French Democratic Confederation of Labour
It is the second largest French trade union confederation by number of members (625,000)[2] and recently becoming first in voting results for representative bodies,[3] having traditionally been second.After the Liberation of France, a left-wing minority, grouped in the Reconstruction tendency, led an internal debate in favour of the “deconfessionalization” seeking to secularise the CFTC and achieve greater autonomy from political and religious circles with which the confederation's leadership had been associated.A minority of approximately 10% opposed the change and instead followed Joseph Sauty's [fr] into the immediately refounded "continuation French Confederation of Christian Workers".In the 1980s, after François Mitterrand's election and his choice to follow social democratic economic policies, the CFDT appeared to be a pro-governmental organization.It replaced Force ouvrière (FO) as the "main partner" of employers and right-wing governments, and the presidency of social security offices.