page_title: Bourse du Travail
section_title: Birth in the Third Republic
hierarchical_section_title: Bourse du Travail / History / Birth in the Third Republic
caption_attribution_description: English: La Bourse du Travail - describes how a Labour Exchange would work
context_page_description: The Bourse du Travail, a French form of the labour council, were working class organizations that encouraged mutual aid, education, and self-organization amongst their members in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
context_section_description: The idea of French labour exchanges far predates the institution.  In 1790, at the height of the French Revolution, an abortive Bourse du Travail was established in Paris. The loi Le Chapelier of 1791 outlawed this and any other labour organisation, and despite the brief legalisation during the Second Republic, unions remained illegal until 1884. Adolphe Leullier presented in 1845 a similar project which he called the  Bureau central des ouvriers.
  The idea of creating a Labour Exchange (Bourse du travail) is credited to the economist Gustave de Molinari in 1845.
  In February 1851 François Joseph Ducoux submitted a bill to the Legislative Assembly that proposed to establish a state-run Labour Exchange in Paris.
  His project was also submitted to the Paris Municipal Commission.
  The project was abandoned, but later revived in 1875 and 1883 and eventually came into force in 1886.
  In 1875, workers petitioned the Paris municipal council to establish a Bourse du Travail, which was rejected. Labour organisations had existed underground or by other names, but their new status led to an explosion of radical activity. The French Revolutionary tradition was evolving into the economic sphere of union organising, rather than the seizure of power (exemplified by Auguste Blanqui).
  The first Bourse du Travail, in Paris, was begun in 1887. A building on rue JJ Rousseau was donated by the Socialist municipal council, and a second on rue du Château d’eau was created in 1892. By this time there were 14 Bourses du Travail established around France, by 1902 83, with a further 75 created by 1914.
caption: La Bourse du Travail Ducoux (1851)
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