History can sometimes reemerge from the attic, not through some astonishing discovery or secret document, but because long-forgotten boxes are finally opened, sorted and studied. So, for almost 80 years, despite a few local studies, little was known about the Estates General of French Renewal, a huge public consultation exercise organised in 1945 by the National Council of the Resistance (CNR). Until recently, there was no overall synthesis that conveyed its scale or inventiveness.

In 2011 the archives of CNR president Louis Saillant (1910-74) were given to the Centre for the Social History of the Twentieth Century in Paris. These consist of 27 linear metres of documents contained in 202 boxes, around 40 of which are about the Estates General. And now, the work of two researchers has brought their long-buried story to light.

The idea of organising Estates General – a conscious echo of 1789 – occurred to the Resistance as early as September 1944, less than three weeks after the liberation of Paris, while parts of the country were still under occupation. The CNR’s objectives were threefold: to publicise the programme it had adopted secretly in March 1944; to broaden its popular base by giving citizens the chance to draft cahiers de doléances (lists of grievances); and to influence the provisional government in order to secure implementation of the reforms promised at the time of Liberation.

The French Communist Party (PCF) and the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) backed the initiative, while the Radical Party, the French Section of the Workers’ International (SFIO) and the Popular Republican Movement (MRP) were more cautious. General de Gaulle was openly hostile, fearing that such a consultation would restrict the government’s freedom of action by seeking to impose policies that could be presented as the will of the people.

The Estates General, officially announced in December 1944, culminated in a national assembly at the (…)

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