Child Labor and Protection

Despite economic progress, child labor remained widespread. In 1896, investigators found 140,000 children under thirteen working in French industry. Textile mills employed children as young as six to crawl under moving machinery, clearing cotton fibers. Glass factories used boys as "grand garçons," carrying molten glass in hellish conditions.

The 1892 law limiting child labor proved difficult to enforce. Factory inspectors—too few and often bribed—rarely prosecuted violations. Parents, needing children's wages for survival, resisted protective legislation. The Catholic Church opposed intervention in family wage decisions.

Louise Cruppi, wife of a radical politician, documented child labor through photography and testimony. Her book "L'Enfance Malheureuse" (Unhappy Childhood) shocked middle-class readers with images of exhausted children, deformed by repetitive labor. "We worry about colonial subjects abroad," she wrote, "while enslaving our own children at home."

The campaign against child labor united diverse reformers. Socialists saw exploited future proletarians. Feminists recognized how child labor trapped mothers in poverty. Republicans worried about unhealthy citizens for military service. Catholics eventually joined, seeing family preservation threatened by industrial demands.

Progress came slowly. The 1900 law reduced working hours for children and women, though enforcement remained weak. Compulsory education helped—children in school couldn't work factories. But agricultural labor, domestic service, and family businesses escaped regulation entirely.