The Union of French Women during the Trente Glorieuses: Between “social mothering”, women’s rights and Communism

;Le developpement apres 1945 de l’Union des femmes francaises (UFF), nee durant la Resistance, correspond a la volonte du PCF de regrouper dans une organisation de masse des femmes de milieux populaires autour de revendications concretes. Sans nier le role de courroie de transmission des positions du PCF qu’a joue l’UFF, l’article veut, a travers l’activite de l’association, saisir qui sont les adherentes, ainsi que les modalites militantes et les terrains d’action qui leur sont proposes. L’objectif de l’UFF est de faire des problemes quotidiens un vecteur de politisation, via des interventions apparentees a une maternite sociale. Mais d’autres thematiques sont egalement exploitees (comme la paix, le soutien aux greves, les droits des femmes), le decalage entre adherentes et militantes creant parfois des situations paradoxales (par exemple sur l’apprehension du travail des femmes).;After 1945, the development of the Union of French Women (Union des femmes francaises, UFF), founded during the Resistance, corresponded to the French Communist Party’s determination to bring working class women together in a large-scale organisation with clear political demands. This paper, without denying the role that the UFF played in conveying the French Communist Party’s positions, endeavours to describe its members, activist methods and fields of action by focusing on its activities. The UFF’s objective was to make daily problems into means for politicisation, through social mothering-like activities. Yet other themes were also used (e.g. peace, supporting strikes, women’s rights), and the divergence between members and activist leaders sometimes led to contradictory situations (e.g. divergences on the views of women working in the labour force).