Georges René Louis Marchais (7 June 1920 – 16 November 1997) was the head of the French Communist Party (PCF) from 1972 to 1994, and a candidate in the French presidential elections of 1981. Born into a Roman Catholic family, he became a mechanic, just before the beginning of World War II, with the Société Nationale d'Étude et de Construction de Moteurs d'Aviation. After the fall of France, he went to Nazi Germany to work in the Messerschmitt aircraft manufacturing plant. He returned to France in May 1943 with forged documents. In 1946, he became secretary of the metalworkers' trade union in Issy-les-Moulineaux, and advanced in the Confédération générale du travail in his commune from 1951, becoming secretary of the Seine Metallurgical Workers' Union Federation from 1953 to 1956.
