French bookbinder and activist in the Women's Union of the Paris Commune
Born in Brest in Brittany, Le Mel worked as a bookbinder in Paris and joined the workers' movement. In 1865 she helped win equal pay for women and men in bookbinding, joined the International Workingmen's Association, and ran the cooperative restaurant La Marmite with Eugène Varlin. During the 1871 Paris Commune she was a leading activist in the Women's Union and fought on the barricades. Arrested after the Commune's defeat, she was deported to New Caledonia with Louise Michel and returned to Paris under the 1880 amnesty.
Activities and affiliations
- Social movements and organizing · International Workingmen's Association (First International)
Career Timeline
- 1865Helped win equal pay for women and men in bookbinding; joined the International Workingmen's Association.
- 1860년대–1871Ran the cooperative restaurant La Marmite with Eugène Varlin.
- 1871Worked in the Women's Union of the Paris Commune and fought on the barricades.
- 1871–1880Arrested and deported to New Caledonia; returned to Paris under the 1880 amnesty.
Related historical events
The Women’s Union and Workers’ Organization
Le Mel was one of the principal organizers, alongside Élisabeth Dmitrieff, of the Women’s Union for the Defense of Paris and Care of the Wounded, founded on 13 April 1871. Her name appeared on the appeal to women workers issued on 6 May in the name of the Union’s Central Committee executive commission. According to the pre-trial interrogations, she was responsible for social questions within the Union. The Journal officiel of 17 May recorded her as a member of the executive commission for an inquiry into and organization of labor, which sought to bring Paris’s workers’ trades together. Her work during the Commune thus involved not only women’s mobilization for defense but also workers’ social demands and trade organization.\n\nDuring the “Bloody Week,” as government troops entered Paris, Le Mel cared for the wounded first at Batignolles and then at Place Pigalle, while urging the National Guardsmen to resist. On 10 September 1872, the Fourth Court-Martial sentenced her to deportation to a fortified enclosure. Friends submitted a plea for clemency on her behalf, but in an August 1873 letter Le Mel stated that she had not petitioned and disavowed any appeal made without her knowledge. On 10 August 1873 she sailed for New Caledonia with Louise Michel and other women; she was pardoned and returned to France in 1879.