Alexandre Martin

France state institutions Early socialism 1815–1895 ○ Natural causes

Machinist known as "Albert the Worker", the first industrial worker to sit in a French government

Born to a peasant family in the Oise in 1815, he worked as a machinist in Paris. He took part in the July Revolution of 1830, belonged to several secret societies in the 1830s and 1840s, became leader of the Nouvelles Saisons in 1839 and the next year editor of L'Atelier. After fighting on the barricades in February 1848 he became the only worker in the Provisional Government and vice-president of the Luxembourg Commission under Louis Blanc. Elected to the Constituent Assembly in April, he was captured with Barbès at the Hôtel de Ville on 15 May. Convicted by the High Court at Bourges in 1849, he was held at Belle-Île and elsewhere until the general amnesty of 1859, and afterwards worked for the gas company.

Also known as: Albert l'Ouvrier · Albert the Worker