Marilyne Poulain, or the years of defending migrant workers

We are at the beginning of 2020, in the old premises of the CGT of 19^e district of Paris. A hundred men crowded into a meeting room. They are Malians, Mauritanians, Senegalese… Deliverers, divers, ripeurs… All workers. All undocumented. Soon, they will come out of the shadows and will require their bosses to accompany their request for regularization before the Ministry of the Interior.

The woman sitting in the middle of them – the only one in this assembly – and whom they listen to almost religiously explain to them how to organize a picket line, is Marilyne Poulain. She is the CGT referent on migrant workers, member of the confederal management of the union. For the men who face her, she is “Marilyn” quite simply, the one whose phone number has been circulating for years in migrant homes, because she has made it possible to regularize such a relative, such a friend, such an acquaintance.

During her fourteen years of union involvement, she has followed thousands of files, according to the weekly and routine permanence for the undocumented workers of the CGT in Paris or according to more ferocious strike movements. , like, in recent years, that of hairdressers in the Château-d’Eau district, that of the Malian maneuvers of the site of the avenue de Breteuil, or that of the night cleaners of the Burger King restaurants. Emeline Zougbédé, sociologist and volunteer at the CGT undocumented immigrants’ office, considers that Marilyne Poulain “has embodied and installed the question of undocumented workers in the public debate at a time when the figure of the economic migrant is criticized”.

On July 13, at the age of 45, the trade unionist nevertheless resigned from all her mandates at the CGT (she remains a member of the union). The same day, on social networks, where she shares her political considerations, her literary favorites like the photos of her cat, she wrote about this ” difficult decision “motivated by his “exhaustion” but also his bitterness in the face of the internal divisions at his parent company, “paternalism” of some, to the difficulty of denouncing a “authoritarian and sexist climate” which prevails in places. His message earned him an SMS from the secretary general Philippe Martinez, worried about the image of the CGT. “If that’s all you remember, what can I say…”replied, annoyed, the interested party.

“Indispensable interlocutor”

During the farewell party organized on July 6 at the Paris Labor Exchange, a motley assembly came to greet the trade unionist, made up of senior officials in suits and ties, early activists – including the former number one of the CGT Bernard Thibault –, lawyers, journalists, director Romain Goupil, actress Brigitte Rouan and of course former undocumented workers.

You have 61.98% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.