Pierre Morain

Pierre Morain (12 April 1930 – 27 May 2013) was a building worker, a trades unionist, a militant libertarian communist and an anti-colonialist activist. For most purposes he would be considered a Frenchman. However, when he faced trial in connection with a newspaper article he had written opposing the government position in respect of the Algerian War, the president of the court noticed that his nineteen co-defendants were all Algerian and felt it necessary to clarify Morain's nationality: "But you .. are nevertheless French". Morain's defiant clarification is often requoted when Pierre Morain is discussed: "No, I'm not French. I'm a worker". When he was arrested on 29 May 1955 (or 29 June 1955: sources differ) Morain became the first French anti-colonialist activist to be sent to prison for supporting Algerian independence. Pierre Morain was born at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, a short distance down-river from Paris. Robert Morain, his father, worked for the government in an administrative capacity. Suzanne Courtois, his mother, worked as a typist. In 1947 Pierre Morain started working as a tiler for a small building company based at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. At some stage, probably quite early on, he joined the "Building Workers' Union" ("Syndicat Unique du bâtiment" / SUB). In 1949 he started working in the workers' cooperative, "Le Carrelage à Vanves" which had been founded back in 1936 by the Communist Party ("Parti communiste français" / PCF) and the CGT (trades union). Becoming unemployed, he joined the PCF and CGT. The German Federal Republic (West Germany) was relaunched in May 1949 through a coming together of three of the four military occupation zones into which the country had been divided after the war. Allied armies remained in the country, however, though by now the principal perceived risk came from the fraternal forces across the new "iron curtain", occupying what had been identified till October 1949 as the Soviet occupation zone.