Reading this short essay devoted to the Cannes Film Festival should lead us to look at this traditional “high mass” of world cinema in a different light. Held every May on the Croisette, the festival owes much of its early development to the involvement of the labour movement and, in particular, to the communist-aligned CGT trade union through its entertainment-industry branch. Tangui Perron, a historian specializing in trade unionism and militant cinema, reminds us that the French state was the third key actor in the festival’s emergence after the Second World War. For the state, “the Cannes Film Festival was in fact part of a broader policy combining the reconstruction of cinema with the social and cultural regeneration of France.”

The book is divided into seven chapters tracing the history of the festival from its aborted beginnings in 1939 to the present day. It concludes with an afterword by Sophie Binet, the current general secretary of the CGT.

The first chapter discusses the festival’s cancelled inaugural edition, which was due to take place on 1 September 1939. The outbreak of war put an end to the event, although, as the author notes, archival material survives because everything had already been prepared. Perron also recalls that the festival was created “in reaction to the fascist regime’s takeover of the Venice Film Festival in 1938, reinforced by Nazi intervention in the awarding of prizes.” This was far from incidental: it became one of the festival’s defining features from the outset, and it was supported by prominent antifascists such as the minister Jean Zay. Because of their proximity to Italy, Cannes and the Côte d’Azur also became a refuge for Italian antifascists, who, the historian notes, played “a crucial role in the establishment of communism in the Mediterranean southeast and in the history of trade unionism.” At the same time, they were closely monitored by Mussolini’s secret police, which was tasked with tracking down and eliminating antifascist activists.

Chapters two and three are structured around brief biographies of two figures who played an essential role in the festival’s early history. The first is Virgile Barel (1889–1979), a schoolteacher and leading figure in Nice’s communist movement; the second is Raymond Picaud (1882–1950), a doctor and mayor of Cannes. Their stories also highlight the links forged with the city’s hotel owners, who actively supported the festival, as well as the ambition, particularly associated with Barel, to “create a paradise for proletarians around Nice,” drawing on the first paid holidays introduced by the Popular Front in 1936.

The festival could hardly have survived without a suitable venue, and chapter four focuses on precisely this issue. Built in record time in a post-war France still marked by shortages and deprivation, the Palais des Festivals was inaugurated in 1947. These pages are especially valuable for showing the commitment of numerous CGT activists, many of whom worked voluntarily. Tangui Perron notes, for example, that “the enormous curtains for the projection hall were sewn in the premises of the local Communist Party office.”

Chapter five brings us into contact with filmmakers such as René Clément (1913–1996) and Jacques Becker (1906–1960), who defended both their own interests and those of French cinema against the influx of Hollywood productions. Alongside them, and alongside workers who were CGT members, actors also played an important role through the festival’s “Bureau V,” with the V standing for vedettes, or stars. This body “brought together film and theatre stars charged with acting as the prestigious standard-bearers of the organization.”

Attacks on the festival were hardly lacking in the context of the Cold War. The French Communist Party lost control of municipalities such as Marseille, while Cannes itself passed into Gaullist hands. Although the festival enjoyed support across political divisions, the same was not true of its Palais. Completed in 1949, the building was demolished in 1988. These developments are discussed in chapter six, where Tangui Perron notes with a certain bitterness that the building could have been saved by being listed as protected heritage, but the Socialist minister of the time, Jack Lang, showed no interest in doing so.

The seventh chapter examines the involvement of actors such as Simone Signoret (1921–1985), Jean Gabin (1904–1976), and Jean Marais (1913–1998) in this tense political context. Signoret and Marais, for example, were at the head of the demonstration of 4 January 1948 against the Blum–Byrnes Agreements. Signed in 1946 by representatives of the French government, Léon Blum (1872–1950) and Jean Monnet (1888–1979), together with US Secretary of State James F. Byrnes (1882–1972), the agreements provided for the cancellation of part of France’s wartime debt to the United States. At first sight, cinema may seem far removed from such issues. However, sections of the film industry and the CGT’s Federation of Entertainment Workers reacted strongly when they discovered an additional clause granting American films free access to the French market, to the detriment of domestic production. The agreement was consequently renegotiated so as to reduce the disadvantage imposed on French cinema. Soon afterwards, Parliament introduced a system of state support for French cinema that remains in force today.

The brief conclusion recalls the CGT’s sustained and long-term involvement in the festival. The union still holds a seat on the festival’s board of directors. Ultimately, Tangui Perron fully succeeds in his aim: to demonstrate the importance of the CGT and political activism in the history of French cinema through the commitments and actions of individual people. He also opens up a number of promising avenues for further research, including the contribution of women to the history of the Cannes Film Festival. This is one of the many strengths of an engaging and stimulating essay.