A Study On Living Condition Of French Working Class In The Early Third Republic

In the early Third Republic, French working class were changing into modern workers. It was an important times that the workers' united identity developed. We can't understand the whole French history in this period without understanding the working class' living conditions. In this dissertation, I will try to analyze this issue in order to comprehend the French history deeply. By analyzing workers' daily life and working life in this period, I think the French workers' living conditions - including food, clothing, accommodation and entertainments - had improved greatly. But compared with the middle class and the upper class, the working class were in a relatively poor condition. Workers made some progress in their working life, which included wages, work hours and working conditions, but the working class were still in an unsafe condition. With the improvement of life and relatively tolerant policy of the state, working class preferred adopting the peaceful way in their struggles -including striking, demonstrating and organizing labor union - to combating on the streets. So in this period, there were not many armed struggles, and the working class were indifferent to the politics as a whole. The self-identity of workers was forming. Finally, by analyzing workers' religious life in this period, I think workers' piety to religion had been falling with the progress of science and the richness of the material life.