ABSTRACT
Early radical movements fused with the young unions and politics and unionism were seen as twin interlocking strands. France produced the Blanquists and the followers of Proudhon, who mingled with the Marxists to produce the explosion of the Paris Commune of 1871. The French trade union movement has a fluctuating membership and a weak financial base. French employers have been historically and culturally more hostile to the idea of unionism than the British employers have been. This has been partly due to the large number of family firms in France and to the paternalistic attitude of many employers. The politics and trade unions of Italy have some similarity to the situation in France. They have both strongly divided feelings about politics, feudalism and aristocracy, and deep divisions have stemmed from these attitudes and institutions. The absence of a large industrial work force has affected the political groupings in Ireland.
