André Lajoinie, figure of the French Communist Party, died at the age of 94, announced Fabien Roussel, the current National Secretary of the party, this Tuesday, November 26, 2024. He had collected 6.76% of the votes cast at the presidential election of 1988.
“I extend my most fraternal condolences to his family, his loved ones, to those who shared his struggles for the working classes, for his territory, for France,” underlined Fabien Roussel on the social network
A figure of the “red” peasantry
Born on December 26, 1929, André Lajoinie, son of Corrèze peasants, embodied for more than half a century the man of the apparatus devoted to his party. Figure of the “red” peasantry, André Lajoinie was director of the weekly Earth. He also published two works on agriculture.
Child of a poor farming family, forced to abandon school after his school certificate to help in the fields, André Lajoinie defended “A predominantly family-based agriculture, with structures on a human scale”.
“The son of farmers, he had a love of people deep in his heart. Member of Parliament, leader of the PCF, André was a fierce defender of the working class,” wrote party spokesperson Ian Brossat on X.
A commitment after the war
André Lajoinie joined the Jeunesses Communistes (JC) in the aftermath of the war, in 1946. A pure and hardline activist, seriously injured in 1958 during a demonstration against the Algerian war, he followed a very classic path: central party school (1964), Moscow cadre school (1967), entry into the Central Committee in 1972 and the Political Bureau in 1976.
A deputy for nearly 20 years in Allier, André Lajoinie was president of the communist group in the National Assembly from 1980 to 1993 and was appointed president of the production and exchange committee in 1997. He was also a regional advisor d'Auvergne from 1978 to 1988 and from 1992 to 1998.
