Today Sardines Are Not for Sale: A Street Protest in Occupied Paris

On 31 May 1942, Madeleine Marzin, an elementary school teacher and French Communist Party activist, launched a ‘women’s demonstration’ with the words, ‘Housewives, serve yourselves!’ Storming a grocery store located on the corner of the rue de Buci and the rue de Seine in Paris’ Sixth Arrondissement, the demonstrators hoped to send a message to ordinary women, encouraging them to take direct action in order to feed their families. While staged as a propaganda event by the Communist Resistance, the demonstration had fatal and wide-reaching consequences. Several women were trapped inside the store as they threw cans of sardines to shoppers queued outside and a skirmish between the male paramilitary security team and the police resulted in the death of two officers. The subsequent investigations led to the arrest of more than forty people, many of whom were tried before French and German courts. Verdicts led to imprisonment or deportation and eight (all men) were put to death for their participation in this political crime against the state. Paula Schwartz argues that what could have been easily overlooked as simply a single food protest turns out to be ‘hugely important’ for exploring the war years in France.