Pierre Juquin

Pierre Juquin (born 22 February 1930 in Clermont-Ferrand) is a French communist politician and trade unionist. The son of an SNCF employee, he is a graduate of the École Normale Supérieure (ENS), and was a teacher of German at the Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux between 1959 and 1966. A classmate of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie (at ENS), Juquin joined the French Communist Party (PCF), and was a candidate in the municipal elections of 1959 as well as a regional leader for the PCF in Seine. A collaborator of Georges Marchais, he was admitted as observer to the PCF Central Committee, and defended the official party line inside the Union des Étudiants Communistes. He was also a prominent member of the Syndicat National des Enseignants du Second Degré (SNEF, a teachers' union, in which he helped the communists gain a decisive say). He was elected to the French National Assembly for Essonne and, in 1967, became a full member of the PCF Central Committee. Voted out of the Essonne seat in 1968, he regained the position in 1973 - and was re-elected until 1981; an observer to the Politburo in 1979, he joined the body in 1982, and was assigned leadership of the press and propaganda bureau. He was exclu...