ABSTRACT
The Hunger March of 1933 recast the fortunes of unemployed protest. The year that followed brought a new militancy, not only of the unemployed but also in campaigns against fascism. The examples of the Calais riot and the Lille to Paris hunger march stirred the unemployed in the mining and metal-working region that surrounds Saint-Etienne. Unsurprisingly, the mood of Calais infected the neighbouring region of the Nord whose unemployed had also participated in the hunger march of November–December 1933. The fortunes of the unemployed movement in the Nord were only to turn with the onset of winter and the organization of a regional hunger march. In 1934 in the Nord and Pas-de-Calais, the French unemployed movement found its highest range, its pinnacle of achievement. If the hunger march is most typically remembered, this should not obscure the rich variety of forms of protest during the most intense phase of unemployed activity.
