, Gregorio Jover and Francisco Ascaso

Francisco Ascaso

Francisco Ascaso Abadía was a prominent Anarcho-syndicalist figure in Spain.A baker and waiter, Ascaso joined the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo and one of its armed groups, Los Justicieros...

, who were sought by Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

 and Spain. They were accused of having plotted an attack on Alfonso XIII of Spain

Alfonso XIII of Spain

Alfonso XIII was King of Spain from 1886 until 1931. His mother, Maria Christina of Austria, was appointed regent during his minority...

 who had announced he was to visit France. They were arrested in France for carrying banned weapons. Lecoin established a committee on the right to asylum and took control of the Ligue des droits de l'homme. The three men were never extradited.

The second struggle was in support of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, executed

Capital punishment

Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...

 in the United States of America on 23 August 1927. Shortly thereafter Lecoin snuck into a meeting of the American Legion

American Legion

The American Legion is a mutual-aid organization of veterans of the United States armed forces chartered by the United States Congress. It was founded to benefit those veterans who served during a wartime period as defined by Congress...

. Despite being followed by the police, he managed to enter disguised as a soldier. Finding a seat in the middle of the meeting, when the president spoke, Lecoin got up and repeated three times "Long live Sacco and Vanzetti". He was then arrested.

After the declaration of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Lecoin penned a tract entitled "Paix immédiate". Because of this he was sent to prison until 1943.

After the war, Lecoin founded the committee to support Garry Davis

Garry Davis

Garry Davis is a peace activist who created the first World Passport.-Early life:Davis was the son of Meyer and Hilda Davis. He was graduated from the Episcopal Academy in 1940 and attended the Carnegie Institute of Technology...

 in introducing a worldwide citizenship

World Passport

The World Passport is a document issued by the World Service Authority, a non-profit organization founded by Garry Davis in 1948, citing Article 13, Section 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.-Appearance and issuance fees:...

. In 1958 Lecoin launched his campaign to create a law

Law

Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

 for conscientious objectors. Albert Camus

Albert Camus

Albert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...

 participated actively although he did not live to see its conclusion. The government was refusing to keep its promise of 1 June 1961, so Lecoin began a hunger strike

Hunger strike

A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not...

, despite being 74 years old. The strike met with initial indifference, but after a few days, Lecoin received important support from the press, particularly from Henri Jeanson

Henri Jeanson

Henri Jeanson, was a French writer and journalist. He was a "satrap" in the "College of Pataphysics".- As a journalist before World War II :...

 of the Canard enchaîné; Jeanson seized the attention of the intellectual class with a resounding "Holà ! Les Grandes Gueules ! Laisserez-vous mourir Louis Lecoin ?" (Hey big-mouths, are you going to let Lecoin die?). Lecoin was sent to hospital by force. On the 21st day, prime minister

Prime minister

A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...

 Georges Pompidou

Georges Pompidou

Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou was a French politician. He was Prime Minister of France from 1962 to 1968, holding the longest tenure in this position, and later President of the French Republic from 1969 until his death in 1974.-Biography:...

 sent him a promise that a legislative bill was about to be submitted to the Parlement. It was not until the next day that Lecoin broke his fast. In August 1963, with the bill still not voted into law, Lecoin threatened to recommence his hunger strike. The government yielded, the law was promulgated on 23 December 1963 and all objectors were freed.

Lecoin was proposed for the Nobel Peace Prize

Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...

 of 1964 but he demanded that his name be retracted in order to give Martin Luther King a better chance.

Quotes

• Si un bon révolutionnaire doit demeurer insensible à la souffrance qu'il voit ou devine, je suis un mauvais révolutionnaire car ce n'est pas moi qui souhaiterai jamais que les régimes abhorrés accumulent plus d'horreurs pour pouvoir rassembler plus d'arguments contre eux.

(If a good revolutionary ought to remain insensitive to the suffering which he sees or guesses, I am a bad revolutionary, for I will never be the one who hopes that abhorrent regimes will add to their horrors so that more arguments may be ranged against them.)

• Je pense fermement qu'un homme peut et doit se refuser à en assassiner d'autres ... Je suis logique avec mes idées et reste d'accord avec mon cœur qui souffre au spectacle de ces laideurs et avec ma conscience qui s'indigne que des individus accumulent tant de misères.

(I firmly believe that a man can and must refuse to assassinate other men. My ideas are logical and accord with my heart, which suffers at the sight of this ugliness, and with the indignation of my conscience that individuals should pile on so many miseries).

• Alors que tenter pour que la vie devienne moins sale s’il nous faut désespérer d’améliorer les hommes ? Que tenter pour que la paix coule de source sur notre terre desséchée par les guerres et les innombrables conneries de ses habitants?

Tout!

Pour la paix, c’est très simple : rendre les hommes pacifistes même malgré eux. Les empêcher d’entrer en guerre en supprimant auparavant leurs armées et leurs armements.

(So what should we try in order to make life less filthy, if we are compelled to give up on improving men? What should we try, so that peace springs up to water our earth dried out by war and the countless stupidities of its inhabitants? Everything! As for peace, it's very simple.. make men pacifists in spite of themselves. Prevent them from going to war by suppressing arms and armaments from the beginning.) Liberté, 1 February 1970

• Holà! Les Grandes Gueules! Faites vous entendre. Il faut sauver Lecoin. Il faut sauver l'homme!

(Hey, big-mouths, listen up. We have to save Lecoin. We have to save the man!) - Henri Jeanson, Le Canard enchaîné, 13 June 1962

External links

• Louis Lecoin on Increvables anarchistes (French)