page_title: Christophe Thivrier
section_title: Deputy 1889–95
hierarchical_section_title: Christophe Thivrier / Deputy 1889–95
caption_attribution_description: "L'expulsion de Thivrier à la Chambre".
context_page_description: Christophe Thivrier was a French politician of working class origins who was the first Socialist mayor in France, and deputy of Allier from 1889 to 1895. At this time the industrialists of France were using dismissals and other forms of repression in an attempt to stamp out socialism, and workers were responding with strikes. Thivrier was uncompromising in his socialist principles, and was known as the "deputé en blouse" for wearing his blue worker's smock in the Assembly to the outrage of the bourgeois members.
context_section_description: Thivrier was elected deputy of Allier on 6 October 1889. In his election manifesto he denounced the oppression and misery of the workers, and proposed social measures such as social support for the old and disabled, responsibility of company owners for workplace accidents, and a direct tax on wealth and income. At the request of the Commentry Socialists he continued to wear his blue worker's blouse (smock) in the Chamber as a symbol of the protest of the proletariat against the privileges of the capitalists, and a symbol of their hope of emancipation. He had campaigned as a Boulangist, but joined the Workers' Party (POF) after being elected. Friedrich Engels saw the elections as a success, counting Eugène Baudin, Thivrier and Félix Lachize as Marxists, and considering that Gustave Paul Cluseret and Ernest Ferroul were "bound to cast in their lot with the first three." However, Baudin, Lachize and Cluseret were never active in the POF, and Thivrier and Ferroul joined the POF after the election.
  In 1890 a strike broke out in Commentry due to the dismissal of 300 miners chosen from the most active socialists. Thivrier spoke out against the interventions and provocations of the army and gendarmerie in support of the mining company. Thivrier was a delegate of the French Workers' Party at the Congress of Lille and Calais (1890) and at the International Congress of Brussels. He was soon criticized by his party for his sympathy with the Blanquist Central Revolutionary Committee (CRC). His relationship with Jean Dormoy and the Montluçon socialists became strained. At the 1892 National Guesdist Congress in Marseille Thivrier raised violent controversy by defending the general strike. He resigned from the party soon after and led most of the Commentry socialist organizations into membership of the CRC.
  On 1 May 1893 the government ordered closure of the Labor Exchange (Bourse du Travail). There was a protest, and just after Édouard Vaillant had addressed the crowd the police charged the demonstrators. Thuvrier joined with Eugène Baudin, Jean-Baptiste Dumay and Alexandre Millerand in protesting to the government. Thivrier was reelected on 3 September 1893, holding office until 8 August 1895. In 1893 Henri Ghesquière, a Guesdist leader, reported in La Socialiste Troyen that when Thivrier entered the Assembly wearing his worker's blouse (smock) he was greeted by an uproar among the bourgeois leaders. Ghesquière commented that, "... a clean blue smock has every right to be worn in the Assembly, as does a frock, because if clothes do not make the man, neither does the frock make the legislator."
  Thivrier's program in the 1893 elections included an 8-hour day and one day of rest per week, protection and education for children, equal pay for men and women, participation of workers in developing shop rules, nationalization of the banks and railways and operation of state factories by the workers. On 27 January 1894 Thivrier was temporarily excluded from the Assembly for having shouted "Long live the Commune!" during a debate on attacks on personal liberty. He was invited by President Charles Dupuy to explain himself from the tribune. He said that unlike the Auvergne deputy [Dupuy] he fully believed what he said. The session was suspended for half an hour and he was forcibly expelled. When the session was resumed Édouard Vaillant took up Thivrier's defense with a glowing eulogy of the Paris Commune.
  Thivrier resigned from his seat in the departmental council in 1890 to make way for one of his friends, was reelected in 1892 but was defeated in 1895. He died on 8 August 1895 in Commentry after a short illness. He was given a large funeral by the people of Commentry. The main street in Commentry carries his name.
caption: A rendition of Thivrier's expulsion, with the socialist leaders ranged behind him
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