Bernadette Cattanéo

Bernadette Cattanéo ( Le Loarer; 25 February 1899 – 22 September 1963) was a French trade unionist and communist activist, as well as a newspaper editor and magazine co-founder. She is remembered as the secretary general of the World Committee Against War and Fascism. Her parents were Jean Marie Le Loarer, a railwayman, and Marie Ollivier, an illiterate peasant. Her family was Breton-speaking and Catholic, but it was a teacher who awakened Cattaneo to socialist ideas. She trained as a seamstress before going to Paris in 1919 to do several odd jobs. There, she met Jean-Baptiste Cattanéo, who, like her, was a pharmacy employee. They married on 10 October 1922 and had two children.

Career Bernadette Cattanéo, Luce Langevin, Wanda Landy, Margarita Nelken, and Maria Rabaté (l-r) celebrating the victory of the Popular Front in Spain in 1936, under the auspices of the Women's Committee. At the end of 1923, Cattanéo joined the French Communist Party, with an interest in issues affecting women. During this time, she was on the editorial board of L'Ouvrière.

Cattanéo was also active internationally since she took part in the fourth congress of Profintern on 5 April 1928 in the USSR, where she met Joseph Stalin. and associated with Gabrielle Duchêne and Maria Rabaté, herself a communist leader. The magazine (Women in Global Action) was created in this connection and was managed by these three women.

When World War II broke out, she opposed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, left the PCF and in late 1941 moved to Moissac in France's Zone libre, She returned to Paris in June 1944 and discontinued all her political activities.