Mobilised but Not Unionised? An Analysis of the Relationship between Youth and Trade Unionism in France

French young people are massively present in social movements. However they are surprisingly less likely to join trade unions than older people and are even less likely to be active members (Béroud, 2004; Becquet, 2014). According to a number of experts, this paradox is relatively recent and suggests that trade unions are no longer the best vehicle to represent young people’s interests (Muxel, 2001). Different reasons are cited: individualism of the younger generations; the distrust towards organisations that appear too centralised; inadequate modes of trade union actions; and the uncertainty caused by job insecurity. Reading the literature of the past decades, however, we can see that the theme of youth disaffection towards trade unions is as old as the trade unions themselves and is recurrent (Leroy, 1913; Andrieux and Lignon, 1960; Mouriaux et al., 1974; Linhart and Malan, 1988). From the 1960s it became a part of a broader reflexion on the evolution of the blue-collar working class and culminated in the recent idea that this class was disappearing. In an ethnographic study conducted around the Peugeot plant in the Sochaux–Montbéliard region, Beaud and Pialoux (1999) showed how secondary education takes working-class children away from their original milieu. At the same time, some studies indicated that trade union membership was higher amongst the highest qualified workforce (Amossé and Pignoni, 2006).