Arthur Dallidet

Arthur Dallidet (12 October 1906 – 30 May 1942) was a French metal worker, Communist and trade union leader in the Renault factories, who became a leader of the French Resistance during World War II (1939–45).

Dallidet was born into a working-class family, left school early and worked as a fitter, moving from job to job.

While in his twenties he began to organize trade union cells.

He joined the French Communist Party and was noticed by the leaders, who sent him for education to Moscow and then assigned him to assist the Cadre Commission, which checked the loyalty of party members.

Dallidet was an orthodox party member, and supported the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.

Arthur Dallidet was born on 12 October 1906 in Nantes, Loire-Inférieure, son of a fitter who had worked for sixteen years at the Chantiers de la Loire shipyard in Nantes.

His mother worked in a cannery in Saint-Sébastien-sur-Loire.

Both parents supported the French Communist Party (PCF, Parti communiste français).

He left school in 1919, when he was thirteen.

His headmaster found him a place as an apprentice designer with a company in Nantes, but he did not like office life and left in July 1921.

He became an apprentice boilermaker at the Chantiers de la Loire, staying there until July 1924.

Dallidet worked at the Batignolles factory in Nantes from 1924 to 1926.

He joined a cycling club, and was wounded in the leg and the face in a cycling accident.

For this reason he was not required to perform military service.

He moved to Paris in April 1928 and was hired by the Renault factory at Boulogne-Billancourt the next day,

He was fired after less than two months after a fight.

He worked for the next two years in a series of jobs with Citroën, Gallois in Meudon, Farman and again with Renault.

None of these jobs lasted long.

On 9 April 1929 he married a childhood sweetheart, Juliette Parisot.

She died on 12 December 1929 five days after giving birth to a daughter, who was looked after by her sister in Nantes.

Dallidet had to work hard to pay maintenance for his child.

In July 1930 Dallidet joined the Sulzer company in Saint-Denis.

During this period he became involved in militant activity after having managed to join the Jeunesses communistes (JC, Communist Youth) on his third application, and the French Communist Party on his second application in May 1932.

Dallidet wrote in 1933 that "I was brought up to hate the curé, the flic and the army."

He later married again in 1933, to Enta Klugaite a Lithuanian communist and shorthand typist, it appears to have been also a marriage of convenience but they live together some years.

In 1933 he became secretary of his cell at Sulzer, and of a union section with twenty members.

Due to his militancy Dallidet was fired from Sulzer on 8 June 1933.

He found work with other companies, using a false name.

On 9 February 1934 he marched in a procession of Renault workers, and climbed a lamppost to speak to them.

He was arrested but released.

He signed up as unemployed, ate at soup kitchens, and led the Communists in Renault from outside as a secretary of the local party section.

He was placed in charge of the union paper l'Ile Seguin L'Ile du Diable, where he published a cartoon of Louis Renault that was a great success.

After the start of World War II in September 1939 the Communist Party was banned.

Dallidet went underground and played a leading role in organizing the clandestine structure of the party, which at this stage did not actively oppose the Germans in the "imperialist" war.

The French Communists changed to active resistance after the German invasion of Russia in June 1941.

Dallidet was placed in charge of security for the armed Resistance, the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans (FTP).

He was arrested in February 1942, and despite severe beatings gave nothing away.

He was executed by firing squad.

He was involved with the Committee of Unemployed of the 18th arrondissement, spoke at assemblies of the unemployed and joined in hunger marches during the Leipzig trial.

He began to submit articles to l'Humanité.