Arlette Laguiller

Arlette Yvonne Laguiller (born 18 March 1940) is a French politician. From 1973 to 2008, she was the spokeswoman and the best known leader and presidential nominee of Lutte Ouvrière (LO), Trotskyist political party.

Arlette Laguiller
Spokespeople of Workers' Struggle
In office
1973–2008
Succeeded byNathalie Arthaud
Member of the European Parliament
In office
1999–2004
Member of the Regional council
of Île-de-France
In office
1998–2004
PresidentJean-Paul Huchon
Personal details
Born (1940-03-18) 18 March 1940
Paris, France
NationalityFrench
Political partyWorkers' Struggle

Career

Born at Les Lilas, Seine-Saint-Denis, France, Arlette joined Lutte Ouvrière in 1968, and became the leader of a 1974 bank workers' strike that began with actions of employees at Crédit Lyonnais.

She has been a frequent candidate for the French presidency, starting with the election of 1974, and continuing through those of 1981, 1988, 1995, 2002, and 2007. During most of these, Laguiller was the only female candidate. Her best result was in 2002 when she came in fifth place and received 5.72% of the vote. In December 2005, Laguiller announced that she would run for president for the sixth and final time in 2007. After finishing a distant ninth in 2007's first round of voting (487,857 votes, totaling 1.33% of the popular vote), for the first time since 1981 she endorsed the Socialist Party candidate (Ségolène Royal) for the second round. In the past, Laguiller and LO have often refrained from openly supporting the Socialist Party and taken a neutral stance in the second round.[1]

The puppet show Les Guignols de l'info frequently caricatured Laguiller as saying, "Travailleuses, travailleurs ! On vous ment, on vous spolie !" ("Female workers, male workers! You are being lied to, you are being robbed!"). Laguiller indeed did begin most of her speeches with the formula, "Travailleuses, travailleurs!".

In 1995, pop singer Alain Souchon recorded the song Arlette Laguiller, commenting that, "Her words, of course, may be a little worn-out," but praising her "peppermint-fresh" way of expressing them, and indicating that, "When Arlette sings, you feel a real sense of love." He has since lost his soft spot for Laguiller after she refused to back Jacques Chirac against Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 2002 presidential election and has stated that he won't sing the song again. Although, in 2008 Laguiller mentioned that Souchon had started singing the song again.[2]

gollark: And besides that, the APUs always lag a generation (or so) behind the notAPUs!
gollark: They also probably won't drop $/core too much as 7nm is more expensive!
gollark: They won't add more CUs, the APUs are currently limited by memory bandwidth!
gollark: LIES!
gollark: It also also says "why waste time when you can just SAVE IT".

References
  1. "French presidential election: Sarkozy and Royal to compete in second round". Asian Tribune. 2007-04-23. Retrieved 2010-09-01.
  2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_dutv1Lwk
Party political offices

#

Preceded by
None		 Workers' Struggle spokesperson
1973 - 2008		 Succeeded by
Nathalie Arthaud
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