1914
SSF meeting 3-10 August 1914, Besançon (cancelled)

(Paris 31/10/1860-14/03/1934)

After obtaining a degree ("licence") at the “École libre des sciences politiques”, a doctorate in law at the University of Paris (1886) and working as a lawyer for over a decade, he quit the legal profession to join the “Musée Social”, where, in 1897, he was entrusted with the responsibility of curator of the library. During the war, aged 56, he volunteered for military service and served in the infantry, gaining promotion to the grade of captain. After the war, he became secretary of the legal section of the “Musée Social” and, from 1925, city councillor in Versailles. An important figure of the reform networks of the pre-war period, he was, in 1913, an administrator of the “Société d’économie sociale”, revealing his proximity to Leplaysian networks. A committed social Catholic, he is the producer of a substantial body of work, centred around the questions of professional organizations and corporatism. Amongst his major works, we can cite “Histoire des corporations de métiers depuis leurs origines jusqu’à leur suppression en 1791” (Paris, Guillaumin, 1897), “Le compagnonnage” (Paris, Colin, 1901), “Syndicalisme ouvrier et syndicalisme agricole” (Paris, Payot, 1920), and “L'Encyclique ‘Rerum novarum’ et l'organisation professionnelle en France” (Milano, Vita e Pensiero, 1931).

Interventions at the Semaines Sociales de France:

• 1904, Lyon: course on “Professional associations”
  conference on “Social duty today”
• 1905, Orléans: course on “Professional unions and their economic institutions”
• 1906, Dijon: general conference
• 1907, Amiens: course: “Revolutionary syndicalism and the CGT”
• 1908, Marseille: course: “The crisis of apprenticeship and the reform of professional apprenticeships”
• 1910, Rouen: course: “The new tariff regime and its social consequences”
• 1911, Saint-Étienne: course on “Justice in transactions”
• 1912, Limoges: course on “The organization of credit for small retailers and small firms”
• 1913, Versailles: course on “The general strike. Results from a Belgian experience”
• 1914, Besançon (cancelled): course on “Commercial property"
• 1919, Metz: “Professional organization and social Catholics”
• 1920, Caen: “The backlashes of war and afterwar on consumption and cost of living”
• 1921, Toulouse: “The current struggle against unemployment in France and abroad” 
  documentary session: “The National Association for the Legal Protection of Workers”

Sources:

• Catalogue BNF - Etienne Martin de Saint-Léon [FRA]
• Academie des sciences morales et politiques - Etienne Martin de Saint-Léon [FRA]
• École nationale des chartes - Etienne Martin de Saint-Léon [FRA]
• Christian Topalov (ed.), Laboratoires du nouveau siècle (Paris, EHESS, 1999), pp. 61-94.

(Roubaix 16/06/1869 - Lille 21/05/1944)

Important figure not just in the “Semaines Sociales” but also more widely in the French social Catholic milieu. He was born in Roubaix in 1869, in a bourgeois family of some standing. Immediately drawn to social questions, he considered becoming a priest, but then enrolled in the Catholic faculty of Law in Lille. In 1892 he became doctor of law and chose an academic career. He became “maître de conferences” in the Catholic institution where he had studied and in 1898 he was nominated to a full professorship. He established a section of social and political sciences in the Lille Catholic faculty and was its director from 1905 to 1932. Involved in many Catholic associations beyond the academic world – the “Association Catholique de la Jeunesse Française”, the “Ligue Sociale d’Acheteurs”, the Lille chapter of the “Union de la Paix Sociale” – he was part of the “Semaines Sociales” organization from the beginning in 1904. Though he had some incursions in political life – he was a local councilor in Roubaix from 1898 to 1907, and was an advocate for proportional representation, writing a book, “Le suffrage de demain” (Perrin, 1901), and establishing a publication, “Le proportionnaliste”, on the subject – he chose to do politics from the university and through associations focused on the social question. Before the war, together with the “Semaines Sociales”, he was warned by Rome of having crossed a limit – he redacted a letter of submission to Rome, while the “Semaines Sociales” publicly sworn their allegiance to the social teachings of the Church. He fought in the Great War at Verdun and, in 1919, at the death of Henri Lorin, he was made president of the “Semaines Sociales”. During the interwar period he multiplied his social Catholic initiatives, becoming the president of the “Union intérnationale des études sociaux” in 1921 but continuing his activity with the “Semaines Sociales”. In the 1940s, he condemned the French resistance and was loyal to Petain’s regime, proposing a constitution and publishing “Rénovation française: l’apport des Semaines sociales” (Flammarion, 1942). The book, prefaced by Joseph Vialatoux, enrolled the institution in the support of Vichy France. He died in 1944.

Interventions in the Semaines Sociales:

• 1905, Orléans: course on “The legal protection of workers”
• 1906, Dijon: course on “Women’s work”
• 1907, Amiens: course on “The work contract”
• 1908, Marseille: course on “Unemployment”
• 1909, Bordeaux: course on “Facts and trade union legislation”
  course on “The enlargement of the field of activity of unions through collective bargaining” 
  course on “The role of unions in the preparation and application of laws relative to professional interests”
• 1910, Rouen: course on “Usurious injustice in the face of modern law”
  course on “Trade unions and associations”
• 1911, Saint-Étienne: course “The preponderant role of capital in the contemporary regime of production”
• 1912, Limoges: course on “Which social orientations emerge from traditional doctrines against usury”
• 1913, Versailles: course on “The idea of responsibility in public law”
• 1914, Besançon (cancelled): Course on “Legislative work and its methods”
• 1919, Metz: opening speech “The Semaines Sociales de France: what they have been in the past, what they want to be in the future”
  closing remarks
• 1920, Caen: opening lecture “Contemporary problems in production from the perspective of Christian sociology”
• 1921, Toulouse: opening lecture “The crisis of public probity and economic disorder”

Sources:

• Wikipedia - Eugène Duthoit [FRA]
• Maitron - Eugène Duthoit [FRA]