FRENCH DEMOCRATIC CONFEDERATION OF LABOUR

French Confdration Franaise Dmocratique du Travail (CFDT) , French trade-union federation that was formed in 1964 from the French Confederation of Christian Workers (Confdration Franaise des Travailleurs Chrtiens, or CFTC). The latter organization had been founded on social Catholic principles in 1919 and had maintained close ties to the Roman Catholic church. By the 1950s, however, a reforming minority within the CFTC wanted to break all confessional ties and reshape the federation on a social democratic basis. Theirs became the dominant viewpoint, and in 1964 a special congress voted to secularize the federation and rename it the French Democratic Confederation of Labour, the French acronym of which is CFDT. (A minority who wanted to keep a Christian orientation formed their own federation under the old name of French Confederation of Christian Workers.) From 1968 to 1977 the CFDT pursued radical policies, but it afterward readopted a moderate position. In 1989 it joined the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. The CFDT's membership has declined somewhat since the mid-1970s, but it remains the second or third largest federation of labour unions in France. Most of its members work in service industries of the private sector.