It was not until 1884, while Waldeck-Rousseau was Minister of the Interior, that labor was given the legal right to organize. Immediately unions--called _syndicats_ by the French--sprang up everywhere. Article 3 of the act declared that these unions had for their exclusive object "the study and the promulgation of their interests, economic, industrial, commercial, and agricultural." They were not given the liberal legal powers that English and American unions have.
The social movement now invaded French politics in full battle array. A government commission was intrusted with the study of the co-operative movement. In 1885 several deputies, calling themselves Socialists, began to interpellate the ministry on the labor questions. The government brought in two proposals, one pertaining to communal and industrial organizations, the other to the arbitration of industrial disputes. Both were tabled.
In 1887 a man appeared in the Chamber ready to debate the social questions with the keenest and the ablest. This was Jean Jaurès, a professor of philosophy, whose profound knowledge and superb oratory immediately commanded attention. He was joined by another new deputy, M. Millerand, scarcely less proficient in debate, and even more extreme in his convictions. Both were considered members of the radical party. But they soon formed the nucleus of a new group, the Independent Socialists, that grew rapidly in influence and power.
The social question was forced on the public from yet another direction. The Anarchists, who had been expelled from the Havre conference, remained passive until the organization of trade unions. They then began to promulgate the doctrine of the general strike. The unionists began not only to compel their employers to accede to their demands, but to coerce workingmen to join the unions. It was during this agitation that the government established an elaborate system of labor exchanges--"Bourse du Travail."
From the labor unions the doctrine of the general strike was insinuated into Socialist circles. In 1890 it was proposed as a practical measure for enforcing the demand for an eight-hour day among the miners. In 1892 the Departmental Congress of Workingmen at Tours passed a resolution favoring the general strike, and it was discussed a few days later in a general convention of the unions, at the suggestion of Aristide Briand, a Socialist who was destined to play an important rôle in the development of the theory and practice of general strikes.