Louis Eugène Jakmin

Louis Eugène was legitimized by the marriage of his parents, Marie Joséphine Lebrun, seamstress, and Nicolas Louis Jackmin or Jacquemin (the two spellings coexist the civil status), marshal-ferrant, who lived in the Pré-Saint-Gervais.

Sentenced on November 26, 1894 in Paris to six months in prison for "coups et injuries", he lived in 1897 at the Pré-Saint-Gervais (64 rue de la Villette). He was to be the manager of the bulletin La Banlieue anarchiste, organ of the groups of Pantin and Pré-Saint-Gervais, whose publication was announced for August 15, 1898, but of which we do not know if it was published.

He served in military service from November 1897 to March 1901 and married Émilie Lepreux in 1903, shortly after the birth of their son Henri.

A Jacquemin was a POSR delegate of the Lilas at the congress of the Japy Hall in 1899 – is there a kinship?

Jacquemin was secretary of the CGT union of the marshals-ferrants of the Seine in 1909, and a speaker in the meetings of the CGT. He also sat on the federal committee of the Federation of the Marschalery where he represented the revolutionary tendency against the socialist Hardy, of more moderate tendency. On 6 October 1909, the Federation of the Marschalery became the National Union of Fieldworkers of France and the colonies, with Jacquemin as secretary. On 13 January 1910, the union launched the strike of the Marschalerie de la Seine for the nine-hour day and a raise in wages. Fifteen hundred workers took part, and Jacquemin appeared on the strike committee.

Jacquemin was one of the founders of the Paris Eastern Libertarian Group during a meeting held on May 15, 1910 at the Pré-Saint-Gervais.

He was delegated by 6 trade unions of marshals-ferrants to the confederal congress of Toulouse in October 1910. He also sat, under the Maréchaux-ferrants, on the CGT confederal committee – until the merger in 1912 of the Syndicat des maréchaux-ferrants in the Metal Federation – and joined the commission of strikes and the general strike from 1910 to 1912.

On 13 November 1910, delegated by the libertarian group of Eastern Paris, he was one of the founders of the Revolutionary Communist Federation (FRC), of which he was until 1914 one of the main animators. He participated in the regional congress of 4 June 1911 and boasted the sabotage of the trains to force the companies to reintegrate the revoked railway workers. From June to November 1911, he was manager of the Libertaire to replace Dudragne*. In January 1912, he was one of the four team leaders of the Bakunists, “action group” of the FRC (see Jean Fleur). In April-May 1912, he was a member of the Revolutionary Anti-Parliamentary Committee (see Henry Combes). That same month he was one of the founders of the Friends of the LibertaireLibertarian. Until the war, he spoke at many meetings of the anarchist organization. He sometimes signed his articles “Mainjacques.” It may also have used the “Jakmin” signature.

In May 1911, he participated in the Inter-Union Group for the Spread of the International Language (GIPLI), which professed the ido.

On 27 March 1912 he appeared before the sequences of the Seine as manager of the Libertaire, for a drawing by Claudot* published in the number of 30 September 1911. This earned him a sentence of one year in prison for “promosing military to disobedience.” He was imprisoned in Health in early May 1912. He probably benefited from early release due to an amnesty.

In November 1912, Jacquemin founded, with Édouard Boudot and Édouard Séné, the newspaper Le Réveil anarchist ouvrière, whose manager was Jean Labbat*, then Charles Bervilitas. The newspaper was published until December 1913. His seat was fixed at the address of Jacquemin himself, 23, rue du Garde-Chasse, at the Lilas. Eugène Jacquemin usually wrote under the pseudonym Eugène Maréchal.

From January to December 1913, he was a member of the Executive Board of the Union of Trade Unions of the Seine.

From April 1913, Jacquemin organized the distribution, with Sené and Jaklon, of a 36-page brochure printed in 2,000 copies and entitled In case of war. Nicknamed by the police “the Red Brochure”, it explained the practical means of sabotaging the mobilization and was sent to many anarchist and trade union groups. Some packages were discovered by the police in February-March 1914 in various cities in France.

On 13 May 1913 he was imprisoned for 48 hours for “carrying a weapon”. At the time, a police report (Arch. Nat. F7/13053, June 1913) described it “always dressed as a worker, but as a clean worker. He does not have the appearance of a worker exercising his manual trade (farrier-marshal).”

On 1 July 1913, following the wave of “mutinies” in the spring barracks, the Ministry of the Interior called 22 militants of the CGT, most of the federation of the Building. Among them, two members of the FCA: Jacquemin and Jean Labbat. Eugène Jacquemin was at that time a member of the executive board of the Union of the trade unions of the Seine and treasurer of the union of farriers.

In October 1913, the entire editorial staff of the Communist anarchist Awakening being locked up, it was the wife of Eugène, Émilie Jacquemin, who ensured the stewardship of the newspaper.

Finally, the justice system chooses to disseminate Labbat and Jacquemin from the other defendants, and to separately investigate their trial for an article in the Workers’ Anarchist Awakening inciting conscripts to a “military general strike” if they were not released after two years and not three. On 22 November 1913, the 8th Chamber of the Criminal Court sentenced them in default to 15 months in prison for Jacquemin, and 5 months for Labbat. Their lawyer, Pierre Laval, had failed to obtain that the trial be held assizes. Jacquemin's sentence was reduced to one year on opposition on January 29, 1914.

The newspaper reappeared for 3 issues from April 1 to May 1, 1914 under the title The Anarchist Awakening.

In 1914, Jacquemin was mobilized to the 45th Infantry Regiment, and sent to a disciplinary battalion in the southern Oranese. It was from there that in June 1915 he wrote to Léon Jouhaux that he approved the majority position of the CGT rallied to the sacred union.

After the war, he was in charge of reorganizing the CGT in Meurthe-et-Moselle. Delegate to the confederal congress of Lyon from 15 to 21 September 1919, he affirmed: “anarchist I was before the war, and anarchist I remained.” He regretted that the former revolutionary majority of the CGT was now divided, and vowed that it would reconcile and reconstitute itself “not to the right, but to the left, as we have always been.”

At the CGT Confederal Congress in Lille (July 1921), he declared that he did not belong to any tendency, but condemned the confederal policy and the possible exclusion of the CSR. He nevertheless asked for the CGT to be maintained in the Amsterdam international. The Humanity of July 26, 1921 called him a “revolutionary who comes to take his watchword among the reformists.” A few months later, during the split, he remained at the CGT.

He held several local trade union responsibilities at the time: treasurer of the Nancy building union (1921), treasurer of the UD (late 1921 to April 1926), secretary of the interdepartmental union of Meurthe-et-Moselle – Meuse – Vosges (1923), secretary of the UD of the Vosges (1924-1926). A police report of 30 July 1921 called him “a dangerous, anti-militarist, proponent of direct action, very intelligent, very active, speaker with a persuasive word.”

He was in Nancy at the origin of the foundation of many workers’ cooperatives including the Workers’ Printing of which he was the director and which, from January 1921, imprinted The Workers’ Awakening, organ of the UD of which he was the manager since 1919. In the issue of August 27, 1921, he concluded an article on unemployment: “Workers, do not accept unemployment! Take the factory, take the mine!” This earned him the sentence of two months in prison and 2,000 francs for “excitement to theft and looting” on 3 December. At the hearing, Jacquemin claimed his anarchism.

At the same time he intervened in support of many strikes: strike of the tanners in Annonay (September 1923), strike in Le Havre (October 1923), strike of the dockers in Dunkirk (June-October 1926). Opponent of any trade union split (see an article in The Proletarian Revolution, August 1925), he managed to maintain, at least initially, unity within the UD of Meurthe-et-Moselle.

Fallen ill, he reduced his activities from 1928 and moved to a farm in Dommartin-lès-Toul with his family. It was probably at this time that he joined the Socialist Party, since he was the delegate of Toul to the congress of the socialist federation of Meurthe-et-Moselle on May 25, 1930.